Items related to A Place in the Country: On Gottfried Keller, Johann...
A Place in the Country: On Gottfried Keller, Johann Peter Hebel, Robert Walser, and Others - Hardcover
"A Place in the Country" is W. G. Sebald s meditation on the six artists and writers who shaped his creative mind and the last of this great writer s major works to be translated into English.
"This beautiful hardcover edition, with a full-cloth case, includes more than 40 pieces of art and 6 full-color gatefolds, all originally selected and laid out by W. G. Sebald."
This extraordinary collection of interlinked essays about place, memory, and creativity captures the inner worlds of five authors and one painter. In his masterly and mysterious style part critical essay, part memoir Sebald weaves their lives and art with his own migrations and rise in the literary world.
Here are people gifted with talent and courage yet in some cases cursed by fragile and unstable natures, working in countries inhospitable or even hostile to them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is conjured on the verge of physical and mental exhaustion, hiding from his detractors on the island of St. Pierre, where two centuries later Sebald took rooms adjacent to his. Eighteenth-century author Johann Peter Hebel is remembered for his exquisite and delicate nature writing, expressing the eternal balance of both the outside world and human emotions. Writer Gottfried Keller, best known for his 1850 novel "Green Henry, " is praised for his prescient insights into a Germany where the gap between self-interest and the common good was growing ever wider.
Sebald compassionately re-creates the ordeals of Eduard Morike, the nineteenth-century German poet beset by mood swings, depression, and fainting spells in an increasingly shallow society, and Robert Walser, the institutionalized author whose nearly indecipherable scrawls seemed an attempt to duck down below the level of language and obliterate himself (and whose physical appearance and year of death mirrored those of Sebald s grandfather). Finally, Sebald spies a cognizance of death s inevitability in painter Jan Peter Tripp s lovingly exact reproductions of life.
Featuring the same kinds of suggestive and unexplained illustrations that appear in his masterworks "Austerlitz" and "The Rings of Saturn, "and translated by Sebald s colleague Jo Catling, "A Place in the Country" is Sebald s unforgettable self-portrait as seen through the experiences of others, a glimpse of his own ghosts alongside those of the men who influenced him. It is an essential addition to his stunning body of work.
Praise for "APlace in the Country"
Measured, solemn, sardonic . . . hypnotic . . . [W. G. Sebald s] books, which he made out of classics, remain classics for now. Joshua Cohen, "The New York Times Book Review"
In Sebald s writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny an art that was, in the end, Sebald s strange and inscrutable gift. "Slate"
Magnificent . . . The multiple layers surrounding each essay are seamless to the point of imperceptibility. New York "Daily News"
Sebald s most tender and jovial book. " The Nation"
Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars. "New York""
"This beautiful hardcover edition, with a full-cloth case, includes more than 40 pieces of art and 6 full-color gatefolds, all originally selected and laid out by W. G. Sebald."
This extraordinary collection of interlinked essays about place, memory, and creativity captures the inner worlds of five authors and one painter. In his masterly and mysterious style part critical essay, part memoir Sebald weaves their lives and art with his own migrations and rise in the literary world.
Here are people gifted with talent and courage yet in some cases cursed by fragile and unstable natures, working in countries inhospitable or even hostile to them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is conjured on the verge of physical and mental exhaustion, hiding from his detractors on the island of St. Pierre, where two centuries later Sebald took rooms adjacent to his. Eighteenth-century author Johann Peter Hebel is remembered for his exquisite and delicate nature writing, expressing the eternal balance of both the outside world and human emotions. Writer Gottfried Keller, best known for his 1850 novel "Green Henry, " is praised for his prescient insights into a Germany where the gap between self-interest and the common good was growing ever wider.
Sebald compassionately re-creates the ordeals of Eduard Morike, the nineteenth-century German poet beset by mood swings, depression, and fainting spells in an increasingly shallow society, and Robert Walser, the institutionalized author whose nearly indecipherable scrawls seemed an attempt to duck down below the level of language and obliterate himself (and whose physical appearance and year of death mirrored those of Sebald s grandfather). Finally, Sebald spies a cognizance of death s inevitability in painter Jan Peter Tripp s lovingly exact reproductions of life.
Featuring the same kinds of suggestive and unexplained illustrations that appear in his masterworks "Austerlitz" and "The Rings of Saturn, "and translated by Sebald s colleague Jo Catling, "A Place in the Country" is Sebald s unforgettable self-portrait as seen through the experiences of others, a glimpse of his own ghosts alongside those of the men who influenced him. It is an essential addition to his stunning body of work.
Praise for "APlace in the Country"
Measured, solemn, sardonic . . . hypnotic . . . [W. G. Sebald s] books, which he made out of classics, remain classics for now. Joshua Cohen, "The New York Times Book Review"
In Sebald s writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny an art that was, in the end, Sebald s strange and inscrutable gift. "Slate"
Magnificent . . . The multiple layers surrounding each essay are seamless to the point of imperceptibility. New York "Daily News"
Sebald s most tender and jovial book. " The Nation"
Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars. "New York""
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"When W.G. Sebald's "The Emigrants "was published (beautifully translated into English) I found his writing spellbinding from the first sentence, and the spell went on, unbroken, as I read each of his books when it was published in English. When I learned that another book of his, written at the height of his powers, between "The Rings of Saturn" and "Austerlitz" was being published in English, and the letter was accompanied by page proofs of the book, it was startling and happy news. The book's six essays circle around the theme of the human imagination and the haunting mystery of human language as it is manifested in individual writers. Each of the writers Sebald evokes here had a long influence on his own writing, though there are no evident similarities between his writings and what he tells us of theirs. His first, and best known ancestral figure here is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in Rousseau's later years, when most of his writings were behind him, and he was being persecuted for them in his own country, Switzerland, and in France. Sebald's account of Rousseau's brief moment of peace on the Ile Saint-Pierre in a lake in southern Switzerland draws us into the spell of his own writing. Its publication in English is something to celebrate."
--W.S. Merwin, 2010-2011 US Poet Laureate and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Praise for "A Place in the Country"
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
Acclaim for W. G. Sebald
"Is literary greatness still possible? What would a noble literary enterprise look like? One of the few answers available to English-speaking readers is the work of W. G. Sebald."--Susan Sontag
"Sebald stands with Primo Levi as the prime speaker of the Holocaust and, with him, the prime contradiction of Adorno's dictum that after it, there can be no art."--Richard Eder, "The New York Times Book Review"
"The secret of Sebald's appeal is that he saw himself in what now seems almost an old-fashioned way as a voice of conscience, someone who remembers injustice, who speaks for those who can no longer speak."--Charles Simic, "The New York Review of Books"
""A Place in the Country"'s publication in English is something to celebrate."--W. S. Merwin
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
"Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944-2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald's subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: 'Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world.' One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory."--"Booklist"
"A beautiful book.""--The Spectator"
"An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of trying to find patterns in the chaos of the world.""--The Telegraph"
"A fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe's most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations.""--Evening Standard"
"This illuminating collection shows a writer at his most inquisitive, gazing deeply under the surface of things and grappling with the difficulties of personal and collective memory.""--Financial Times"
"["A Place in the Country "is] illuminating for its insight into the author's work and its obsessions, themes, and observations on
"In Sebald's writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny--an art that was, in the end, Sebald's strange and inscrutable gift."--"Slate"
"Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars."--"New York"
""A Place in the Country"'s publication in English is something to celebrate."--W. S. Merwin
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
"Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944-2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald's subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: 'Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world.' One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory."--"Booklist"
"A beautiful book.""--The Spectator"
"An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of tryi
"Measured, solemn, sardonic . . . hypnotic . . . [W. G. Sebald's] books, which he made out of classics, remain classics for now."--Joshua Cohen, "The New York Times Book Review"
"In Sebald's writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny--an art that was, in the end, Sebald's strange and inscrutable gift."--"Slate"
"Magnificent . . . The multiple layers surrounding each essay are seamless to the point of imperceptibility."--New York "Daily News"
"Sebald's most tender and jovial book.""--The Nation"
"Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars."--"New York
""The publication in English of "A Place in the Country" brings us closer to Sebald's oft elusive inner-evolution. . . . It is a pleasure to read again in 2014, so lucid and temperate a voice as the late author's on ideas and elements of humanity so familiar--and thus so difficult to describe freshly--as dislocation, literary memory, and the unpaid dividends thereof.""--The Brooklyn Rail"
""A Place in the Country"'s publication in English is something to celebrate."--W. S. Merwin
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
"Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944-2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald's subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: 'Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world.' One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory."--"Booklist"
"A beautiful book.""--The Spectator"
"An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of trying to find patterns in the chaos of the world.""--The Telegraph"
"A fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe's most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations.""--Evening Standard"
"This illuminating collection shows a writer at his most inquisitive, gazing deeply under the surface of things and grappling with the difficulties of personal and collective memory.""--Financial Times"
"["A Place in the Country "is] illuminating for its insight into the author's work and its obsessions, themes, and observations on home and exile. . . . Contemplating the work of others, Sebald writes from a writer's rather than a reader's perspective, of one who shares the affliction. . . . This last word from the novelist provides a nice footnote on his own writing."--"Kirkus Reviews"
"Sebald's subtle dissection . . . illuminates the writer's trade . . . by one of its more elusive practitioners. . . . These essays are well worth reading."--"Library Journal"
"Catling's translation will be welcomed by his fans. Catling taught with Sebald in the last decade of his life, and her flowing translation pays crucial attention to the prosody and contours of Sebald's sentences."--"Publishers Weekly"
Measured, solemn, sardonic . . . hypnotic . . . [W. G. Sebald s] books, which he made out of classics, remain classics for now. Joshua Cohen, "The New York Times Book Review"
In Sebald s writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny an art that was, in the end, Sebald s strange and inscrutable gift. "Slate"
Magnificent . . . The multiple layers surrounding each essay are seamless to the point of imperceptibility. New York "Daily News"
Sebald s most tender and jovial book. " The Nation"
Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars. "New York
" The publication in English of "A Place in the Country" brings us closer to Sebald s oft elusive inner-evolution. . . . It is a pleasure to read again in 2014, so lucid and temperate a voice as the late author s on ideas and elements of humanity so familiar and thus so difficult to describe freshly as dislocation, literary memory, and the unpaid dividends thereof. " The Brooklyn Rail"
"A Place in the Country" s publication in English is something to celebrate. W. S. Merwin
Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I ve read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company. Nicole Krauss
Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944 2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald s subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world. One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory. "Booklist"
A beautiful book. " The Spectator"
An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of trying to find patterns in the chaos of the world. " The Telegraph"
A fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe s most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations. " Evening Standard"
This illuminating collection shows a writer at his most inquisitive, gazing deeply under the surface of things and grappling with the difficulties of personal and collective memory. " Financial Times"
["A Place in the Country "is] illuminating for its insight into the author s work and its obsessions, themes, and observations on home and exile. . . . Contemplating the work of others, Sebald writes from a writer s rather than a reader s perspective, of one who shares the affliction. . . . This last word from the novelist provides a nice footnote on his own writing. "Kirkus Reviews"
Sebald s subtle dissection . . . illuminates the writer s trade . . . by one of its more elusive practitioners. . . . These essays are well worth reading. "Library Journal"
Catling s translation will be welcomed by his fans. Catling taught with Sebald in the last decade of his life, and her flowing translation pays crucial attention to the prosody and contours of Sebald s sentences. "Publishers Weekly""
About the Author:
--W.S. Merwin, 2010-2011 US Poet Laureate and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Praise for "A Place in the Country"
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
Acclaim for W. G. Sebald
"Is literary greatness still possible? What would a noble literary enterprise look like? One of the few answers available to English-speaking readers is the work of W. G. Sebald."--Susan Sontag
"Sebald stands with Primo Levi as the prime speaker of the Holocaust and, with him, the prime contradiction of Adorno's dictum that after it, there can be no art."--Richard Eder, "The New York Times Book Review"
"The secret of Sebald's appeal is that he saw himself in what now seems almost an old-fashioned way as a voice of conscience, someone who remembers injustice, who speaks for those who can no longer speak."--Charles Simic, "The New York Review of Books"
""A Place in the Country"'s publication in English is something to celebrate."--W. S. Merwin
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
"Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944-2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald's subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: 'Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world.' One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory."--"Booklist"
"A beautiful book.""--The Spectator"
"An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of trying to find patterns in the chaos of the world.""--The Telegraph"
"A fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe's most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations.""--Evening Standard"
"This illuminating collection shows a writer at his most inquisitive, gazing deeply under the surface of things and grappling with the difficulties of personal and collective memory.""--Financial Times"
"["A Place in the Country "is] illuminating for its insight into the author's work and its obsessions, themes, and observations on
"In Sebald's writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny--an art that was, in the end, Sebald's strange and inscrutable gift."--"Slate"
"Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars."--"New York"
""A Place in the Country"'s publication in English is something to celebrate."--W. S. Merwin
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
"Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944-2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald's subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: 'Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world.' One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory."--"Booklist"
"A beautiful book.""--The Spectator"
"An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of tryi
"Measured, solemn, sardonic . . . hypnotic . . . [W. G. Sebald's] books, which he made out of classics, remain classics for now."--Joshua Cohen, "The New York Times Book Review"
"In Sebald's writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny--an art that was, in the end, Sebald's strange and inscrutable gift."--"Slate"
"Magnificent . . . The multiple layers surrounding each essay are seamless to the point of imperceptibility."--New York "Daily News"
"Sebald's most tender and jovial book.""--The Nation"
"Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars."--"New York
""The publication in English of "A Place in the Country" brings us closer to Sebald's oft elusive inner-evolution. . . . It is a pleasure to read again in 2014, so lucid and temperate a voice as the late author's on ideas and elements of humanity so familiar--and thus so difficult to describe freshly--as dislocation, literary memory, and the unpaid dividends thereof.""--The Brooklyn Rail"
""A Place in the Country"'s publication in English is something to celebrate."--W. S. Merwin
"Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I've read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company."--Nicole Krauss
"Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944-2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald's subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: 'Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world.' One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory."--"Booklist"
"A beautiful book.""--The Spectator"
"An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of trying to find patterns in the chaos of the world.""--The Telegraph"
"A fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe's most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations.""--Evening Standard"
"This illuminating collection shows a writer at his most inquisitive, gazing deeply under the surface of things and grappling with the difficulties of personal and collective memory.""--Financial Times"
"["A Place in the Country "is] illuminating for its insight into the author's work and its obsessions, themes, and observations on home and exile. . . . Contemplating the work of others, Sebald writes from a writer's rather than a reader's perspective, of one who shares the affliction. . . . This last word from the novelist provides a nice footnote on his own writing."--"Kirkus Reviews"
"Sebald's subtle dissection . . . illuminates the writer's trade . . . by one of its more elusive practitioners. . . . These essays are well worth reading."--"Library Journal"
"Catling's translation will be welcomed by his fans. Catling taught with Sebald in the last decade of his life, and her flowing translation pays crucial attention to the prosody and contours of Sebald's sentences."--"Publishers Weekly"
Measured, solemn, sardonic . . . hypnotic . . . [W. G. Sebald s] books, which he made out of classics, remain classics for now. Joshua Cohen, "The New York Times Book Review"
In Sebald s writing, everything is connected, everything webbed together by the unseen threads of history, or chance, or fate, or death. The scholarly craft of gathering scattered sources and weaving them into a coherent whole is transformed here into something beautiful and unsettling, elevated into an art of the uncanny an art that was, in the end, Sebald s strange and inscrutable gift. "Slate"
Magnificent . . . The multiple layers surrounding each essay are seamless to the point of imperceptibility. New York "Daily News"
Sebald s most tender and jovial book. " The Nation"
Reading ["A Place in the Country "is] like going for a walk with a beautifully talented, deeply passionate novelist from Mars. "New York
" The publication in English of "A Place in the Country" brings us closer to Sebald s oft elusive inner-evolution. . . . It is a pleasure to read again in 2014, so lucid and temperate a voice as the late author s on ideas and elements of humanity so familiar and thus so difficult to describe freshly as dislocation, literary memory, and the unpaid dividends thereof. " The Brooklyn Rail"
"A Place in the Country" s publication in English is something to celebrate. W. S. Merwin
Out of exquisitely attuned feeling for the past, Sebald fashioned an entirely new form of literature. I ve read his books countless times trying to understand how he did it. In the end, I can only say that he practiced a kind of magic born out of almost supernatural sensitivity. "A Place in the Country" extends the too-short time we were given in his company. Nicole Krauss
Few writers have traveled as quickly from obscurity to the sort of renown that yields an adjective as quickly as German writer W. G. Sebald (1944 2001), and now "Sebaldian" is as evocative as "Kafkaesque." Sebald is that rare being: an inimitable stylist who creates extraordinary sentences that, like crystals, simultaneously refract and magnify meaning. This posthumous collection, a boon to Sebald admirers, is a series of tributes to writers and artists Sebald admires and feels affinity with. . . . All of Sebald s subjects had uneasy relations with their times and with themselves: Exile, as [Gottfried] Keller describes it, is a form of purgatory located just outside the world. One does not have to leave home to feel bereft, and Sebald is the great contemporary master of this liminal territory. "Booklist"
A beautiful book. " The Spectator"
An intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of trying to find patterns in the chaos of the world. " The Telegraph"
A fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe s most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations. " Evening Standard"
This illuminating collection shows a writer at his most inquisitive, gazing deeply under the surface of things and grappling with the difficulties of personal and collective memory. " Financial Times"
["A Place in the Country "is] illuminating for its insight into the author s work and its obsessions, themes, and observations on home and exile. . . . Contemplating the work of others, Sebald writes from a writer s rather than a reader s perspective, of one who shares the affliction. . . . This last word from the novelist provides a nice footnote on his own writing. "Kirkus Reviews"
Sebald s subtle dissection . . . illuminates the writer s trade . . . by one of its more elusive practitioners. . . . These essays are well worth reading. "Library Journal"
Catling s translation will be welcomed by his fans. Catling taught with Sebald in the last decade of his life, and her flowing translation pays crucial attention to the prosody and contours of Sebald s sentences. "Publishers Weekly""
W. G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgau, Germany, in 1944. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland, and Manchester. He taught at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, for thirty years, becoming professor of European literature in 1987, and from 1989 to 1994 was the first director of the British Centre for Literary Translation. His books "The Rings of Saturn, The Emigrants, Vertigo, "and "Austerlitz" have won a number of international awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the "Los Angeles Times" Book Award, the Berlin Literature Prize, and the LiteraTour Nord Prize. He died in December 2001.
Translator Jo Catling joined the University of East Anglia as Lecturer in German Literature and Language in 1993, teaching German and European literature alongside W. G. Sebald. She has published widely on both Sebald and Rainer Maria Rilke."
Translator Jo Catling joined the University of East Anglia as Lecturer in German Literature and Language in 1993, teaching German and European literature alongside W. G. Sebald. She has published widely on both Sebald and Rainer Maria Rilke."
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- PublisherRandom House Inc
- Publication date2014
- ISBN 10 1400067715
- ISBN 13 9781400067718
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- Number of pages208
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