The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
I purchased The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald as part of my search for a new genre. I wish I hadn’t.
The book is translated from the original German retaining the prose style of a German. The prose is praised in the reviews on the back cover, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, German writing is long-winded, verbose and unclear. This is no exception. I don’t think the style helps the narrative at all.
The narrative is a collection of largely rambling stories loosely held together by one man’s travels along the Suffolk coast. I think it would be better if it were simply written as a collection of essays instead. The essays are introduced by such devices as a certain thing reminding the author of this or that or he comes across someone who tells him about how it was back in the day or some such. These devices are obvious and fill this reader with dread at the thought of yet another long-winded diversion into pastures new. If each were presented as a simple essay, there would be no need for this tedium.
The essays themselves might well be interesting if it weren’t for the heavy, dull, rambling prose. Paragraph breaks are few and far between, sentences can be long. It’s possible to read huge swathes without taking anything in, so rereading chunks is inevitable. Furthermore, there is little clarity, leading to an inability to follow what’s happening. Perhaps I’m just stupid, or perhaps it’s because I didn’t pay close enough attention to it.
On the plus side I did like the pictures in it. A full colour edition would be worth investing in if you really like the book.
In conclusion, this could have been an entertaining, informative collection of essays, but the execution falls short because of the prose and the decision to write it as tales conjured up by the travels of the author. If you are able to cope with this style and linkage, then you will enjoy this book very much.
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categories: Art and Literature
tags: biography and memoir, fiction, reviews, travel
last modified: 9th Nov 2011
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