About this title: The four long narratives in this book appear at first to be plain accounts of the lives of Jewish emigrants in Norfolk, Austria, America and Manchester. But, gradually, the book emerges into one evocation of the experience of exile, the loss of homeland.
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: The Harvill Press Ltd
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9781860461286ISBN:186046128X
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: The Harvill Press Ltd
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9781860461286ISBN:186046128X
Description: Good. Our aim is to create value for our customers through the provision of low cost, affordable products and an overall satisfying buying experience. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harvill Press, London
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9781860463495ISBN:1860463495
Description: Very Good. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. First edition paperback. One very faint, almost invisible, reading crease on spine, a little shelf wear to the cover edges and surface and a light tan to the page edges. Otherwise in very good condition. The pages are extremely clean, the book is tight and there are no inscriptions. All my books are carefully packed and I make every effort to despatch orders the same day. If you have any questions regarding this book please do not hesitate to ask. A photograph ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: The Harvill Press
Date Published: 03/07/1997
ISBN-13:9781860463495ISBN:1860463495
Description: Used-Good. Book in good or better condition. Dispatched same day from warehouse. Please email with any questions for quick response. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: The Harvill Press
Date Published: 03/07/1997
ISBN-13:9781860463495ISBN:1860463495
Description: Used-Good. Book in good or better condition. Dispatched same day from warehouse. Please email with any questions for quick response. read more
Edition: First Separate
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harvill
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9781860463495ISBN:1860463495
Description: Collectible; Good. GOOD+ 1997 HARVILL PB WITH ORIGINAL COVER ARTWORK, GOUACHE BY ROGER HILTON, AND ILLUSTRATIONS/PHOTOS WITHIN TEXT. LIGHT READING CREASES TO SPINE AND A LITTLE PAGE WAVINESS ONLY, INNERS UNMARKED. IMMEDIATE 1ST CLASS/AIRMAIL DISPATCH WORLDWIDE. read more
Binding: softcover
Publisher: Harvill Press
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9781860463495ISBN:1860463495
Description: Good. Good condition small paperback book-clean and tidy internally and externally with light wear and creasing to covers-good reading / reference copy. read more
Edition: NEW ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: VINTAGE Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780099448884ISBN:0099448882
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 256 pages. (256 pages) documents the lives of four jewish emigres in the twentieth century, which later merges into a single evocation of exile and loss. 78 illustrations edition new ed (Paperback) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 1997-09
ISBN-13:9780811213660ISBN:0811213668
Description: Good. New York: New Directions, 1997. Fourth printing. Paperback. 237 pp. Good condition. Light corner wear. Back cover is creased at upper corner. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780099448884ISBN:0099448882
Description: Good. Our aim is to create value for our customers through the provision of low cost, affordable products and an overall satisfying buying experience. read more
Description: Very good. 1997 New Directions Publishing Softcover(Trade PB) Edition. Some wear to cover, creasing to pages, text clean with strong binding. Ships Fast! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780811213660ISBN:0811213668
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 238 p. Contains: Illustrations. New Directions Paperbook, 853. Audience: General/trade. read more
"I picked this book up at one of those bookshops (Waterstones, Truro) that encourage their staff to write brief recommendations and attach them to the bookshelves below books they liked. A big thank you to the person who did so for this one as it really is a remarkable book.
It was in the fiction shelves but I spent most of the book wondering if it was in fact non-fiction. I'm still convinced that there is a huge amount of reality (or at least real memory) in this book.
There is on the face of it, no plot or "story" here. The narrator who appears to be Sebald himself simply strings together 4 brief accounts of 4 emigre German speaking Jews (or in one case a man with partial Jewish descent). In fact there are 5 stories as the narrator's own experiences and memories and feelings are as critical a part of the novel as the 4 subjects he introduces to us.
The holocaust is mentioned only obliquely and it is almost taken as a "given" that the reader knows what happened. This is not a book about the suffering of the Jews in the camps. It's not even explicitly about the Jews either as the Jewishness of the characters is very understated with just a few references to specifically Jewish culture and traditions and in many ways Sebald seems to be talking about all emigres who lose one home and never find a new one. The book instead focuses on the lost souls who managed to escape to Britain or America but never found a home, not because they were unwelcome but because their memories and longings could never allow them to feel settled. There is a profound sense of Heimweh throughout the book (the German word with its emphasis on the pain of losing a home is far more appropriate than our milder 'homesickness'). This isn't just missing a place - in cases where the characters do return they feel just as out of place as they do in their adopted place of residence. It's also a wish to return to a period in time which is far less attainable as the world has changed so much.
Memory is obviously a key theme. The transience and fragility of memory are always challenging the characters and making them more depressed and fearful. The recurring them of the butterfly man can be (and is) interpreted many ways, but for me it speaks of the fact that in trying fruitlessly to capture and retain the beauty of our memories, we damage and alter them - a butterfly in a net is no longer the beautiful creature it was flying around.
Having read this in the excellent English translation, I now want to re-read it in German as Sebald's descriptions of places and people (part memory, part invention perhaps) are striking. In the middle of despair and sadness there is intense beauty and that makes this book one of the most memorable I have read in a long time."
"These are pure, effortless human stories. Dealing with the monster of all tragedies, Sebald hardly mentions the war, but delves into the shaded aftermath (and side-math), the particular oddness of the deeply affected. Sadness seeps into the fabric but it never is spoken of outright, and it makes the entirety of the war real again for a generation who has grown weary of its shadow."
"This is a book of four separate, and moving accounts of displacement and loss. The first two, the shorter ones, I loved for their succinctness, and the sense of lives lost by long ago events. The third I felt I lost my way with a bit - possibly because I didn't read it in one sitting - which would have been better - and so felt I lost the narrative voice somewhere - and kept forgetting who was recalling what. The fourth narrative I loved also - especially the descriptions of 1960's Manchester, the derelict buildings along the canal, the old railway buildings, I love all that stuff - there's a lot of similar buildings here in Birmingham, no doubt with similar histories. Beautifully written, these accounts are poignant and haunting, and feel rather autobiographical, but knowing nothing about this author I don't know if that is the case or not."
"With W.G. Sebald you don't really know whether you're reading fact or fiction. But whatever it is, these 4 life stories of people that have somehow touched the author's life are at once evocative, beautiful and melancholic, further enhanced by photographs scattered over the book, each of which is connected to the story in some way, and paradoxically making the stories even more other-worldly. Like 'The Rings Of Saturn', and I suspect all of his works, this book is primarily a meditation on memory and death, humanity and inhumanity, our efforts to make the best of what we have despite the brevity of time we have to do it in."
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