I read Austerlitz assuming incorrectly that Sebald was Jewish, and that he was transported out of Germany to Wales on the kindertransport system. After all, aren’t all his books autofiction?
Nope!
In case you haven’t heard of this author, W. G. Sebald was raised by his mom and grandfather in the Bavarian Alps, in a town called Wertach. His father, a Nazi soldier, was captured in a prisoner camp and was peripherally involved with his upbringing. W. G. Sebald only left Germany midway through University, seeking a better academic experience in Switzerland and living rent-free with his sister. He settled eventually in Norwich at the University of East Anglia (in the East of England, opposite from Austerlitz’s home in Wales). Four of his novels were translated into English before his death in 2001, including The Rings of Saturn, The Emigrants, Vertigo, and finally Austerlitz, his last book. Susan Sontag is credited with bringing his books to America’s attention. James Wood interviewed him at length for PEN America here.
So, Sebald is not Austerlitz, after all, and the arresting photograph of the tow-headed 20th century boy wearing a cheap satin costume meant to look like Little Lord Flauntleroy, or maybe one of the Musketeers, is borrowed from a friend’s photo box. In the novel, Austerlitz is a Jewish man that escaped Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia as a child. His wavy hair is straw-blonde. I love that Sebald used this particular image to represent the child who escaped the Holocaust.
Austerlitz survives with his new, Calvinist Welsh family, but he’s permanently lost. Much of his life is spent trying to find out what happened to his parents. There’s no question his mother died in Terezin, but his father was thought to have escaped to Paris. The narrator comes through occasionally, speaking in first-person to add more details concerning Austerlitz’s movements and moods over the course of decades. They meet up in various cities, where Austerlitz shares his detective work: photos and interviews from the people who survived, the most touching by his nanny, who witnessed the breakup of the Austerlitz family.
As for plot, that’s it! Austerlitz is permanently scarred by his loss, to the extent that he cannot form close attachments. He can’t close the story on his parents. Neither can he forget it.
I’m glad I started reading the book assuming Sebald was Jewish. That assumption helped me to remain patient with the tangential and granular images presented. In that frame of mind, I found the book put me in a nostalgic swoon for days. No wonder so many Jewish people had profound and suicidal depression even after they were far away from Hitler’s death camps.
When I learned Sebald wasn’t Jewish, I was a quarter of the way into the book. I considered quitting, but then I thought, what difference does it make? This story moves me. Correcting my response seems spiritually stingy. How would I even begin to recontextualize it, anyway? On some poorly-constructed framework of intersectionality? My knowledge of 20th century Czechoslovakia, Germany, and UK is minimal, never mind what I know about being an Ashkenazi Jew, a refugee, etc.
I don’t want to essentialize Sebald because his dad was a Nazi, or because Sebald was ethnically white and nationally German. He lived down the road from one of the cruellest and most-exposed genocides of the century; he feels the taint of what happened. He wants to atone. That’s qualification enough for me.
I hear that Susan Sontag first reviewed his novels for American readers. I’d love to know what essay to track down. Also, what are you thoughts on Sebald? How does this book compare with his others? How do you think about someone’s qualifications to write about another group, racial or cultural or religious?
Cheers,
Jess
I haven’t read it but it’s been on my list for a while. I also assumed he was Jewish. You might also like the graphic novel memoir “belonging” by Nora krug -- she goes through her family archives and explores how both her grandfathers were Nazis
I read Austerlitz last December and liked it a lot - after having read The Rings many times. The blurring of narrator and subject is a powerful device, to describe the universal experience of loss and dislocation. Sebald does this a lot in The Rings, where he describes historical characters and at times you don't know if it's them or Sebald talking - the tale weaves history & memory into a universal tale about destruction of civilisations (cultures, ways of life) and to some extent nature.