by W. G. Sebald
3 This and the following three quotations are from Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern, p. 35.
4 Hans Erich Nossack, Pseudoautobiographische Glossen (Frankfurt: 1971).
5 Hans Erich Nossack, Der Untergang. In Interview mit dem Tode, Frankfurt, 1972, p. 249.
6 Act I, scene 2.
7 Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern, p. 47.
8 Ibid., p. 48.
9 Ibid., p. 56.
10 Ibid., p. 57.
11 Ibid., p. 28.
12 Heinrich Böll, Frankfurter Vorlesungen, Munich, 1968, p. 8.
13 Ibid., p. 9.
14 Die Unföhigkeit zu trauern, pp. 19, 18.
15 Günter Grass, Tagebuch einer Schnecke, Reinbek, 1974, p. 80; Eng., From the Diary of a Snail, tr. Ralph Manheim, London, 1974, p. 112.
16 Ibid., p. 27; Eng., p. 34. Lichtenstein’s book did not appear until 1973. In the foreword to his monograph, Erwin Lichtenstein comments that Grass, in his own latest book, refers “to accounts and news reports as well as much factual material that he had from me.” And he continues: “The reader of Diary of a Snail will find my information expressed in the chapters of Günter Grass’s book tracing the final period of the history of the Jews in Danzig” (E. Lichtenstein, Die Juden der freien Stadt Danzig under der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus, Tübingen, 1973, p. viii). We have here a clear indication that there had been no research by local historians into the fate of the Jewish communities on the German side, and that little had changed in the state of affairs deplored by Jean Paul as “Christian neglect of the study of the Jews.”
17 Günter Grass, Katz und Maus, Reinbek, 1963, p. 35; Eng., Cat and Mouse, tr. Ralph Manheim, London.
18 See “Rede auf Hermann Broch,” in Elias Canetti, Aufzeichnungen 1942–1948, Munich, 1969, p. 159f; Tagebuch einer Schnecke, p. 153; Eng., p. 223.
19 Walter Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, Frankfurt, 1963, p. 166; Eng., The Origin of German Tragic Drama, tr. John Osborne, London, 1977, p. 152.
20 Tagebuch einer Schnecke, p. 155; Eng., p. 223.
21 Ibid., p. 81.
22 Heinrich Böll, Der Zug war pünktlich, Munich, 1972, p. 34; Eng., The Train Was on Time, tr. Leila Vennewitz, London, 1970, p. 28.
23 Tagebuch einer Schnecke, p. 155; Eng., p. 96.
24 Ibid., p. 70; Eng., p. 97.
25 Ibid., p. 37; Eng., p. 49.
26 In Tagebuch einer Schnecke (From the Diary of a Snail), Grass tells his children: “It’s true: you’re innocent. I, too, born almost late enough, am held to be free from guilt. Only if I wanted to forget, if you were unwilling to learn how it slowly happened, only then might words of one syllable catch up with us: words like guilt and shame; they, too, resolute snails, impossible to stop” (p. 13; Eng., p. 13). The most notable feature of this passage is the less than convincing logic of the last couple of lines.
27 Tagebuch einer Schnecke, p. 130; Eng., p. 188.
28 Ibid., p. 189; Eng., p. 274.
29 Ibid., p. 203; Eng., p. 294.
30 Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Tynset, Frankfurt, 1965, p. 30.
31 Ibid., p. 39.
32 Ibid., p. 46.
33 Ibid., p. 155f.
34 Act I, scene 1.
35 Franz Kafka, Briefe an Felice, Frankfurt, 1967, p. 283.
36 Quoted from F. P. Wilson, Seventeenth-Century Prose, Cambridge, Eng., 1960, p. 45.
37 Ibid., p. 27.
38 Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriothapia. Urne-Burial; or, A Brief Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes lately found in Norfolk, London, 1658. In The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne, New York and London, 1968, p. 281.
39 Tynset, p. 185.
40 See Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, p. 164; Eng., p. 150.
41 Hamlet, Act IV, scene 5.
42 Tynset, p. 87.
43 Theodor W. Adorno, Ästhetische Theorie, Frankfurt, 1970, p. 66.; Eng., Aesthetic Theory, tr. Robert Hullot-Kentor, London, 1997, p. 39f.
44 Tynset, p. 186.
45 Ibid., p. 79; Hamlet, Act I, scene 5.
46 Tynset, p. 265.
47 Ibid., p. 14.
48 Wolfgang Hildesheimer, “Brief an Max über den Stand der Dinge und Anderes,” in Manuskripte. Zeitschrift für Literatur 76 (1982), p. 44.
49 Lucifers Königreich und Seelengejäidt: Oder Narrenhatz. In acht Theil Abgetheilet … Durch Aegidium Albertinum, Fürstl.: Durchl: in Bayrn Secretarium, zusammen getragen, Munich, 1617, p. 411 (quoted in Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, p. 156).
SOURCES OF THE TEXT
PROSE
“A Little Excursion to Ajaccio” (Kleine Exkursion nach Agaccio). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 August 1996.
“Campo Santo” (Campo Santo). Akzente 1 (2003), pp. 3–14.
“The Alps in the Sea” (Die Alpen im Meer). Literaturen 1 (2001), pp. 30–33.
“La cour de l’ancienne école” (La cour de l’ancienne école). In: Quint Buchholz, ed., BuchBilderBuch, stories about pictures, Zürich, 1997, pp. 13–15.
ESSAYS
“Strangeness, Integration, and Crisis. On Peter Handke’s Play Kaspar” (Fremdheit, Integration und Krise. Über Peter Handkes Stück Kaspar). Literatur und Kritik 10 (1975), pp. 152–58.
“Between History and Natural History: On the Literary Description of Total Destruction” (Zwischen Geschichte und Naturgeschichte. Über die literarische Beschreibung totaler Zerstörung). Orbis litterarum 37 (1982), pp. 345–66.
“Constructs of Mourning: Günter Grass and Wolfgang Hildesheimer” (Konstruktionen der Trauer. Günter Grass und Wolfgang Hildesheimer). Deutschunterricht 35 (1983), 5, pp. 32–46.
“Des Häschens Kind, der kleine Has (“The Little Hare, Child of the Hare”): On the Poet Ernst Herbeck’s Totem Animal” (Des Häschens Kind, der kleine Has. Über das Totemtier des Lyrikers Ernst Herbeck). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 December 1992.
“To the Brothel by Way of Switzerland: On Kafka’s Travel Diaries” (Via Schweiz ins Bordell. Zu den Reisetagebüchern Kafkas). DieWeltwoche, 5 October 1995, p. 66.
“Dream Textures: A Brief Note on Nabokov” (Traumtexturen. Kleine Anmerkung zu Nabokov). Die Zeitschrift der Kultur 6 (1996), pp. 22–25.
“Kafka Goes to the Movies” (Kafka im Kino). Frankfurter Rundschau, 18 January 1997.
“Scomber scombrus, or the Common Mackerel: On Pictures by Jan Peter Tripp” (Scomber scombrus oder die gemeine Makrele. Zu Bildern von Jan Peter Tripp). Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23/24 (September 2000).
“The Mystery of the Red-Brown Skin: An Approach to Bruce Chatwin” (Das Geheimnis des rotbraunen Fells. Annäherung an Bruce Chatwin). Literaturen 11 (2000), pp. 72–75.
“Moments musicaux” (Moments musicaux). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 July 2001.
“An Attempt at Restitution” (Ein Versuch der Restitution). Stuttgarter Zeitung, 18 November 2001.
“Acceptance Speech to the Collegium of the German Academy” (Antrittsrede vor dem Kollegium der Deutschen Akademie). In: “Wie sie sich selber sehen” (How They See Themselves). Acceptance speeches to the Collegium of the German Academy by members. With an essay by Hans-Martin Gauger. Ed. Michael Assmann, Göttingen, 1999, pp. 445–46.
ABOUT THE PICTURES
this page: Quint Buchholz, Die Befragung der Aussicht (III) (“Questioning the View”), 1989. Pen and colored ink drawing on paper.
this page: Jan Peter Tripp, Das ungeschriebene Gebot (“The Unwritten Commandment”), 1996. Acrylic on paper and wood, diameter 90 cm.
this page: Jan Peter Tripp, Endspiel (“Endgame”), 1999. Acrylic on canvas and wood, 50 × 50 cm.
W. G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgäu, Germany, in 1944. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland, and in 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 previous books—After Nature, The Rings of Saturn, The Emigrants, Vertigo, and Austerlitz—have won
a number of international awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the L.A. Times Book Award, the Berlin Literature Prize, and the Literatur Nord Prize. He died in December 2001.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Anthea Bell was born in Suffolk and educated at Somerville College, Oxford. She has worked as a translator for many years, primarily from German and French, and her translations include works of nonfiction (biography, politics, social history, musicology, and art history), literary and popular fiction, and classic German works for young people. Anthea Bell has also served on the committee of the Translators Association and the jury panel of the Schlegel-Tieck German translation prize in the U.K., and has received a number of translation prizes and awards, including, in 2002, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (U.K.) and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize (U.S.) for W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. She lives in Cambridge, England.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Editorial Note
PROSE
A Little Excursion to Ajaccio
Campo Santo
The Alps in the Sea
La cour de l’ancienne école
ESSAYS
Strangeness, Integration, and Crisis: On Peter Handke’s Play Kaspar
Between History and Natural History: On the Literary Description of Total Destruction
Constructs of Mourning: Günter Grass and Wolfgang Hildesheimer
Des Häschens Kind, der kleine Has (The Little Hare, Child of the Hare): On the Poet Ernst Herbeck’s Totem Animal
To the Brothel by Way of Switzerland: On Kafka’s Travel Diaries
Dream Textures: A Brief Note on Nabokov
Kafka Goes to the Movies
Scomber scombrus , or the Common Mackerel: On Pictures by Jan Peter Tripp
The Mystery of the Red-Brown Skin: An Approach to Bruce Chatwin
Moments musicaux
An Attempt at Restitution
Acceptance Speech to the Collegium of the German Academy
Notes
Sources of the Text
About the Pictures
About the Author
About the Translator