On the Natural History of Destruction - Rilegato

Sebald, W.G.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0676975291 ISBN 13: 9780676975291

Casa editrice: Knopf Canada, 2003

Riassunto

W.G. Sebald completed this extraordinary and important -- and already controversial -- book before his untimely death in December 2001.

On the Natural History of Destruction is W.G. Sebald’s harrowing and precise investigation of one of the least examined “silences” of our time. In it, the acclaimed novelist examines the devastation of German cities by Allied bombardment, and the reasons for the astonishing absence of this unprecedented trauma from German history and culture.

This void in history is in part a repression of things -- such as the death by fire of the city of Hamburg at the hands of the RAF -- too terrible to bear. But rather than record the crises about them, writers sought to retrospectively justify their actions under the Nazis. For Sebald, this is an example of deliberate cultural amnesia; his analysis of its effects in and outside Germany has already provoked angry and painful debate.

Sebald’s incomparable novels are rooted in meticulous observation; his essays are novelistic. They include his childhood recollections of the war that spurred his horror at the collective amnesia around him. There are moments of black humour and, throughout, the unmatched sensitivity of Sebald’s intelligence. This book is a vital study of suffering and forgetting, of the morality hidden in artistic decisions, and of both compromised and genuine heroics.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

“Most writers, even good ones, write of what can be written; and move by their own angles into the discourse of their day. The very greatest write of what cannot be written; gravitating not toward the discourse but toward the silence. They break it, like the crust on untrodden snow. I think of [Anna] Akhmatova and Primo Levi, for example, and of W. G. Sebald, who died in 2001.” -- Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review

“Sebald is the real thing. . . . Sublime.” -- The Globe and Mail

“On the Natural History of Destruction is an urgent portrayal of human life under the concussive blows of total war. It should be memorized.” -- National Post

“With this short but perfectly balanced collection, W.G. Sebald puts postwar German literature on the scales and finds it wanting. In doing so, he writes with unflinching clarity and condemns with uncompromising vigour..... Sebald set out to awaken a deeply repressed national memory and to re-emphasize the standards an honest literature must meet; to achieve such things, perhaps he knew his patient required a good hard shake. To judge from the burgeoning debate in Germany, it seems he succeeded.” -- Ottawa Citizen

“Powerful..... Sebald’s essays could not be more timely.” -- Edmonton Journal

“This is a beautifully written book.... It is overwhelming, thought-provoking, gut-wrenching, and worst, soul-disturbing.” -- Winnipeg Free Press

“Resonates with an active mind and rigorous intellect.” -- Georgia Straight

“Grounded in history and personal memory, enriched by grainy, black-and-white photographs, full of odd morsels of knowledge, Sebald’s fiction blurs all sense of genre. It combines a scrupulous attention to fact and a probing intelligence with an intuitive understanding of the times when fact gives way to imagination.” -- Mark Abley, Times Colonist

L'autore:

W.G. Sebald taught at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, for thirty years, becoming Professor of European Literature in 1987. His books won several international awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the Berlin Literature Prize. He died at age 57 in 2001.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Knopf Canada
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0676975291
• ISBN 13: 9780676975291
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 224