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袗褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑
袪芯屑邪薪 袙. 覑. 袟械斜邪谢褜写邪 (1944鈥�2001) 芦袗褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑禄, 褟泻懈泄 斜邪谐邪褌芯 泻褉懈褌懈泻褨胁 薪邪蟹懈胁邪褞褌褜 薪邪泄胁懈蟹薪邪褔薪褨褕懈屑 薪褨屑械褑褜泻芯屑芯胁薪懈屑 褉芯屑邪薪芯屑 啸啸袉 褋褌芯谢褨褌褌褟, 胁懈泄褕芯胁 写褉褍泻芯屑 褍 2001 褉芯褑褨, 薪械蟹邪写芯胁谐芯 写芯 褌褉邪谐褨褔薪芯褩 褋屑械褉褌褨 邪胁褌芯褉邪 胁薪邪褋谢褨写芯泻 邪胁褌芯屑芯斜褨谢褜薪芯褩 邪胁邪褉褨褩. 笑械泄 褉芯屑邪薪 邪斜芯 卸 芦锌褉芯蟹芯胁褍 泻薪懈卸泻褍 薪械胁懈蟹薪邪褔械薪芯谐芯 卸邪薪褉褍禄, 褟泻 薪邪蟹懈胁邪胁 泄芯谐芯 褋邪屑 袟械斜邪谢褜写, 胁懈褉褨蟹薪褟褦 薪械 谢懈褕械 薪械蟹胁懈褔薪懈泄, 谢邪斜褨褉懈薪褌芯锌芯写褨斜薪懈泄 褋褞卸械褌, 褟泻懈泄 邪胁褌芯褉 胁懈斜褍写芯胁褍褦 蟹 褉械褌械谢褜薪褨褋褌褞 锌邪胁褍泻邪, 褖芯 锌谢械褌械 褋胁芯褞 锌邪胁褍褌懈薪褍, 邪谢械 泄 芯褋芯斜谢懈胁邪 锌芯械褌懈褔薪褨褋褌褜 屑芯胁懈, 褟泻邪 锌械褉械褌胁芯褉褞褦 褑械泄 褌胁褨褉 薪邪 写芯胁卸械谢械蟹薪懈泄 胁褨褉褕 锌褉芯 锌芯褕褍泻懈 胁褌褉邪褔械薪芯谐芯 写懈褌懈薪褋褌胁邪. 袧械薪邪蟹胁邪薪懈泄 芯锌芯胁褨写邪褔 蟹薪芯胁褍 泄 蟹薪芯胁褍 蟹褍褋褌褉褨褔邪褦 蟹邪谢褞斜谢械薪芯谐芯 胁 褦胁褉芯锌械泄褋褜泻褨 谢邪薪写褕邪褎褌懈 褌邪 邪褉褏褨褌械泻褌褍褉褍 蟹邪谐邪写泻芯胁芯谐芯 褋邪屑褨褌薪懈泻邪 袞邪泻邪 袗褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑邪, 褟泻懈泄 褉芯蟹锌芯胁褨写邪褦 泄芯屑褍 锌褉芯 褋胁芯褩 斜邪谐邪褌芯谢褨褌薪褨 薪邪屑邪谐邪薪薪褟 褉芯蟹泻褉懈褌懈 褌邪褦屑薪懈褑褞 胁谢邪褋薪芯谐芯 锌芯褏芯写卸械薪薪褟. 笑褨 锌芯褕褍泻懈 胁械写褍褌褜 泄芯谐芯 谢械写褜 薪械 褔械褉械蟹 褍褋褞 袆胁褉芯锌褍 泄 褋锌芯薪褍泻邪褞褌褜 胁褨写胁褨写邪褌懈 褉褨蟹薪芯屑邪薪褨褌薪褨 芦屑褨褋褑褟 锌邪屑鈥櫻徰傃柭� 薪邪泄薪芯胁褨褕芯褩 薪褨屑械褑褜泻芯褩 褌邪 褦胁褉芯锌械泄褋褜泻芯褩 褨褋褌芯褉褨褩 鈥� 蟹 袗薪褌胁械褉锌械薪邪 写芯 袥芯薪写芯薪邪, 蟹 袩邪褉懈卸邪 写芯 袦邪褉褨褦薪斜邪写邪, 邪 蟹 袩褉邪谐懈 写芯 泻芯薪褑械薪褌褉邪褑褨泄薪芯谐芯 褌邪斜芯褉褍 芦孝械褉械蟹褨褦薪褕褌邪写褌禄. 袉 褑械 谢懈褕械 蟹芯胁薪褨褕薪褨泄, 褋褞卸械褌薪懈泄 泻芯薪褌褍褉 褉芯屑邪薪褍, 薪邪褋懈褔械薪芯谐芯 褨褋褌芯褉懈褔薪懈屑懈 械泻褋泻褍褉褋邪屑懈, 锌芯械褌懈褔薪懈屑懈 褋锌芯褋褌械褉械卸械薪薪褟屑懈 褌邪 屑械谢邪薪褏芯谢褨泄薪懈屑懈 褉芯蟹屑褨褉泻芯胁褍胁邪薪薪褟屑懈 锌褉芯 (薪械)芯斜卸懈褌褨褋褌褜 锌褉芯褋褌芯褉褍 泄 锌褉芯屑懈薪邪薪薪褟 褔邪褋褍, 蟹 褟泻懈屑懈 谢褞写懈薪邪 蟹屑褍褕械薪邪 写邪胁邪褌懈 褋芯斜褨 褉邪写褍.
袪芯屑邪薪 袟械斜邪谢褜写邪 芦袗褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑禄 斜褍胁 胁褨写蟹薪邪褔械薪懈泄 褔懈褋谢械薪薪懈屑懈 薪邪谐芯褉芯写邪屑懈, 褋械褉械写 褟泻懈褏 National Book Critics Award (小楔袗, 2001), Salon Book Award (袙械谢懈泻芯斜褉懈褌邪薪褨褟, 2002), Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 褌邪 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize. 小褜芯谐芯写薪褨 芦袗褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑禄 锌械褉械泻谢邪写械薪芯 锌芯薪邪写 20 屑芯胁邪屑懈, 褨 胁褨薪 胁卸械 褍胁褨泄褕芯胁 写芯 泻邪薪芯薪褍 薪邪泄薪芯胁褨褕芯褩 薪褨屑械褑褜泻芯褩 谢褨褌械褉邪褌褍褉懈.
袪芯屑邪薪 袟械斜邪谢褜写邪 芦袗褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑禄 斜褍胁 胁褨写蟹薪邪褔械薪懈泄 褔懈褋谢械薪薪懈屑懈 薪邪谐芯褉芯写邪屑懈, 褋械褉械写 褟泻懈褏 National Book Critics Award (小楔袗, 2001), Salon Book Award (袙械谢懈泻芯斜褉懈褌邪薪褨褟, 2002), Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 褌邪 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize. 小褜芯谐芯写薪褨 芦袗褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑禄 锌械褉械泻谢邪写械薪芯 锌芯薪邪写 20 屑芯胁邪屑懈, 褨 胁褨薪 胁卸械 褍胁褨泄褕芯胁 写芯 泻邪薪芯薪褍 薪邪泄薪芯胁褨褕芯褩 薪褨屑械褑褜泻芯褩 谢褨褌械褉邪褌褍褉懈.
335 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2001
1,853 people are currently reading
50.2k people want to read
About the author
W.G. Sebald
49听books1,685听followersWinfried Georg Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. His works are largely concerned with the themes of memory, loss of memory, and identity (both personal and collective) and decay (of civilizations, traditions or physical objects). They are, in particular, attempts to reconcile himself with, and deal in literary terms with, the trauma of the Second World War and its effect on the German people.
At the time of his death at the age of only 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors, and was tipped as a possible future recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
At the time of his death at the age of only 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors, and was tipped as a possible future recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,452 reviews
July 15, 2024
Edit July 2024: I finally got the time to peruse the NY Times The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.I am happy that Austerlitz got a deserved place in Top 10 (no.8). I would have probably put it in top5.
1st Prize. Favourite Book read in 2021
I鈥檝e wanted to read this novel for a long time but I was also intimidated by its structure. I recently acquired two books that are considered Sebaldian and I realised I could not read them before I cover their inspiration. When I got the opportunity to read this together with Reading the 20th Century group, I knew this was the moment I have been waiting for.
I will not lie to you, it was tough at the beginning. There are no paragraphs and the first 60 pages or so consist mainly of long descriptions of building: the Antwerp train station and a fort being the most memorable. Train stations and the fort will prove to be a very important part of this book so it is worth paying attention to those tedious pages. The book is also sprinkled here and there with black and white pictures of some of the sceneries and buildings described. I almost gave up after 50 pages and even wrote the following farewell review:
For the oral part of the Cambridge English exam you are given a few pictures and are told to imagine stories out of them. It feels like this novel is written the same way. Sebald (randomly) chooses a number of pictures from his collection and gives himself the challenge to invent stories from them and put everything in one book. Then, he writes excruciatingly boring details of Belgian architecture. After realising that even he falls asleep while reading his writing, he decides to introduce some resemblance of a plot and to give something to read to critics and literature enthusiasts. He even adds some magical realism because how else can you name those coincidental and convenient encounters between the narrator and Austerlitz. .
And then something clicked. I became entranced by the prose and I could not stop reading. I started to admire the construction, the words and the cleverness of the author. I soon realised that nothing is random in this book, every word and picture are well thought out in advance.
"No one can explain exactly what happens within us when the doors behind which our childhood terrors lurk are flung open. "
The sentence explains what part of this book is about although it is written around page 30, long before the plot gets going. It is a novel about the untrustworthiness of memory and how its suppression can affect our life deeply. It is a book about the past and how it is always lurking in the present through small signs. Those building that are described so much in detail are an example of such elements. Finally, it is a book about the horrors of the Holocaust and identity.
Austerlitz was adopted by a Welsh family when he was 4 years old and grows up with no recollection of his past. Only later, when his foster parents die, he is told that his real name is Jaques Austerlitz and that he was saved from the Holocaust by being a part of a kindertransit. After suffering a few nervous breakdowns, he decides to gather more information about his past.
The story is told by Austerlitz to an unnamed narrator during several chance encounters around Europe. This way, we receive a fragmented biography told through the lens of another character, maybe Sebald himself. This technique distances the reader from the main character, the way memory is sometimes distant and hard to grasp for its possessor. Due to the structure, the meandering prose and the narrative choices I sometimes had problems following the text. I alternated between perfect trance like concentration and pages that I could not follow and had to re-read.
There are two reasons I finally gave this book 5*. The first one is that it had a few powerful moments where I felt I could not breathe. One memorable scene was when Agata, Austerlitz鈥� mother, is visited by a German soldier and told exactly what to pack for her deportation to the Ghetto. It is hard to understand how a description of items can have such a strong emotional effect but, similarly, Sebald pulls it off many times during this novel. Second reason, and somewhat connected, is that I am sick of melodramatic books about the 2nd World War. The ones that scream at you how horrible everything was and you feel manipulated to cry and cry. Sebald still made me feel gutted but the technique was subtle and I really appreciated the change.
1st Prize. Favourite Book read in 2021
I鈥檝e wanted to read this novel for a long time but I was also intimidated by its structure. I recently acquired two books that are considered Sebaldian and I realised I could not read them before I cover their inspiration. When I got the opportunity to read this together with Reading the 20th Century group, I knew this was the moment I have been waiting for.
I will not lie to you, it was tough at the beginning. There are no paragraphs and the first 60 pages or so consist mainly of long descriptions of building: the Antwerp train station and a fort being the most memorable. Train stations and the fort will prove to be a very important part of this book so it is worth paying attention to those tedious pages. The book is also sprinkled here and there with black and white pictures of some of the sceneries and buildings described. I almost gave up after 50 pages and even wrote the following farewell review:
For the oral part of the Cambridge English exam you are given a few pictures and are told to imagine stories out of them. It feels like this novel is written the same way. Sebald (randomly) chooses a number of pictures from his collection and gives himself the challenge to invent stories from them and put everything in one book. Then, he writes excruciatingly boring details of Belgian architecture. After realising that even he falls asleep while reading his writing, he decides to introduce some resemblance of a plot and to give something to read to critics and literature enthusiasts. He even adds some magical realism because how else can you name those coincidental and convenient encounters between the narrator and Austerlitz. .
And then something clicked. I became entranced by the prose and I could not stop reading. I started to admire the construction, the words and the cleverness of the author. I soon realised that nothing is random in this book, every word and picture are well thought out in advance.
"No one can explain exactly what happens within us when the doors behind which our childhood terrors lurk are flung open. "
The sentence explains what part of this book is about although it is written around page 30, long before the plot gets going. It is a novel about the untrustworthiness of memory and how its suppression can affect our life deeply. It is a book about the past and how it is always lurking in the present through small signs. Those building that are described so much in detail are an example of such elements. Finally, it is a book about the horrors of the Holocaust and identity.
Austerlitz was adopted by a Welsh family when he was 4 years old and grows up with no recollection of his past. Only later, when his foster parents die, he is told that his real name is Jaques Austerlitz and that he was saved from the Holocaust by being a part of a kindertransit. After suffering a few nervous breakdowns, he decides to gather more information about his past.
The story is told by Austerlitz to an unnamed narrator during several chance encounters around Europe. This way, we receive a fragmented biography told through the lens of another character, maybe Sebald himself. This technique distances the reader from the main character, the way memory is sometimes distant and hard to grasp for its possessor. Due to the structure, the meandering prose and the narrative choices I sometimes had problems following the text. I alternated between perfect trance like concentration and pages that I could not follow and had to re-read.
There are two reasons I finally gave this book 5*. The first one is that it had a few powerful moments where I felt I could not breathe. One memorable scene was when Agata, Austerlitz鈥� mother, is visited by a German soldier and told exactly what to pack for her deportation to the Ghetto. It is hard to understand how a description of items can have such a strong emotional effect but, similarly, Sebald pulls it off many times during this novel. Second reason, and somewhat connected, is that I am sick of melodramatic books about the 2nd World War. The ones that scream at you how horrible everything was and you feel manipulated to cry and cry. Sebald still made me feel gutted but the technique was subtle and I really appreciated the change.
November 22, 2023
The waiting hall of the Antwerp central station 鈥� Salle des pas perdus 鈥� hall of lost steps 鈥� is the symbol of the past in the book鈥�
Deprived of his past by the cataclysmic turns of history Jacques Austerlitz 鈥� a historian of architecture 鈥� tries desperately to regain what has gone forever鈥� And he is morbidly obsessed with the illusory qualities of time鈥�
The past is irretrievably lost and only its echo still lingers on: old things, documents, books, buildings, statues, paintings, objets d鈥檃rt鈥�
Austerlitz commented in passing of this lady, whose peroxide-blond hair was piled up into a sort of bird鈥檚 nest, that she was the goddess of time past. And on the wall behind her, under the lion crest of the kingdom of Belgium, there was indeed a mighty clock, the dominating feature of the buffet, with a hand some six feet long traveling round a dial which had once been gilded, but was now blackened by railway soot and tobacco smoke.
Deprived of his past by the cataclysmic turns of history Jacques Austerlitz 鈥� a historian of architecture 鈥� tries desperately to regain what has gone forever鈥� And he is morbidly obsessed with the illusory qualities of time鈥�
鈥f Newton really thought that time was a river like the Thames, then where is its source and into what sea does it finally flow? Every river, as we know, must have banks on both sides, so where, seen in those terms, where are the banks of time? What would be this river鈥檚 qualities, qualities perhaps corresponding to those of water, which is fluid, rather heavy, and translucent? In what way do objects immersed in time differ from those left untouched by it? Why do we show the hours of light and darkness in the same circle? Why does time stand eternally still and motionless in one place, and rush headlong by in another?
The past is irretrievably lost and only its echo still lingers on: old things, documents, books, buildings, statues, paintings, objets d鈥檃rt鈥�
April 12, 2012
Of all the kinds of reviews to write, the ecstatically enthusiastic ones are the worst, I think. No matter how much you try to pepper your review with big words and thoughtful commentary, you inevitably end up sounding like a gum-chomping tween girl squealing the paint off the walls about some boy band that looks like it should be directed to a hormone therapy ward.
Being openly enthusiastic about virtually anything can be tough鈥攂ecause it makes you vulnerable. It's like this: in a moment of weakness, you blurt out your unchecked passion for this or that, and along comes some dismissive asshole who deflates your earnest affection with a bit of cheap snark. (Mike Reynolds's review of The Road comes to mind here. But he's one of my favorite dismissive assholes.) Very much in the same way that I just now condescendingly patted the musical tastes of tween girls on the head and sent them on their way in the previous paragraph鈥攚hen in fact some of them would clearly cut a bitch to get within fellating distance of a Jonas brother (or whatever twerps they happen to be listening to this week).
And W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz is an especially difficult book for me to get all OMFG!!! about because it's not the kind of book that everyone is going to like. I myself know a few people who would probably rather undergo dangerous elective surgery than plow through three hundred pages of slow-burning rumination about memory and, particularly, the Holocaust. Austerlitz is a specialized novel for a specialized audience鈥攚hich certainly isn't to say a smarter or more refined audience. (Because that's rude to say, I guess, even though it may be true.)
I glanced through a couple of the negative reviews of this book on 欧宝娱乐, and they were especially idiotic. Their idiocy is not derived from their dislike of the book, however, but from the reasons they cite for disliking it. There was one woman in particular (God love her, as my high school Old Testament teacher Father Bly would say, dismissively) who lamented the lack of entertainment value in the book. And it was clear from contextual clues that 'entertainment' implied an escapist, reasonably upbeat, and eventful narrative. I hate this so much! Art (and yes鈥攂ooks are art!) isn't here to pacify you; it's not another tool at your disposal in the cultural toolbox to turn you into a drooling, thoughtless catatonic. You really weren't put here to spend all your off-time golfing and sticking your hand down your pants in front of the television. I thought this was fairly obviously.
There's this nitwit I work with, for instance, who is traumatized by any day that isn't sunny, warm, and encouraging, who refuses to see any movie that isn't expressly feel-good, and who (proudly) never reads books of any kind鈥攂ecause they would divert her from truly fun and mindless activities. It should go without saying that although I am a non-violent person I occasionally have fantasies about entering her office with a sledgehammer and destroying everything in sight. You should see the look on her dumb face when I show up at the door with that sledgehammer! Priceless! (This is what twenty-first century Middle America does to a man.)
Anyway. Did I mention it is just before 4 AM when I am writing this? I was restless in bed (not because of this review, mind you) and I thought I'd get the review of this book over with. Did you just see that? I said 'get it over with.' But why do I need to write a review at all? It's not like the entire online community is waiting breathlessly for me to weigh in with my opinion of this or any book.
Well, let me tell you why: Because if I read a book and I really, really, really love it (as I loved Austerlitz) I have to scream about it like a girl at a Justin Bieber concert. I become evangelical about these things. It's a compulsion.
The ironic thing is that I've discharged my burden without actually telling you much of anything about this book or why you should or should not read it. Which is kind of a shame. I guess I'm hoping my enthusiasm will speak for itself. But in an eleventh hour bid at relevance, let me say this: If you enjoy slow, meditative, labyrinthine remembrances about (I suppose) our alienation from our own past, then read this book. But if you only want to be 'entertained' from now until the moment that you die, then what are you even doing here? Killing time?
Being openly enthusiastic about virtually anything can be tough鈥攂ecause it makes you vulnerable. It's like this: in a moment of weakness, you blurt out your unchecked passion for this or that, and along comes some dismissive asshole who deflates your earnest affection with a bit of cheap snark. (Mike Reynolds's review of The Road comes to mind here. But he's one of my favorite dismissive assholes.) Very much in the same way that I just now condescendingly patted the musical tastes of tween girls on the head and sent them on their way in the previous paragraph鈥攚hen in fact some of them would clearly cut a bitch to get within fellating distance of a Jonas brother (or whatever twerps they happen to be listening to this week).
And W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz is an especially difficult book for me to get all OMFG!!! about because it's not the kind of book that everyone is going to like. I myself know a few people who would probably rather undergo dangerous elective surgery than plow through three hundred pages of slow-burning rumination about memory and, particularly, the Holocaust. Austerlitz is a specialized novel for a specialized audience鈥攚hich certainly isn't to say a smarter or more refined audience. (Because that's rude to say, I guess, even though it may be true.)
I glanced through a couple of the negative reviews of this book on 欧宝娱乐, and they were especially idiotic. Their idiocy is not derived from their dislike of the book, however, but from the reasons they cite for disliking it. There was one woman in particular (God love her, as my high school Old Testament teacher Father Bly would say, dismissively) who lamented the lack of entertainment value in the book. And it was clear from contextual clues that 'entertainment' implied an escapist, reasonably upbeat, and eventful narrative. I hate this so much! Art (and yes鈥攂ooks are art!) isn't here to pacify you; it's not another tool at your disposal in the cultural toolbox to turn you into a drooling, thoughtless catatonic. You really weren't put here to spend all your off-time golfing and sticking your hand down your pants in front of the television. I thought this was fairly obviously.
There's this nitwit I work with, for instance, who is traumatized by any day that isn't sunny, warm, and encouraging, who refuses to see any movie that isn't expressly feel-good, and who (proudly) never reads books of any kind鈥攂ecause they would divert her from truly fun and mindless activities. It should go without saying that although I am a non-violent person I occasionally have fantasies about entering her office with a sledgehammer and destroying everything in sight. You should see the look on her dumb face when I show up at the door with that sledgehammer! Priceless! (This is what twenty-first century Middle America does to a man.)
Anyway. Did I mention it is just before 4 AM when I am writing this? I was restless in bed (not because of this review, mind you) and I thought I'd get the review of this book over with. Did you just see that? I said 'get it over with.' But why do I need to write a review at all? It's not like the entire online community is waiting breathlessly for me to weigh in with my opinion of this or any book.
Well, let me tell you why: Because if I read a book and I really, really, really love it (as I loved Austerlitz) I have to scream about it like a girl at a Justin Bieber concert. I become evangelical about these things. It's a compulsion.
The ironic thing is that I've discharged my burden without actually telling you much of anything about this book or why you should or should not read it. Which is kind of a shame. I guess I'm hoping my enthusiasm will speak for itself. But in an eleventh hour bid at relevance, let me say this: If you enjoy slow, meditative, labyrinthine remembrances about (I suppose) our alienation from our own past, then read this book. But if you only want to be 'entertained' from now until the moment that you die, then what are you even doing here? Killing time?
June 18, 2024
Austerlitz.
Great Napoleonic victory. How many people can boast that having this surname is not banal?
They are probably people with extraordinary destinies. It would not be easy to understand why such people remain in the shadows.
Jacques Austerlitz, the main character of this WG Sebald book, is one of those scholars, a passionate philosopher, a man in search of his past, that of his family. What was his life like before the age of 4 and a half? Has he always called Austerlitz? Has he still lived in Wales, in a pastor's family?
That's a man who, page by page, rebuilds his memory and seeks to understand his past, of his parents, from Wales to Czechoslovakia, via Germany, Paris, London, and others. Still others a memory built by visiting places, libraries, cities, and fortifications, through meetings with other enthusiasts, by crossroads between history and current events, between his knowledge and those of his interlocutors, my readings, by an investigation work.
The narrator, who had Jacques Austerlitz as a teacher, talks with him. Jacques is now a lecturer at the London Art History Institute, but he has had many other interests, different passions, lives, and trades.
It's an exciting book, which "deserves," not easy to read and follow ... sometimes destabilizing. However, the narrators intersect, their words support each other, and their knowledge of Jacques mingles with the narrator or people they meet.
None of the people Jacques will encounter is commonplace. Yet, all who have a wealth of knowledge are passionate about a place, a city, or a fortification. They have a story, a life to tell. They are almost obsessed with each other in their corner, with insects or butterflies and parrots, and with the history of cities, railway stations, cemeteries, and quiet buildings today, which have been places of torture and deportation.
Austerlitz forces us to reflect on man's vanity and specific human constructions, fortresses obsolete and overcome by the progress they have been completing. Constructed to defend and ultimately used to kill innocent people, built modern libraries to promote the culture and leave a trace in the history of their initiator. And finally, unsuitable for promoting culture, a book made to recall a past that we seek to move aside, the importance of traces of spent not forgetting a message from a German anti-Nazi author.
Each word weighed, each description of the place, and each historical or cultural reference is a pleasure. What knowledge accumulated was made available to the reader. It may be a little too complicated, sometimes seeming accumulated unnecessarily.
The book's construction is not bland, which can be repulsive. Some will close this book after 20 pages. The author built it without any chapter, paragraph, or quotation mark. But we do not read poetry, melancholy cultural and historical references, philosophical or sociological reflections, or the construction of memory "diagonally." No! We cling!
I come out a little dizzy but happy.
Great Napoleonic victory. How many people can boast that having this surname is not banal?
They are probably people with extraordinary destinies. It would not be easy to understand why such people remain in the shadows.
Jacques Austerlitz, the main character of this WG Sebald book, is one of those scholars, a passionate philosopher, a man in search of his past, that of his family. What was his life like before the age of 4 and a half? Has he always called Austerlitz? Has he still lived in Wales, in a pastor's family?
That's a man who, page by page, rebuilds his memory and seeks to understand his past, of his parents, from Wales to Czechoslovakia, via Germany, Paris, London, and others. Still others a memory built by visiting places, libraries, cities, and fortifications, through meetings with other enthusiasts, by crossroads between history and current events, between his knowledge and those of his interlocutors, my readings, by an investigation work.
The narrator, who had Jacques Austerlitz as a teacher, talks with him. Jacques is now a lecturer at the London Art History Institute, but he has had many other interests, different passions, lives, and trades.
It's an exciting book, which "deserves," not easy to read and follow ... sometimes destabilizing. However, the narrators intersect, their words support each other, and their knowledge of Jacques mingles with the narrator or people they meet.
None of the people Jacques will encounter is commonplace. Yet, all who have a wealth of knowledge are passionate about a place, a city, or a fortification. They have a story, a life to tell. They are almost obsessed with each other in their corner, with insects or butterflies and parrots, and with the history of cities, railway stations, cemeteries, and quiet buildings today, which have been places of torture and deportation.
Austerlitz forces us to reflect on man's vanity and specific human constructions, fortresses obsolete and overcome by the progress they have been completing. Constructed to defend and ultimately used to kill innocent people, built modern libraries to promote the culture and leave a trace in the history of their initiator. And finally, unsuitable for promoting culture, a book made to recall a past that we seek to move aside, the importance of traces of spent not forgetting a message from a German anti-Nazi author.
Each word weighed, each description of the place, and each historical or cultural reference is a pleasure. What knowledge accumulated was made available to the reader. It may be a little too complicated, sometimes seeming accumulated unnecessarily.
The book's construction is not bland, which can be repulsive. Some will close this book after 20 pages. The author built it without any chapter, paragraph, or quotation mark. But we do not read poetry, melancholy cultural and historical references, philosophical or sociological reflections, or the construction of memory "diagonally." No! We cling!
I come out a little dizzy but happy.
October 13, 2020
鈥淣o one can explain exactly what happens within us when the doors behind which our childhood terrors lurk are flung open.鈥�
鈥� W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
Turning the pages of the novel Austerlitz makes for one powerful, emotionally wrenching experience. Here's what esteemed critic Michiko Kakutani wrote as part of her New York Times review: "We are transported to a memoryscape - a twilight, fogbound world of half-remembered images and ghosts that is reminiscent at once of Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries, Kafka's troubling fables of guilt and apprehension and, of course, Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.''
With his lyrical, poetic language, German born W. G. Sebald reminds me of the Nobel prize winning French author Patrick Modiano. Mr. Sebald blends fact and fiction in his tale of an unnamed narrator meeting and befriending a historian of European architecture by the name of Jacques Austerlitz. Also included are more than six dozen photographs along with a number of illustrations and charts.
The more we come to know Austerlitz in his recounting of his past, how he arrived in Britain in 1939 as a refugee, age four, from Nazi infested Czechoslovakia, how he was adopted and raised by an older Welsh minister and his wife, how, as an adult, he returned to Prague and located a close friend of his vanished mother and father, how he then further traced the fate of his parents, the more our hearts open not only to Austerlitz and his family but all the many men and women and children who suffered the brutality and madness of the Nazis.
I suspect one reason Mr. Sebald included the many black and white photographs as part of his novel goes back to what art critic Robert Hughes noted about the Holocaust: photography captured the ghastliness of the atrocities in a way other forms of art could not. In an attempt to retain the tone of this deeply moving literary work, I have included black and white photographs of my own choosing to accompany direct quotes from the novel.
"It was only by following the course time prescribed that we could hasten through the gigantic spaces separating us from each other. And indeed, said Austerlitz after a while, to this day there is something illusionistic and illusory about the relationship of time and space as we experience it in traveling, which is why whenever we come home from elsewhere we never feel quite sure if we have really been abroad."
"As it was, I recognized him by the rucksack of his, and for the first time in as far back as I can remember I recollected myself as a small child, at the moment when I realized that it must have been to this same waiting room I had come on my arrival in England over half a century ago."
"After ninety seconds in which to defend yourself to a judge you could be condemned to death for a trifle, some offense barely worth mentioning, the merest contravention of the regulations in force, and then you would be hanged immediately in the execution room next to the law court, where there was an iron rail running along the ceiling down where the lifeless bodies where pushed a little further as required."
"Most of them were silent, some wept quietly, but outbursts of despair, loud shouting and fits of frenzied rage were not uncommon."
鈥淭he darkness does not lift but becomes yet heavier as I think how little we can hold in mind, how everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every extinguished life, how the world is, as it were, draining itself, in that the history of countless places and objects which themselves have no power or memory is never heard, never described or passed on.鈥�
"The longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead, that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision.鈥�
December 17, 2022
TOUTE LA M脡MOIRE DU MONDE
Il film 鈥淎usterlitz鈥� 猫 del 2015, con Denis Lavant nel ruolo del protagonista (l鈥檃ttore feticcio di Leos Carax), diretto dal praghese Stan Neumann. Il film non ha circolato se non per qualche festival, il suo pubblico (ristretto) 猫 stato confinato alla critica che lo ha definito U.M.O., nel senso di Unidentified Movie Object (gli U.F.O. sono unindentified Flying Object).
Di fronte a pagine monolitiche, prive di interruzioni e a capo, con periodi lunghi, ricerca del dettaglio e frequenti digressioni, ci si pu貌 perdere: ma non qui.
Le fotografie, bellissime, spezzano la lettura: e pi霉 ci si avvicina alla fine e pi霉 sembra che aumentino e compaiano anche le prime interruzioni, i primi spazi bianchi: proprio quando il libro sta per finire, e io non lo volevo affatto lasciare, volevo che continuasse, senza sosta.
C鈥櫭� ancora tanta memoria del mondo che Sebald pu貌 raccontare.
O forse no? 脠 davvero tutta qui, come nel breve bellissimo documentario di Alain Resnais sulla Biblioteca Nazionale di Parigi, "Toute la m茅moire du monde"?
Altra immagine tratta dall鈥橴.M.O.
Gli articoli e commenti che ho letto su quest鈥檕pera insistono sulla ripetizione ossessiva della parola viaggio (Sebald ci porta di qua e di l脿 per l鈥橢uropa, avanti e indietro nel tempo) e della domanda se si tratti di fiction o di non-fiction.
Il viaggio 猫 essenzialmente temporale, un viaggio nella Storia, e soprattutto nella Memoria.
Per quanto riguarda l鈥檃ltra questione, direi che questo libro 猫 la quintessenza del romanzo, e che del genere 鈥榬omanzo鈥� utilizza espedienti vari e ingegnosi: l鈥檌ntreccio di materiali diversi (storia, riflessione filosofica, cronaca, fotografia, architettura, pittura, botanica, entomologia鈥�), la ricerca-indagine, il cambiamento dei punti di vista (costantemente due, il narratore e Austerlitz, e di quando in quando, ne entra un terzo, Vera sopra tutti, ma anche altri testimoni/commentatori/portatori di informazioni che Austerlitz pi霉 o meno casualmente incontra e incrocia), le scatole cinesi, il racconto nel racconto鈥� al punto che io per tutto il tempo della lettura ho avuto in mente film (鈥淔 For Fake鈥� di Welles, 鈥淟'hypoth猫se du tableau vol茅鈥�, e sempre di Ruiz, 鈥淟es trois couronnes du matelot鈥� con quella incredibile fotografia di Sacha Vierny che da sola genera immagini e atmosfera e attesa) e Cortazar e鈥�
鈥i imbattei in una fotografia di grande formato, raffigurante una stanza tutta caselle, dal pavimento al soffitto, in cui oggi vengono conservati i documenti dei prigionieri reclusi nella cosiddetta fortezza piccola di Terez铆n. [p.299-301]
Se Sebald 猫 rintracciabile nel narratore, in tutto o in parte, se invece sia Austelitz, o un mix dei due, che cosa cambia? Se i fatti narrati sono accaduti veramente, se la 鈥榬ealt脿鈥� entra in scena, non 猫 pi霉 romanzo?
Come se la 鈥榬ealt脿鈥� non avesse bisogno della letteratura per diventare verit脿鈥�.
Sebbene pubblicato nel 2001, 猫 composto con scrittura di cento anni prima e atmosfere anche precedenti: contemporaneamente rimane figlio della fine del secondo millennio per costruzione narrativa e uso delle magnifiche fotografie.
鈥 qui, sull鈥檃ltra fotografia, disse V臎ra dopo qualche istante, qui ci sei tu, Jacquot, nel febbraio del 1939, pi霉 o meno sei mesi prima della tua partenza da Praga. Avevi avuto il permesso di accompagnare Ag谩ta a un ballo in maschera in casa di uno dei suoi influenti ammiratori e, apposta per l鈥檕ccasione, ti confezionarono questo costume tutto bianco. Jacquot Austerlitz, p谩啪e r暖啪ov茅 kr谩lovny, 猫 scritto sul retro per manod i tuo nonno, che proprio in quei giorni era in visita da noi. [p.197-198]
Io sono stato rapito da subito, dalle descrizioni e divagazioni architettoniche, che con me trovano terreno fertile e lettore interessato, pronto a riconoscere la bellezza delle parole e dei mattoni, delle fortezze militari e delle stazioni e delle banche, di tutte le 'cattedrali' che il capitalismo ha dedicato alla propria glorificazione.
Ma le fortezze che sembravano inespugnabili sono diventate inutili nel giro di pochi decenni, quando nuove armi e nuove tattiche d鈥檃ssedio le hanno superate: quello che doveva essere perfezione (del lavoro, della razionalit脿, della durata鈥�), risulta presto molto imperfetto, cattedrale nel deserto.
Cos矛 come, spingendo all鈥檈ccesso il paragone (operazione che mi fa venire i brividi), come tutta la perfezione tecnica, l鈥檃zione degli 鈥榮pecialisti鈥� nazisti nello spianare la strada alla razza ariana e a un mondo 鈥榣iberato鈥� da impuri, ha causato orrori e sfracelli, ma si 猫 dissolta nella sua stessa perversa finta logica, nella stessa maniacalit脿 perfezionista.
鈥 continuo a guardare quel viso nel contempo estraneo e familiare, disse Austerlitz, faccio scorrere all鈥檌ndietro la pellicola, volta per volta, e vedo l鈥檌ndicatore del tempo nell鈥檃ngolo a sinistra in alto dello schermo, i numeri che le nascondono in parte la fronte, i minuti e i secondi, da 10:53 a 10:57, e i centesimi di secondo, che girano talmente in fretta da non poter essere n茅 decifrati n茅 trattenuti. [p.267-268]
Austerlitz si muove per l鈥橢uropa e nella sua memoria: racconta con parole cariche di malinconia e angoscia, parla al narratore, ma 猫 un lungo monologo che sembra ininterrotto, non interrotto n茅 dall鈥檃scoltatore n茅 dal tempo.
Sta parlando a se stesso? 脠 da qui che proviene il senso di straniamento?
脠 Sebald o Austerlitz che teme le parole non siano sufficienti e rimangano traballanti senza il puntello, senza la 鈥榲erit脿鈥�, delle fotografie?
In realt脿, anche le immagini sono un magnifico raffinato artificio letterario. In fondo, ai replicanti di 鈥楤lade Runner鈥� venivano fornite proprio fotografie per costruire una loro memoria personale e privata, basata sulla finzione, sull鈥檃rtificio. E le prime foto nel libro sono di occhi, occhi di uccelli (rapaci notturni) e occhi di uomini: occhi che fissano il lettore, occhi che forse guardano le altre foto dell鈥檕pera per cercare la memoria perduta, per cercare un鈥檌dentit脿 dimenticata e quindi sconosciuta, e alla fine forse per trovare solo amnesia.
Austerlitz crede di riconoscere la madre che ha perduto e dimenticato e poi improvvisamente, e apparentemente, scoperto e ritrovato, crede di riconoscerla in un fotogramma. Ma ha bisogno della memoria, della conoscenza, degli occhi di V臎ra per capire che 猫 un鈥檌llusione, sua madre non 猫 quella, non 猫 in quell鈥檌mmagine.
鈥 l矛 fra le lettere, cartelle personali, programmi di sala e ritagli di giornale ingialliti, mi sono imbattuto nella fotografia, priva di indicazioni, di un鈥檃ttrice la quale pareva coincidere con il ricordo offuscato che avevo di mia madre鈥� [p.269]
Dov鈥櫭�, allora, la verit脿? Nella stanza tutta caselle, dal pavimento al soffitto, dove oggi sono conservati i documenti di tutti quelli reclusi e scomparsi a Terez铆n?
Libro magnifico.
Magnifico e azzecatissimo regalo di un鈥檃mica.
Opera ardita, che si spinge in alto, come la torre di Babele: e forse proprio questo ha determinato il caos e l鈥檌nconcludenza di questo mio commento.
Immagine che non viene da Austerlitz, ma come sempre una persona fotografata di spalle si carica di mistero e suspense. Mistero e suspense di cui il romanzo di Sebald 猫 pregno.
Il film 鈥淎usterlitz鈥� 猫 del 2015, con Denis Lavant nel ruolo del protagonista (l鈥檃ttore feticcio di Leos Carax), diretto dal praghese Stan Neumann. Il film non ha circolato se non per qualche festival, il suo pubblico (ristretto) 猫 stato confinato alla critica che lo ha definito U.M.O., nel senso di Unidentified Movie Object (gli U.F.O. sono unindentified Flying Object).
Di fronte a pagine monolitiche, prive di interruzioni e a capo, con periodi lunghi, ricerca del dettaglio e frequenti digressioni, ci si pu貌 perdere: ma non qui.
Le fotografie, bellissime, spezzano la lettura: e pi霉 ci si avvicina alla fine e pi霉 sembra che aumentino e compaiano anche le prime interruzioni, i primi spazi bianchi: proprio quando il libro sta per finire, e io non lo volevo affatto lasciare, volevo che continuasse, senza sosta.
C鈥櫭� ancora tanta memoria del mondo che Sebald pu貌 raccontare.
O forse no? 脠 davvero tutta qui, come nel breve bellissimo documentario di Alain Resnais sulla Biblioteca Nazionale di Parigi, "Toute la m茅moire du monde"?
Altra immagine tratta dall鈥橴.M.O.
Gli articoli e commenti che ho letto su quest鈥檕pera insistono sulla ripetizione ossessiva della parola viaggio (Sebald ci porta di qua e di l脿 per l鈥橢uropa, avanti e indietro nel tempo) e della domanda se si tratti di fiction o di non-fiction.
Il viaggio 猫 essenzialmente temporale, un viaggio nella Storia, e soprattutto nella Memoria.
Per quanto riguarda l鈥檃ltra questione, direi che questo libro 猫 la quintessenza del romanzo, e che del genere 鈥榬omanzo鈥� utilizza espedienti vari e ingegnosi: l鈥檌ntreccio di materiali diversi (storia, riflessione filosofica, cronaca, fotografia, architettura, pittura, botanica, entomologia鈥�), la ricerca-indagine, il cambiamento dei punti di vista (costantemente due, il narratore e Austerlitz, e di quando in quando, ne entra un terzo, Vera sopra tutti, ma anche altri testimoni/commentatori/portatori di informazioni che Austerlitz pi霉 o meno casualmente incontra e incrocia), le scatole cinesi, il racconto nel racconto鈥� al punto che io per tutto il tempo della lettura ho avuto in mente film (鈥淔 For Fake鈥� di Welles, 鈥淟'hypoth猫se du tableau vol茅鈥�, e sempre di Ruiz, 鈥淟es trois couronnes du matelot鈥� con quella incredibile fotografia di Sacha Vierny che da sola genera immagini e atmosfera e attesa) e Cortazar e鈥�
鈥i imbattei in una fotografia di grande formato, raffigurante una stanza tutta caselle, dal pavimento al soffitto, in cui oggi vengono conservati i documenti dei prigionieri reclusi nella cosiddetta fortezza piccola di Terez铆n. [p.299-301]
Se Sebald 猫 rintracciabile nel narratore, in tutto o in parte, se invece sia Austelitz, o un mix dei due, che cosa cambia? Se i fatti narrati sono accaduti veramente, se la 鈥榬ealt脿鈥� entra in scena, non 猫 pi霉 romanzo?
Come se la 鈥榬ealt脿鈥� non avesse bisogno della letteratura per diventare verit脿鈥�.
Sebbene pubblicato nel 2001, 猫 composto con scrittura di cento anni prima e atmosfere anche precedenti: contemporaneamente rimane figlio della fine del secondo millennio per costruzione narrativa e uso delle magnifiche fotografie.
鈥 qui, sull鈥檃ltra fotografia, disse V臎ra dopo qualche istante, qui ci sei tu, Jacquot, nel febbraio del 1939, pi霉 o meno sei mesi prima della tua partenza da Praga. Avevi avuto il permesso di accompagnare Ag谩ta a un ballo in maschera in casa di uno dei suoi influenti ammiratori e, apposta per l鈥檕ccasione, ti confezionarono questo costume tutto bianco. Jacquot Austerlitz, p谩啪e r暖啪ov茅 kr谩lovny, 猫 scritto sul retro per manod i tuo nonno, che proprio in quei giorni era in visita da noi. [p.197-198]
Io sono stato rapito da subito, dalle descrizioni e divagazioni architettoniche, che con me trovano terreno fertile e lettore interessato, pronto a riconoscere la bellezza delle parole e dei mattoni, delle fortezze militari e delle stazioni e delle banche, di tutte le 'cattedrali' che il capitalismo ha dedicato alla propria glorificazione.
Ma le fortezze che sembravano inespugnabili sono diventate inutili nel giro di pochi decenni, quando nuove armi e nuove tattiche d鈥檃ssedio le hanno superate: quello che doveva essere perfezione (del lavoro, della razionalit脿, della durata鈥�), risulta presto molto imperfetto, cattedrale nel deserto.
Cos矛 come, spingendo all鈥檈ccesso il paragone (operazione che mi fa venire i brividi), come tutta la perfezione tecnica, l鈥檃zione degli 鈥榮pecialisti鈥� nazisti nello spianare la strada alla razza ariana e a un mondo 鈥榣iberato鈥� da impuri, ha causato orrori e sfracelli, ma si 猫 dissolta nella sua stessa perversa finta logica, nella stessa maniacalit脿 perfezionista.
鈥 continuo a guardare quel viso nel contempo estraneo e familiare, disse Austerlitz, faccio scorrere all鈥檌ndietro la pellicola, volta per volta, e vedo l鈥檌ndicatore del tempo nell鈥檃ngolo a sinistra in alto dello schermo, i numeri che le nascondono in parte la fronte, i minuti e i secondi, da 10:53 a 10:57, e i centesimi di secondo, che girano talmente in fretta da non poter essere n茅 decifrati n茅 trattenuti. [p.267-268]
Austerlitz si muove per l鈥橢uropa e nella sua memoria: racconta con parole cariche di malinconia e angoscia, parla al narratore, ma 猫 un lungo monologo che sembra ininterrotto, non interrotto n茅 dall鈥檃scoltatore n茅 dal tempo.
Sta parlando a se stesso? 脠 da qui che proviene il senso di straniamento?
脠 Sebald o Austerlitz che teme le parole non siano sufficienti e rimangano traballanti senza il puntello, senza la 鈥榲erit脿鈥�, delle fotografie?
In realt脿, anche le immagini sono un magnifico raffinato artificio letterario. In fondo, ai replicanti di 鈥楤lade Runner鈥� venivano fornite proprio fotografie per costruire una loro memoria personale e privata, basata sulla finzione, sull鈥檃rtificio. E le prime foto nel libro sono di occhi, occhi di uccelli (rapaci notturni) e occhi di uomini: occhi che fissano il lettore, occhi che forse guardano le altre foto dell鈥檕pera per cercare la memoria perduta, per cercare un鈥檌dentit脿 dimenticata e quindi sconosciuta, e alla fine forse per trovare solo amnesia.
Austerlitz crede di riconoscere la madre che ha perduto e dimenticato e poi improvvisamente, e apparentemente, scoperto e ritrovato, crede di riconoscerla in un fotogramma. Ma ha bisogno della memoria, della conoscenza, degli occhi di V臎ra per capire che 猫 un鈥檌llusione, sua madre non 猫 quella, non 猫 in quell鈥檌mmagine.
鈥 l矛 fra le lettere, cartelle personali, programmi di sala e ritagli di giornale ingialliti, mi sono imbattuto nella fotografia, priva di indicazioni, di un鈥檃ttrice la quale pareva coincidere con il ricordo offuscato che avevo di mia madre鈥� [p.269]
Dov鈥櫭�, allora, la verit脿? Nella stanza tutta caselle, dal pavimento al soffitto, dove oggi sono conservati i documenti di tutti quelli reclusi e scomparsi a Terez铆n?
Libro magnifico.
Magnifico e azzecatissimo regalo di un鈥檃mica.
Opera ardita, che si spinge in alto, come la torre di Babele: e forse proprio questo ha determinato il caos e l鈥檌nconcludenza di questo mio commento.
Immagine che non viene da Austerlitz, ma come sempre una persona fotografata di spalle si carica di mistero e suspense. Mistero e suspense di cui il romanzo di Sebald 猫 pregno.
January 28, 2016
There鈥檚 something reminiscent of an archaeological dig about Austerlitz 鈥� the quest to piece back together a missing life by sifting through layers of the past. The finds often appearing random and impenetrable until eventually a cypher is discovered.
Austerlitz reads like the autobiography of an academic, recounted in instalments to the stranger he repeatedly meets in various locations, who has lived a hermetic and fruitless life. You鈥檙e never quite sure if you鈥檙e reading biography or fiction, a puzzle enhanced by the inclusion of many photographs purporting to be a documentation of Austerlitz鈥檚 life. We soon learn that he has always shied away from the knowledge of who he really is, that he was sent on a Kindertransport by his mother when the Nazis invaded Prague where he lived as a child. Very late in life he sets about trying to discover what happened to his mother and father.
It鈥檚 no coincidence that Austerlitz shares his name with a train station as train stations are a constant conduit for transition and connection - and ever present is the towering menace they can evoke in the light of the holocaust. The best parts of this novel are always when he explores the relationship of buildings to history, when he confronts the ghosts that haunt buildings. There鈥檚 a brilliant indictment of the horrible new Biblioth猫que Nationale in Paris which we discover was formerly the site of the warehouses where the Nazis stored looted treasure from the Parisian Jews. Also moving is when he visits the concentration camp at Theresienstadt where his mother was interned and even more so when he acquires a copy of the Nazi propaganda film of the ghetto and slows it down in the hope of catching a glimpse of his mother鈥檚 face among all the Jewish prisoners forced to act out a grotesque charade of wellbeing. In the slowed down version the upbeat music of the soundtrack becomes an insufferable mournful dirge.
Translated from German, the voice is deadpan, weathered, almost monotonous and no doubt might alienate some readers. I can鈥檛 say it was a prose style that enamoured me much.
Austerlitz reads like the autobiography of an academic, recounted in instalments to the stranger he repeatedly meets in various locations, who has lived a hermetic and fruitless life. You鈥檙e never quite sure if you鈥檙e reading biography or fiction, a puzzle enhanced by the inclusion of many photographs purporting to be a documentation of Austerlitz鈥檚 life. We soon learn that he has always shied away from the knowledge of who he really is, that he was sent on a Kindertransport by his mother when the Nazis invaded Prague where he lived as a child. Very late in life he sets about trying to discover what happened to his mother and father.
It鈥檚 no coincidence that Austerlitz shares his name with a train station as train stations are a constant conduit for transition and connection - and ever present is the towering menace they can evoke in the light of the holocaust. The best parts of this novel are always when he explores the relationship of buildings to history, when he confronts the ghosts that haunt buildings. There鈥檚 a brilliant indictment of the horrible new Biblioth猫que Nationale in Paris which we discover was formerly the site of the warehouses where the Nazis stored looted treasure from the Parisian Jews. Also moving is when he visits the concentration camp at Theresienstadt where his mother was interned and even more so when he acquires a copy of the Nazi propaganda film of the ghetto and slows it down in the hope of catching a glimpse of his mother鈥檚 face among all the Jewish prisoners forced to act out a grotesque charade of wellbeing. In the slowed down version the upbeat music of the soundtrack becomes an insufferable mournful dirge.
Translated from German, the voice is deadpan, weathered, almost monotonous and no doubt might alienate some readers. I can鈥檛 say it was a prose style that enamoured me much.
November 23, 2021
I first came across the writings of W.G. Sebald by complete accident, wandering in a bookstore I accidentally caught the edge of a table and sent three or four books hurtling to the floor, one was Sebald's 'Vertgo' a book that was unfamiliar to me, but one that caught my attention. Although it didn't set the world on fire for me in ways I had hoped for, it was no doubt the work of a true ingenious writer who pushed the boundaries of fiction into new territory. Within just three pages of reading 'Austerlitz', and faced with four sets of eyes starring at me (including an owl and a philosopher), I lingered for a while starring right back at them, and felt this work would be different, in a good way, and go on to fulfil my expectations, and it did to a degree. For the most part Sebald's narrative cast a hypnotic spell over me. I was awestruck, glued to the pages, and filled with a deep sensation that I can't quite put my finger on. Not many other writers have left me feeling this way. And yet, by it's conclusion, I still couldn't help feeling more like a glass of water half empty rather than one half full. I felt something special building in it's last third, only to feel the novel fizzle out somewhat, knocking back it's lasting impression.
Austerlitz is in many ways so close to being a literary tour-de-force, using the language of extended and ostensibly inconsequential melancholy to describe the life of Jacques Austerlitz whom he (Sebald we presume) first meets in the railway station in Antwerp studying the architecture of its waiting room. It is hard to tell just how much of the narrative, if any, is true, although it reads precisely like it was. Regardless, it's remarkably done. Added throughout are grey out-of-focus photographs of people and places, which lend it veracity. The hero of the book, or more properly the anti-hero since he essentially does nothing especially useful with his life, was born in Prague, the son of a moderately successful opera singer and the manager of a small slipper-making factory who was also active in left-wing politics. The rise of the Nazi party in Germany and the subsequent German invasion of Czechoslovakia meant that his father had to flee to Paris, never to be seen or heard from again, his letters to his family confiscated by the German authorities. His mother managed to arrange for her son to be sent on a Kindertransport to London. He was adopted by a Nonconformist preacher and his wife, near Bala in North Wales. By way of long, gloomy, maundering accounts of his life which sometimes have the character of shaggy dog stories, the narrator builds up a sense of his persona which is essentially a deeply melancholy one, bereft of any friendships, or a sense that he truly belongs in this world.
So, what are we to make of all of this? in a ways the account is emblematic of many ostensibly ineffectual lives, of an academic intelligence wasted in a grandiose intellectual project that requires years of taking notes but never leads to the grand book that should have resulted from it, until the narrator decides to burn all the accumulation of material in a small bonfire in the garden of his terrace house. But, at the same time and in a way that is highly distinctive, the book provides a strangely transcendent and hypnotic sense of the power of history, and of the relationship between an individual and the accidents of their life. I thought the Holocaust may feature more heavily, but it only makes up a small proportion of the book, although when it does go into details it's a powerful account of the devastation wrought by the dispersal of the Jews from Prague and their treatment by the Nazis. Austerlitz fails to make sense of his brutalised young self while wandering round the concentration camp at Terezen, where his mother was confined, which causes him to break down when he later remembers what happened. The book shimmers with something akin to menace. We are starting to become aware that Austerlitz is carrying around a terrible secret. The drama of his life, however, is that he does not know what that secret is. He is a man burdened by memories that he does not possess. But little by little, sheer chance cracks the carapace and the memories come flooding back.
Sebald's use of the old, and architectural detail, biography and travelogue, is quite brilliant, and generally his characters are totally fixated by histories, and by that especially of 19th-century Europe, for the lessons it carries about how apparent rationalism can turn monstrous. In this, as in the book's use of flashbacks, ominous journeys and panoramic descriptions, there are the faint echoes of Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'. And for all the uniquely lulling rhythm of Sebald's sentences and the trademark eerie precision of his language - his Antwerp fort has limbs and claws - other influences, too, begin to suggest themselves. The sense here of people being dwarfed and oppressed by systems is familiar from Kafka and Foucault: even the libraries where the narrators loiter are depicted as infinitely oppressive institutions. At it's heart though, it's simply a story about a life, Sebald includes passages with the rawness of a rare, good memoir, and the momentum of a rarer still convincing historical epic. There is even a wide-screen battle scene, as Austerlitz listens to his boarding-school history teacher recount the Napoleonic War confrontation of the same name: "The Russian and Austrian troops had come down from the mountain sides like a slow avalanche... I see cannonballs suspended for an eternity in the air... victims flinging up"
There were moments that were extraordinarily affecting, and the haunting meandering journey through time, place, and even genre makes me feel so glad to have read this. It is no doubt a unique book by a writer who stood out from the crowd. And it saddens me to think of all the future work Sebald never got to produce. Had he been around today, then I am sure he would have been a Nobel recipient by now.
January 11, 2025
At first sight, this book seems like an endless succession of distant observations, a long chain of purely visual descriptions by the author himself (at least if we assume the narrator is Sebald) and especially by his somewhat mysterious friend Jacques Austerlitz. I know this does not seem very attractive, and it is also strengthened by the monotonous and slow narrative style that is sustained throughout the story. I can understand that many people slam this book after a number of pages.
But at the same time the narrative style is just what makes it stand out! You can compare it with the style of Marcel Proust: long meandering sentences with an accumulation of details and also very visually descriptive. As in his previous novels Sebald has inserted dozens of rather vague, black and white photographs to emphasize the realistic nature of the narrative, but with the paradoxal effect that they add uncertainty. And then there鈥檚 the continuous use of the indirect speech: on almost every page Sebald mentions "said Austerlitz", and in the second third of the book there even is a double indirect speech, "said Vera, said Austerlitz" , as he recounts what Austerlitz鈥� former nanny has told Austerlitz about his past. This repeated indirect speech strengthens the mesmerizing, hypnotic effect of the story, as if you were walking in the dead of the night, before sunrise, in a half waking state of mind. I suspect that Sebald thus consciously intended to reach the effect of timelessness.
And this brings us to the meta-fictional layer of this book: to me, it is essentially about time, and how we as individuals are in or out of time, are struggling with time, not getting a grip on it and also not able to get away from it. That, in a nutshell is the tragedy of the story of Jacques Austerlitz: this isolated, hyper introverted man, the observer of the outside of things (in the beginning of the book he talks incessantly about the architecture and construction history of what he sees around him), this man initially seems to live outside of time; but through his prolonged narrative he shows that 鈥� to his horror 鈥� he has discovered that he is inextricably linked to a very grave episode of human history, namely the Holocaust. This discovery is recounted through a process of slowly scraping his memory, like an archaeologist does, until he comes to the point where he is confronted with what he apparently has suppressed all his life (so there is quite a lot of Freud in this book too).
Downright masterful it is, the way Sebald brings this story. The timelessness that is suggested by the writing style culminates in one long sentence of nine pages, in which the inhuman machinery of the concentration camp/ghetto Theresienstadt is brought to life, seemingly contained and detached but gruesome to the bone.
鈥淎usterlitz鈥� for me definitely is one of the masterpieces of recent literature, although you'ld better read it when you are in a contemplative state of mind. It is truly tragic that W. G. Sebald was killed in a traffic accident a few months after finishing this book.
PS. It鈥檚 a bonus for the Flemish/Belgian reader that the book begins and ends in the Central Station of Antwerp and the Nazi prison camp of Breendonk, which also illustrates the ingenious mirror game that Sebald has included in this story.
But at the same time the narrative style is just what makes it stand out! You can compare it with the style of Marcel Proust: long meandering sentences with an accumulation of details and also very visually descriptive. As in his previous novels Sebald has inserted dozens of rather vague, black and white photographs to emphasize the realistic nature of the narrative, but with the paradoxal effect that they add uncertainty. And then there鈥檚 the continuous use of the indirect speech: on almost every page Sebald mentions "said Austerlitz", and in the second third of the book there even is a double indirect speech, "said Vera, said Austerlitz" , as he recounts what Austerlitz鈥� former nanny has told Austerlitz about his past. This repeated indirect speech strengthens the mesmerizing, hypnotic effect of the story, as if you were walking in the dead of the night, before sunrise, in a half waking state of mind. I suspect that Sebald thus consciously intended to reach the effect of timelessness.
And this brings us to the meta-fictional layer of this book: to me, it is essentially about time, and how we as individuals are in or out of time, are struggling with time, not getting a grip on it and also not able to get away from it. That, in a nutshell is the tragedy of the story of Jacques Austerlitz: this isolated, hyper introverted man, the observer of the outside of things (in the beginning of the book he talks incessantly about the architecture and construction history of what he sees around him), this man initially seems to live outside of time; but through his prolonged narrative he shows that 鈥� to his horror 鈥� he has discovered that he is inextricably linked to a very grave episode of human history, namely the Holocaust. This discovery is recounted through a process of slowly scraping his memory, like an archaeologist does, until he comes to the point where he is confronted with what he apparently has suppressed all his life (so there is quite a lot of Freud in this book too).
Downright masterful it is, the way Sebald brings this story. The timelessness that is suggested by the writing style culminates in one long sentence of nine pages, in which the inhuman machinery of the concentration camp/ghetto Theresienstadt is brought to life, seemingly contained and detached but gruesome to the bone.
鈥淎usterlitz鈥� for me definitely is one of the masterpieces of recent literature, although you'ld better read it when you are in a contemplative state of mind. It is truly tragic that W. G. Sebald was killed in a traffic accident a few months after finishing this book.
PS. It鈥檚 a bonus for the Flemish/Belgian reader that the book begins and ends in the Central Station of Antwerp and the Nazi prison camp of Breendonk, which also illustrates the ingenious mirror game that Sebald has included in this story.
![Profile Image for 漏hrissie 鉂� [1st week on campus-somewhat run-down].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1610034740i%2F49071166._UX200_CR0%2C20%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
April 9, 2022
How many WWII novels have been written, published, read? Too many, perhaps? And yet none 鈥� I repeat 鈥� none possess the full crushing force of Austerlitz, paradoxically a (post-)WWII novel in reverse mode. Or the novelistic version of the film Memento, with Proustian underpinnings.
Austerlitz is the narrative rendition of a backwards, tormented, and obsessive search for one鈥檚 history. 鈥榃hat does it mean?鈥� for Austerlitz to be named thus, as opposed to what he thought his name had been, Elias, until his early teens? Who are his people, and where does he come from? Severed from his family and transported to Wales at the tender age of just over four years, Jacques Austerlitz enters adulthood with a blank slate where there ought to be memories of lived experience, and grows up to be a sombre, isolated, and detached scholar, whose mere sense of belonging wholly depends on his books and love for learning.
This is a tale that narrates the trauma of one鈥檚 own historylessness; a story buried beneath layers and layers of oblivion that must be brought back 鈥� excruciatingly 鈥� to the surface, recovered from the dungeons and underworld of historical atrocity. It is no coincidence that Austerlitz recalls Auschwitz, the emblem of human extinction as perpetuated by history itself. In this novel, Austerlitz sets out on a Joycean journey of self-recovery, as he indefatigably endeavours to retrace long-repressed steps, and painfully endure 鈥� reconstruct, and relay 鈥� the re-emergence of memory.
The narrative itself is contained 鈥� impressively 鈥� within the parameters of one uninterrupted paragraph, in which the Sebald-like narrator meticulously 鈥� and irresistibly, I would say 鈥� recounts Austerlitz鈥檚 story as the latter himself related it to him during their chance encounters between 1967 and 1997. The phrase 鈥榮aid Austerlitz鈥� and its equivalents recur on every page, in a formal recovery 鈥� and re-envisioning 鈥� of Bernhardian syntax, also manifested through Sebald鈥檚 aptitude for long, ravishing, asphyxiating sentences. The seamless flow of the narrative is solely punctuated by an assortment of photographs, images, and mementos that are really and truly an extension of the narrative itself, and reinforce the vision of all-encompassing death and oblivion. Because the very fact that a photograph 鈥榠mmortalises鈥� a person or a thing both conceals and reveals the finitude of its real counterpart. In fact, images 鈥� in words and photographs 鈥� of decay, dust, desolation, and death, abound. As does the recurring sense of 鈥榮inking into鈥� and 鈥榖eing swallowed up鈥�, cast into irreversible oblivion 鈥� the shrinking, as it were, of images and people. Also, the blurred borders between life and death, sinisterly echoing and echoed by the seeming multidimensionality and permutations of spaces: historical wrongs 鈥� and graveyards 鈥� pulsating, though buried, beneath architectural grandeur; or permanently enduring, in the barren, vibrating quietness of the camps and memorials.
Also uninterrupted is the heartache for the waste of it all: for the human reduction to nothing. This is precisely what makes Sebald鈥檚 novel an important one. Monumental, in many respects. Because it is defined by this nothingness, by the trauma of obliteration, and forcefully seeks to counteract it, in a torturous movement that makes for a very fragile and delicate narration, structured around the human鈥檚 instinctive search for meaning while having to navigate through nothingness and the incomprehensible at every turn. Indeed, Austerlitz becomes increasingly aware of his own 鈥榓voidance system鈥� 鈥� his survival instinct, but also that which resists remembrance 鈥� and must agonisingly tear it down via the mode of self-displacement: transferring himself to the desolate post-war landscapes, and connecting fragments of memories. His narrative constantly picks up on a sense of imperceptible vastness and immensity, as it gives way to and is overwhelmed by a stream of muddled-and-morose memories, 鈥榣apsing, as so often, into deep abstraction鈥�.
Sebald鈥檚 writing exhibits a pronounced Proustian sensibility that adds to the contemplative quality of the narration and informs its conception of time, memory, and recollection. It delves into the lacuna and inarticulacy of (historical) time as experienced by the human mind, and filters its grasp on reality through sense-perceptions. Tangible things and sites acquire a life of their own 鈥� a life of meaning. The rucksack, for instance, that Austerlitz carries along with him ever since he can remember. Or a sense of the uncannily familiar 鈥� the half-conscious remembrance 鈥� evoked by a feeling in the air, by the openness and seeming infinitude of landscapes, by the impenetrable, and 鈥� equally 鈥� by the most ordinary of objects and places. Photographs, or Museum tickets, for instance.
Ultimately, Austerlitz is a personal, heart-rending, intimate story of one man鈥檚 life-struggle with unrelenting trauma, the poignant and persisting effects of which reveal themselves endlessly. Austerlitz is unable to engage with fellow human beings, and suffers from hysterical epilepsy, as the devastating realities of his past come back to haunt him. It is about telling 鈥� or exorcising 鈥� the death that is inside him, as well as the harrowing Death(s) of the holocaust. In this respect, this is a very 21st century novel: this is us, profoundly dissociated from a history that is ours: a history of Today, once more, yet again. War prevailing, ruthlessly terminating lives, as if they do not matter to those losing them.
This novel 鈥� it is also worth noting 鈥� is a work of great erudition that is almost encyclopaedic at times, reflecting Austerlitz and the narrator鈥檚 鈥� therefore, Sebald鈥檚 鈥� keen passion for knowledge and scholarly study. The pace certainly suffers from this, but the love and power instilled in these passages is such that they considerably enhance the reading experience, and Sebald no doubt intended for them to add substantial layering to his narrative.
Readers of historical fiction and good literary fiction that stands the test of time 鈥� or rather, immortalises the fading contours of our very own history or historical consciousness 鈥� must read this novel. At the end of which 鈥� mark my words 鈥� you will be a different person to the one you thought you were, before reading this.
Austerlitz has a distinctive hallucinatory feel about it, its seeping, overflowing pain making it both subdued and unforgettably compelling. You feel this narrative 鈥� its undercurrent of the most inextinguishable emotions of humankind 鈥� more so than reading it.
5 stars. Unquestionably so.
Quotes
鈥楢nd yet, he said, it is often our mightiest projects that most obviously betray the degree of our insecurity.鈥�
鈥榃e take almost all the decisive steps in our lives as a result of slight inner adjustments of which we are barely conscious.鈥�
Austerlitz is the narrative rendition of a backwards, tormented, and obsessive search for one鈥檚 history. 鈥榃hat does it mean?鈥� for Austerlitz to be named thus, as opposed to what he thought his name had been, Elias, until his early teens? Who are his people, and where does he come from? Severed from his family and transported to Wales at the tender age of just over four years, Jacques Austerlitz enters adulthood with a blank slate where there ought to be memories of lived experience, and grows up to be a sombre, isolated, and detached scholar, whose mere sense of belonging wholly depends on his books and love for learning.
This is a tale that narrates the trauma of one鈥檚 own historylessness; a story buried beneath layers and layers of oblivion that must be brought back 鈥� excruciatingly 鈥� to the surface, recovered from the dungeons and underworld of historical atrocity. It is no coincidence that Austerlitz recalls Auschwitz, the emblem of human extinction as perpetuated by history itself. In this novel, Austerlitz sets out on a Joycean journey of self-recovery, as he indefatigably endeavours to retrace long-repressed steps, and painfully endure 鈥� reconstruct, and relay 鈥� the re-emergence of memory.
The narrative itself is contained 鈥� impressively 鈥� within the parameters of one uninterrupted paragraph, in which the Sebald-like narrator meticulously 鈥� and irresistibly, I would say 鈥� recounts Austerlitz鈥檚 story as the latter himself related it to him during their chance encounters between 1967 and 1997. The phrase 鈥榮aid Austerlitz鈥� and its equivalents recur on every page, in a formal recovery 鈥� and re-envisioning 鈥� of Bernhardian syntax, also manifested through Sebald鈥檚 aptitude for long, ravishing, asphyxiating sentences. The seamless flow of the narrative is solely punctuated by an assortment of photographs, images, and mementos that are really and truly an extension of the narrative itself, and reinforce the vision of all-encompassing death and oblivion. Because the very fact that a photograph 鈥榠mmortalises鈥� a person or a thing both conceals and reveals the finitude of its real counterpart. In fact, images 鈥� in words and photographs 鈥� of decay, dust, desolation, and death, abound. As does the recurring sense of 鈥榮inking into鈥� and 鈥榖eing swallowed up鈥�, cast into irreversible oblivion 鈥� the shrinking, as it were, of images and people. Also, the blurred borders between life and death, sinisterly echoing and echoed by the seeming multidimensionality and permutations of spaces: historical wrongs 鈥� and graveyards 鈥� pulsating, though buried, beneath architectural grandeur; or permanently enduring, in the barren, vibrating quietness of the camps and memorials.
Also uninterrupted is the heartache for the waste of it all: for the human reduction to nothing. This is precisely what makes Sebald鈥檚 novel an important one. Monumental, in many respects. Because it is defined by this nothingness, by the trauma of obliteration, and forcefully seeks to counteract it, in a torturous movement that makes for a very fragile and delicate narration, structured around the human鈥檚 instinctive search for meaning while having to navigate through nothingness and the incomprehensible at every turn. Indeed, Austerlitz becomes increasingly aware of his own 鈥榓voidance system鈥� 鈥� his survival instinct, but also that which resists remembrance 鈥� and must agonisingly tear it down via the mode of self-displacement: transferring himself to the desolate post-war landscapes, and connecting fragments of memories. His narrative constantly picks up on a sense of imperceptible vastness and immensity, as it gives way to and is overwhelmed by a stream of muddled-and-morose memories, 鈥榣apsing, as so often, into deep abstraction鈥�.
Sebald鈥檚 writing exhibits a pronounced Proustian sensibility that adds to the contemplative quality of the narration and informs its conception of time, memory, and recollection. It delves into the lacuna and inarticulacy of (historical) time as experienced by the human mind, and filters its grasp on reality through sense-perceptions. Tangible things and sites acquire a life of their own 鈥� a life of meaning. The rucksack, for instance, that Austerlitz carries along with him ever since he can remember. Or a sense of the uncannily familiar 鈥� the half-conscious remembrance 鈥� evoked by a feeling in the air, by the openness and seeming infinitude of landscapes, by the impenetrable, and 鈥� equally 鈥� by the most ordinary of objects and places. Photographs, or Museum tickets, for instance.
Ultimately, Austerlitz is a personal, heart-rending, intimate story of one man鈥檚 life-struggle with unrelenting trauma, the poignant and persisting effects of which reveal themselves endlessly. Austerlitz is unable to engage with fellow human beings, and suffers from hysterical epilepsy, as the devastating realities of his past come back to haunt him. It is about telling 鈥� or exorcising 鈥� the death that is inside him, as well as the harrowing Death(s) of the holocaust. In this respect, this is a very 21st century novel: this is us, profoundly dissociated from a history that is ours: a history of Today, once more, yet again. War prevailing, ruthlessly terminating lives, as if they do not matter to those losing them.
This novel 鈥� it is also worth noting 鈥� is a work of great erudition that is almost encyclopaedic at times, reflecting Austerlitz and the narrator鈥檚 鈥� therefore, Sebald鈥檚 鈥� keen passion for knowledge and scholarly study. The pace certainly suffers from this, but the love and power instilled in these passages is such that they considerably enhance the reading experience, and Sebald no doubt intended for them to add substantial layering to his narrative.
Readers of historical fiction and good literary fiction that stands the test of time 鈥� or rather, immortalises the fading contours of our very own history or historical consciousness 鈥� must read this novel. At the end of which 鈥� mark my words 鈥� you will be a different person to the one you thought you were, before reading this.
Austerlitz has a distinctive hallucinatory feel about it, its seeping, overflowing pain making it both subdued and unforgettably compelling. You feel this narrative 鈥� its undercurrent of the most inextinguishable emotions of humankind 鈥� more so than reading it.
A tribute to the remembrance of things past (and ominously present).馃
5 stars. Unquestionably so.
Quotes
鈥楢nd yet, he said, it is often our mightiest projects that most obviously betray the degree of our insecurity.鈥�
鈥榃e take almost all the decisive steps in our lives as a result of slight inner adjustments of which we are barely conscious.鈥�
February 1, 2016
Austerlitz fascinated me, but I couldn't say I loved it. Reading this book gave me the feeling of being jet-lagged somewhere in a strange city at three o'clock in the morning, having strange revelations that would seem bizarre in the daylight. Not a feeling I dislike, by any means. Sebald's attempts to find a prose style to match his explorations of memory and loss are beautiful and haunting, but for me at least the effect was more soporific than exhilarating. Maybe 鈥榟ypnotic鈥� is a better word. The sentences ramble carefully, the sense reaching you faintly through a multiple-framing effect whereby the story is told by Jacques Austerlitz, to our distant, Sebaldesque narrator, meaning the sentences have a characteristic double-tagging device for reported speech which gives them a steady, sleepy rhythm:
Can't you tell me the reason, she asked, said Austerlitz鈥�
Sometimes, so Lemoine told me, said Austerlitz鈥�
One sentence near the end sprawls across eight or nine pages, the clauses fading in and out of each other dreamily, like an interesting train of thought that goes through your mind just before you drop off to sleep. The number of paragraph breaks in the whole book can be counted on one hand. All this is in the service of recreating the effects of memory, as Sebald sees it: its unreliability, its fluidity compared to the rigid unchangeability of actual past events.
Especially past tragedy. Because what Austerlitz is remembering is something he has spent his life trying to repress: his early childhood as part of a Jewish family in Prague in the 1930s. Hence, his meditations on architecture or natural history in the early part of the book all seem to be skirting round something else, as yet unnamed; and when finally he begins to trace the fate of his parents, there is a series of complex and rewarding thematic call-backs which tie the novel together very beautifully: an illustration seen in a Welsh children's Bible, for instance, of Israelites camped out in the desert, is echoed later by a description of a Nazi encampment in central Europe. Austerlitz's own name seems to be working hard, with its associations of war; and indeed it's only a few central letters away from the most infamous Holocaust site of all 鈥� one that's never mentioned in this book but which can be intimated from comments about family members 鈥榮ent east鈥�.
This is not a 鈥楬olocaust novel鈥� in the usual sense, though 鈥� its real subject is not exactly what happened in the middle of the last century, but rather how Europe can and should remember it (Europe as a whole 鈥� this is a novel that deliberately ranges over cities, and languages, from across the whole continent). The vital importance of remembering, and also the complete futility of trying. And the futility also of expressing what we feel about it, because for Sebald language is always at best a poor approximation of reality, 鈥榮omething which we use, in the same way as many sea plants and animals use their tentacles, to grope blindly through the darkness enveloping us鈥�. I disagree with this assessment, and I think Sebald's novel is in itself a weighty counter-argument. But nevertheless it's a very moving thesis written with a great deal of artistry, and if I felt more admiration than affection for it, that's perhaps just because I read it in a state of cold wonder at what he was managing to describe 鈥� 鈥榓 kind of wonder,鈥� as Sebald says elsewhere, 鈥榳hich is in itself a form of dawning horror.鈥�
Can't you tell me the reason, she asked, said Austerlitz鈥�
Sometimes, so Lemoine told me, said Austerlitz鈥�
One sentence near the end sprawls across eight or nine pages, the clauses fading in and out of each other dreamily, like an interesting train of thought that goes through your mind just before you drop off to sleep. The number of paragraph breaks in the whole book can be counted on one hand. All this is in the service of recreating the effects of memory, as Sebald sees it: its unreliability, its fluidity compared to the rigid unchangeability of actual past events.
Especially past tragedy. Because what Austerlitz is remembering is something he has spent his life trying to repress: his early childhood as part of a Jewish family in Prague in the 1930s. Hence, his meditations on architecture or natural history in the early part of the book all seem to be skirting round something else, as yet unnamed; and when finally he begins to trace the fate of his parents, there is a series of complex and rewarding thematic call-backs which tie the novel together very beautifully: an illustration seen in a Welsh children's Bible, for instance, of Israelites camped out in the desert, is echoed later by a description of a Nazi encampment in central Europe. Austerlitz's own name seems to be working hard, with its associations of war; and indeed it's only a few central letters away from the most infamous Holocaust site of all 鈥� one that's never mentioned in this book but which can be intimated from comments about family members 鈥榮ent east鈥�.
This is not a 鈥楬olocaust novel鈥� in the usual sense, though 鈥� its real subject is not exactly what happened in the middle of the last century, but rather how Europe can and should remember it (Europe as a whole 鈥� this is a novel that deliberately ranges over cities, and languages, from across the whole continent). The vital importance of remembering, and also the complete futility of trying. And the futility also of expressing what we feel about it, because for Sebald language is always at best a poor approximation of reality, 鈥榮omething which we use, in the same way as many sea plants and animals use their tentacles, to grope blindly through the darkness enveloping us鈥�. I disagree with this assessment, and I think Sebald's novel is in itself a weighty counter-argument. But nevertheless it's a very moving thesis written with a great deal of artistry, and if I felt more admiration than affection for it, that's perhaps just because I read it in a state of cold wonder at what he was managing to describe 鈥� 鈥榓 kind of wonder,鈥� as Sebald says elsewhere, 鈥榳hich is in itself a form of dawning horror.鈥�
December 20, 2013
鈥滻t seems to me then as if all the moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last鈥� And might it not be, continued Austerlitz, that we also have appointments to keep in the past, in what has gone before and is for the most part extinguished, and must go there in search of places and people who have some connection with us on the far side of time, so to speak?鈥�
I have trouble writing about Sebald. I read The Emigrants and The Rings Of Saturn back-to-back a few years ago, and didn鈥檛 bother writing reviews on this site. I just added them to my favorites and gave the requisite 5 stars. Perhaps this silence that comes after reading Sebald is in some ways my attempt to not trivialize or minimize the effect reading his books produces; on the other hand, it might be that Sebald says what needs to be said, in just the way it has to be said; that it is difficult to follow Sebald because there is a certain emotional dusk or twilight that his prose produces that then inevitably calls forth a kind of night- one wants to silently dwell on the words and images, because they seem so fragile, almost sacred. I鈥檓 not hyperbolizing this experience. Sebald is, to me, the inheritor and refiner, perhaps the perfector, of not only the whole body of 20th century literature of exile, but also one of the last great rememberers, the conscience that carries the lessons of the disasters of the 20th century. He represents the dying flame of Old World European literary scholars- a Sir Thomas Browne roaming the post-Relativity age. The trance-like or oneiric quality of his prose seems to me the voice of Time, but Time evacuating itself of its properties- time falling into the inner place where it dissolves within ourselves as Memory. His prose captures the essence of experience in the process of always being lost and recovered, the tenses of our lives that are always flickering into substance and de-substantiating before we might grab hold and define them.
This is a personal and a universal achievement. For all of his books are in some way about collective disappearance and the attempts we make, the various means and tactics we as individuals employ, to keep oblivion at bay. They are about how universal experience weaves the fate of the individual (thus the recurring themes of historical consequence, war, colonialism, etc.) In this sense, Austerlitz is a pinnacle of Sebaldean prose, as it directly confronts, through a single person, the universal history of destruction. Its main concern is the possibility of the universal forgetting of the lessons of the Holocaust to the obliterating work of Time and the caprice of Memory within the individual. This book is populated with ghosts, wavering beings, mists, fogs, smoke, things that obscure, grand facades of buildings housing empty labyrinths, vacant wind-sung streets, gloaming forests, cemeteries overgrown with time鈥檚 lichen and tendrils, processions of those diminished by death suddenly appearing, glimmering into and retreating out of this world. The prose, of course, wanders, walks, explores- Sebald is pretty much only digression, in all of his books- beautiful, melancholy digression- akin to the process of meditative reflection itself the prose drifts, associates, follows leads down desolate halls, disappears into dusty vaults, peers through windows at empty landscapes in winter light, watches the clouds above silently pass away. But in all of this an utterly human voice is rising and ebbing, revealing, guiding, a tenderness pervades the melancholy (and, to me, the word melancholy almost always implies something achingly beautiful and tender as well as something struck with sadness and loss). A reach for the eternal and Ideal within the irretrievable. So Austerlitz, and Sebald, comes to find that place where hopeless hopes invest the human experience.
But really, this 鈥渞eview鈥� is simply an excuse to provide some links to a few Lieder ohne Worte- throughout my reading of Austerlitz this was the music floating through mind:
and of course
September 9, 2024
Read this to experience the "10 Best Books of the Century" as per the New York Times.
Austerlitz is a character we meet who doesn't remember his past, and goes on a journey (through the eyes of our unnamed narrator) to understand his and his parents' history. It covers the horrors of the holocaust, their traumatic separation, and we watch Austerlitz navigate these repressed memories and be confronted with new information. It's very dense without much reprieve with dialogue or chapter breaks, and I would most recommend it most to people who already know they enjoy that style, not necessarily for anyone just trying to get into literary fiction.
Austerlitz is a character we meet who doesn't remember his past, and goes on a journey (through the eyes of our unnamed narrator) to understand his and his parents' history. It covers the horrors of the holocaust, their traumatic separation, and we watch Austerlitz navigate these repressed memories and be confronted with new information. It's very dense without much reprieve with dialogue or chapter breaks, and I would most recommend it most to people who already know they enjoy that style, not necessarily for anyone just trying to get into literary fiction.
July 13, 2024
How do we (re-)construct the past, and how does memory shape us? In this novel, Sebald discusses many aspects of personal memory and the re-telling of history as a cultural and culturally shaped technique, themes that are also central in the scientific works of Jan and Aleida Assmann who just yesterday received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. I think it's very telling that experts on cultural memory receive a PEACE prize, as the way we face, frame and remember our personal and the historical past - especially the violent part of it - is instructive for our behavior and self-definition in the present. Austerlitz tackles this topic in a fictional manner.
Jacques Austerlitz is a retired scholar living London. He only found out his real name when he graduated high school, as he came to England alone at age 4 with a "Kindertransport", fleeing from the Nazis. Now, at 56, mentally troubled Austerlitz tries to find the source of his inner turmoil by researching his past, thus putting together a moasic of his life. Phsycial objects connected to the past have a special significance throughout the book: Austerlitz is an expert for the history of architecture, meaning that his objects of study are the physical manifestation of times past, landmarks that reflect history. While memory is fluid, buildings persist and accumulate the signs of passing time on their surfaces, and so do many other objects he finds and discusses.
Sebald chose a striking narrative form with very long sentences that are reminiscent of a stream-of-consciousness technique, but reflect how the narrator of the text tells the readers the story he himself was told by Austerlitz (so we are dealing with a story within a story about a story being re-assembled) - and surprisingly, the result is very readable, because the sentences are tightly structured. As a consequence of aforementioned aesthetic, there are no chapters, but the text is interspersed with maps and photographs, which are in turn often discussed in the story. By that, Sebald is repeatedly pointing at the problem of documentation, how to make sense of the past and how to incorporate history - global as well as personal history - into one's own life story.
Sebald remixed several real stories and images in order to create the book, so there is indeed an aspect of documentation here (e.g., he had a troubled colleague who taught history of architecture in London and tried to find out about his family late in life - the photo of the child on the cover is an authentic picture of this colleague). The whole book is a puzzle questioning the way we are constructing our place in the world - very impressive.
Jacques Austerlitz is a retired scholar living London. He only found out his real name when he graduated high school, as he came to England alone at age 4 with a "Kindertransport", fleeing from the Nazis. Now, at 56, mentally troubled Austerlitz tries to find the source of his inner turmoil by researching his past, thus putting together a moasic of his life. Phsycial objects connected to the past have a special significance throughout the book: Austerlitz is an expert for the history of architecture, meaning that his objects of study are the physical manifestation of times past, landmarks that reflect history. While memory is fluid, buildings persist and accumulate the signs of passing time on their surfaces, and so do many other objects he finds and discusses.
Sebald chose a striking narrative form with very long sentences that are reminiscent of a stream-of-consciousness technique, but reflect how the narrator of the text tells the readers the story he himself was told by Austerlitz (so we are dealing with a story within a story about a story being re-assembled) - and surprisingly, the result is very readable, because the sentences are tightly structured. As a consequence of aforementioned aesthetic, there are no chapters, but the text is interspersed with maps and photographs, which are in turn often discussed in the story. By that, Sebald is repeatedly pointing at the problem of documentation, how to make sense of the past and how to incorporate history - global as well as personal history - into one's own life story.
Sebald remixed several real stories and images in order to create the book, so there is indeed an aspect of documentation here (e.g., he had a troubled colleague who taught history of architecture in London and tried to find out about his family late in life - the photo of the child on the cover is an authentic picture of this colleague). The whole book is a puzzle questioning the way we are constructing our place in the world - very impressive.
February 9, 2017
W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz is an austere but beautiful narrative within a narrative about identity and loss with the Holocaust as a looming backdrop. The narrator (unnamed) records conversations with Joseph (Jacques) Austerlitz whom he meets a few times by chance and later at the whim of Austerlitz. This secondary narrator talks about his life before discovering his origins and the incredible quest across the Czech Republic, Germany, and France to find memories of his mother and father. There were moments that were soul-crushing but also moments of great Proustian beauty. Containing no chapters or paragraph indentations and just three breaks that I recall demarcated by asterisks, it is hard to interrupt oneself during reading it.
A few quotes I enjoyed:
"...they were the last members of a diminutive race which had perished or had been expelled from its homeland, and that because they alone survived they wore the same sorrowful expressions as the creatures in the zoo." Page 6
"...we even seemed to hear the heavy calvary clashing, and felt (like a weakness sensed in our own bodies) whole ranks of men collapsing beneath the surge of oncoming force." Page 100
"In doing this job, which in its pointlessness reminded me of the eternal punishments that we are told...we must endure after death..." Page 188
"...I cannot give any precise description of the state of mind this realization induced; I felt something rending within me, and a sense of shame and sorrow, or perhaps something different, something inexpressible because we have no word for it, just as I had no words when the two strangers came over to me speaking a language I did not understand." Page 193-4
"At some point in the past, I thought, I must have made a mistake, and now I am living the wrong life." Page 298
"...I came to the conclusion that in any project we design and develop, the size and degree of complexity of the information and control systems inscribed in it are the crucial factors, so that the all-embracing and a absolute perfection of the concept can in practice coincide, indeed must ultimately coincide, with its chronic dysfunction and constitutional instability." Page 393
"Jacobson writes that it was truly terrifying to see such emptiness open up a foot away from firm ground, to realize that there was no transition, only this dividing line, with ordinary life on one side and its unimaginable opposite on the other." Page 414
Reading the text in Austerlitz and seeing the photos are haunting, but necessary to fully appreciate the beauty and pathos of this essential work about the 20th C'a greatest catastrophe.
A few quotes I enjoyed:
"...they were the last members of a diminutive race which had perished or had been expelled from its homeland, and that because they alone survived they wore the same sorrowful expressions as the creatures in the zoo." Page 6
"...we even seemed to hear the heavy calvary clashing, and felt (like a weakness sensed in our own bodies) whole ranks of men collapsing beneath the surge of oncoming force." Page 100
"In doing this job, which in its pointlessness reminded me of the eternal punishments that we are told...we must endure after death..." Page 188
"...I cannot give any precise description of the state of mind this realization induced; I felt something rending within me, and a sense of shame and sorrow, or perhaps something different, something inexpressible because we have no word for it, just as I had no words when the two strangers came over to me speaking a language I did not understand." Page 193-4
"At some point in the past, I thought, I must have made a mistake, and now I am living the wrong life." Page 298
"...I came to the conclusion that in any project we design and develop, the size and degree of complexity of the information and control systems inscribed in it are the crucial factors, so that the all-embracing and a absolute perfection of the concept can in practice coincide, indeed must ultimately coincide, with its chronic dysfunction and constitutional instability." Page 393
"Jacobson writes that it was truly terrifying to see such emptiness open up a foot away from firm ground, to realize that there was no transition, only this dividing line, with ordinary life on one side and its unimaginable opposite on the other." Page 414
Reading the text in Austerlitz and seeing the photos are haunting, but necessary to fully appreciate the beauty and pathos of this essential work about the 20th C'a greatest catastrophe.
January 11, 2025
鈥淲hat was it that so darkened our world?鈥�
Jacques Austerlitz an enigmatic academic at an institute of art in London tries to unthread the story of his life. Fragments of memories intercalate with the physical space that surrounds him making it part of his existence. The unhappiness building up inside him destroys his faith just when he needs it the most. Jacques Austerlitz is a man locked into the glaring clarity of his logical thinking as inextricably as to his confused emotions; like an archaic dramatic persona throws himself into a 鈥済loomy and inimical鈥� journey of self-discovery through the Symplegades of past and presence.
鈥溾€pace contains all the hours of my past life, all the supressed and extinguished fears and wishes I had ever entrained.鈥�
Austerlitz will transport you to the depths of human soul. This is a compelling narrative into time and reality that brilliantly encapsulates the depths of the ephemera and the apogee of the eternal in postmodern fiction. Memory and presence converge into an abstract reality. The scintillating photographs spread throughout the novel give a harrowing approach to the emotionally charged storyline. Sebald鈥檚 writing is fresh and seductive, with a unique attitude to immerse you into the limelight of humanity and deconstruct your deepest fears into simple factual realities. A song that never ends鈥�
鈥淚t does not seem to me, Austerlitz added, that we understand the laws governing the return of the past, but I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the leaving and the dead can move back and forth as they like, and the longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead, that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision.鈥�
Highly recommended鈥�
4.75/5
Jacques Austerlitz an enigmatic academic at an institute of art in London tries to unthread the story of his life. Fragments of memories intercalate with the physical space that surrounds him making it part of his existence. The unhappiness building up inside him destroys his faith just when he needs it the most. Jacques Austerlitz is a man locked into the glaring clarity of his logical thinking as inextricably as to his confused emotions; like an archaic dramatic persona throws himself into a 鈥済loomy and inimical鈥� journey of self-discovery through the Symplegades of past and presence.
鈥溾€pace contains all the hours of my past life, all the supressed and extinguished fears and wishes I had ever entrained.鈥�
Austerlitz will transport you to the depths of human soul. This is a compelling narrative into time and reality that brilliantly encapsulates the depths of the ephemera and the apogee of the eternal in postmodern fiction. Memory and presence converge into an abstract reality. The scintillating photographs spread throughout the novel give a harrowing approach to the emotionally charged storyline. Sebald鈥檚 writing is fresh and seductive, with a unique attitude to immerse you into the limelight of humanity and deconstruct your deepest fears into simple factual realities. A song that never ends鈥�
鈥淚t does not seem to me, Austerlitz added, that we understand the laws governing the return of the past, but I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the leaving and the dead can move back and forth as they like, and the longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead, that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision.鈥�
Highly recommended鈥�
4.75/5
February 11, 2023
The beauty of Austerlitz (2001) is so intense that I had to take breaks while reading it. It was not difficult because almost all the suspense had been killed for me by the thorough summary of the plotline in the introduction by James Wood. Reading prefaces is risky, as it seems. I realize that the plot is not the core of this book but it felt awkward to know exactly what was going to happen. Besides, I would have preferred to compare my own interpretations to James Wood鈥檚, not having his ideas imprinted in my mind from page one.
At first sight, Austerlitz is a story of a man who looks for traces of his lost family and struggles to reconstruct his past. I think it would be easier to enumerate the things this book is not than enlist what it is: a Holocaust testimony, a philosophical treaty on time, an essay on architecture, language, photography, nature and travelling, a fictional biography, a psychological study, a Bildungsroman, a historical fiction, an adoption story, to name just a few. The way the photos converse with the text is astonishing and the fact that they are fictional makes me admire W.G. Sebald鈥檚 creativity even more.
As for the protagonist鈥檚 surname, I agree with James Wood鈥檚 analysis (the battle of Austerlitz --> Auschwitz) but I also thought the fact that Jacques's family name begins with an A and ends with a Z might suggest that the character鈥檚 experiences are a summa of many, many others. Austerlitz is akin to Everyman.
When I was reading this novel, I could not stop thinking about the medieval legend of Jew the Eternal Wanderer. Jacques Austerlitz reminded me of the wandering Jew but contrary to Ahasver he was completely innocent. Never at home, always a lonely stranger and foreigner, constantly on the road... On the railroad, to be exact.
The book was so powerful that I expected a more impressive ending. Besides, the credibility of some events felt questionable 鈥� I mean the accidental meetings all over Europe. Notwithstanding, this book blew me away. As usual, there is some cost to it. Everything I am reading at the moment seems so bland, so lacklustre compared to Austerlitz.
For me, Austerlitz is the quintessence of my ideal book. An intellectual adventure and an emotional earthquake at the same time. I adore the author's sublime and unobtrusive use of symbols, especially water. The clarity and elegance of his writing style, particularly while discussing complex philosophical topics like the perception of time, were breathtaking also.
W.G. Sebald makes me like the things I usually hate, for instance, battle scenes. The reason why I detest them is not only violence but also my traumatic memories from Tolstoy's War and Peace: the military descriptions there were torturous. But the battle scene 脿 la Sebald was riveting. And his nature descriptions, especially the ones starring light! Just an example: On bright summer days, in particular, so evenly disposed a lustre lay over the whole of Barmouth Bay that the separate surfaces of sand and water, sea and land, earth and sky could no longer be distinguished. All forms and colors were dissolved in a pearl-gray haze; there were no contrasts, no shading anymore, only flowing transitions with the light throbbing through them, a single blur from which only the most fleeting of visions emerged, and strangely鈥擨 remember this well鈥攊t was the very evanescence of those visions that gave me, at the time, something like a sense of eternity. How I wish I could seep into this landscape and dissolve in it. A lustre lay covers not only Barmouth Bay but Austerlitz too. Immersion in this glow, an iridescent veil of pale, cloudy milkiness, is one of the most stunning things that have happened to me lately.
Landscape with a Wanderer by Eugeniusz 呕ak, 1916.
At first sight, Austerlitz is a story of a man who looks for traces of his lost family and struggles to reconstruct his past. I think it would be easier to enumerate the things this book is not than enlist what it is: a Holocaust testimony, a philosophical treaty on time, an essay on architecture, language, photography, nature and travelling, a fictional biography, a psychological study, a Bildungsroman, a historical fiction, an adoption story, to name just a few. The way the photos converse with the text is astonishing and the fact that they are fictional makes me admire W.G. Sebald鈥檚 creativity even more.
As for the protagonist鈥檚 surname, I agree with James Wood鈥檚 analysis (the battle of Austerlitz --> Auschwitz) but I also thought the fact that Jacques's family name begins with an A and ends with a Z might suggest that the character鈥檚 experiences are a summa of many, many others. Austerlitz is akin to Everyman.
When I was reading this novel, I could not stop thinking about the medieval legend of Jew the Eternal Wanderer. Jacques Austerlitz reminded me of the wandering Jew but contrary to Ahasver he was completely innocent. Never at home, always a lonely stranger and foreigner, constantly on the road... On the railroad, to be exact.
The book was so powerful that I expected a more impressive ending. Besides, the credibility of some events felt questionable 鈥� I mean the accidental meetings all over Europe. Notwithstanding, this book blew me away. As usual, there is some cost to it. Everything I am reading at the moment seems so bland, so lacklustre compared to Austerlitz.
For me, Austerlitz is the quintessence of my ideal book. An intellectual adventure and an emotional earthquake at the same time. I adore the author's sublime and unobtrusive use of symbols, especially water. The clarity and elegance of his writing style, particularly while discussing complex philosophical topics like the perception of time, were breathtaking also.
W.G. Sebald makes me like the things I usually hate, for instance, battle scenes. The reason why I detest them is not only violence but also my traumatic memories from Tolstoy's War and Peace: the military descriptions there were torturous. But the battle scene 脿 la Sebald was riveting. And his nature descriptions, especially the ones starring light! Just an example: On bright summer days, in particular, so evenly disposed a lustre lay over the whole of Barmouth Bay that the separate surfaces of sand and water, sea and land, earth and sky could no longer be distinguished. All forms and colors were dissolved in a pearl-gray haze; there were no contrasts, no shading anymore, only flowing transitions with the light throbbing through them, a single blur from which only the most fleeting of visions emerged, and strangely鈥擨 remember this well鈥攊t was the very evanescence of those visions that gave me, at the time, something like a sense of eternity. How I wish I could seep into this landscape and dissolve in it. A lustre lay covers not only Barmouth Bay but Austerlitz too. Immersion in this glow, an iridescent veil of pale, cloudy milkiness, is one of the most stunning things that have happened to me lately.
Landscape with a Wanderer by Eugeniusz 呕ak, 1916.
June 25, 2023
Some books are to be remembered. Not the who or why or when type remember but remember that is more like a fog. Sea fog. It wants land and makes the ferry late. It chills you as you watch the vanishing dock. You get through it but don't ever forget. That is W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz. Read it and say after me, I was there.
March 22, 2025
Sestina in a Train Station
You鈥檝e just finished a novel called Austerlitz
About a man who feels he belongs nowhere
Brought up in a Welsh town by foster parents
Of his early life he has no memory
But strangely every time he boards a train
He is overcome by debilitating melancholy
It would already be melancholy
To live in Wales with the name Austerlitz
To have arrived there as a child by train
And to find yourself in the middle of nowhere
At an age so young that your memory
Cannot even hold onto its parents
Those who have lost their parents
Know the true meaning of melancholy
But at least most can rely on their memory
To bring fragments of them back鈥攏ot Austerlitz
Early childhood recollections lead him nowhere
Like a destination without a train
So one day he decides to take a train
Back to the places that knew his parents
Places which no longer feel like nowhere
Where the architecture of melancholy
Echoes the footsteps of an Austerlitz
Searching through the lost & found of memory
He embarks on a giant game of memory
And each card he turns over sets a train
Of thought running deep into Austerlitz鈥檚
Past and little by little his parents
Appear in a mist of melancholy
鈥擳hey were living and now they are nowhere
When you shut the book at last you think nowhere
Have I read such reflections on memory
And you can鈥檛 help but feel melancholy
As you get ready to climb into a train
To spend a sunny weekend at your parents鈥�
And you think why am I crying in the Gare d鈥橝usterlitz?
If the memory of your parents
Puts you on a train to Melancholy
Then Austerlitz is bound to take you somewhere
November 26, 2020
175th book of 2020.
I exist only because my German grandmother and her brother were two of 35 children brought to England at the end of the Second World War on the Kindertransport by an English Red Cross Charity worker named Edith Snellgrove. For whatever reason, she fell in love with my grandmother and my great-uncle, and, though not formally, adopted them. My grandmother is still alive today, whom I see twice a week, though she suffers from dementia and schizophrenia and has no command of the German language anymore. My brother and I slightly resent the fact we were never taught German, or indeed any other language, as children. Edith Snellgrove spoke 9 languages fluently and though she taught my grandmother bits of French and Russian, she was never invested enough to learn properly. In fact, when I was a child, my grandmother went once a week to German classes, to try and hold onto her native language that was left in Germany when she was brought to a foreign country by, essentially, a stranger, and had to learn English. Her father, Friedhelm Jung, died in 1944 in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp; he was stationed in Crimea as soon as the War broke out鈥攈e was already in prison in 1939, for refusing to give money to the Hitler Church. With me now, in my home, I have a box filled with photographs and even Friedhelm鈥檚 letters from Crimea that he sent to his wife, detailing, where he could, what it was like and how he was. These letters have mostly been translated by an old German teacher my grandmother met at a Quaker Meeting House. I could go on, but all this I hope to one day write into a novel, and this isn鈥檛 about my grandmother, but about Austerlitz.
Jacques Austerlitz is without a past. Of course, I don鈥檛 mean this literally. We all have pasts. One of my old professors used to talk about people, like good characters in novels, being like asteroids or stars in the sky, scorching traces behind them, burning history into space and time. Austerlitz has a trace behind him, but he recognises it is not a trace he associates with himself. In the same way, I look at the trace my grandmother has left behind her here in England, and I wonder if once she looked back and thought how unfamiliar her own life felt to her. That is what Austerlitz鈥檚 life seems to him. As I read the novel, I felt his character鈥檚 emptiness and alienation, the same feelings that arose out of Sebald鈥檚 other, brilliant, novel The Emigrants. His first novel, Vertigo, does not lack those feelings, though they are more rooted by the sense of, well, vertigo. And we do not have to look far to see the feelings of alienation, time and memory in The Rings of Saturn either. The scope in the other novels, however, are wider: there are multiple characters, multiple stories, fragments, sometimes almost fractal鈥� But in Austerlitz, our vision is concentrated on this boy who was sent on the Kindertransport in 1939 by his parents to escape the persecution of the Jews, heading for his new Welsh parents. By the time our narrator meets Austerlitz, he meets a man who feels he has left the wrong trace behind him in the sky. As he says himself at one point in the novel, We take almost all the decisive steps in our lives as a result of slight inner adjustments of which we are barely conscious. Thus begins Austerlitz鈥檚 narrative, his quest; and really, it is the oldest quest we know, a quest for home.
Sebald鈥檚 choice of structure differs from what we are used to. Austerlitz鈥檚 narrative comprises most of the book; there are no speech marks, there are no conversations, per se, and the narrator 鈥榮ays鈥� nothing.. Though the narrator does have internal thoughts. Here is a beautiful observation he has on Austerlitz: I observed the way his ideas, like the stars themselves, gradually emerged from the whirling nebulae of his astrophysical fantasies. Instead, Austerlitz鈥檚 monologue is a reel, paragraphs running for thirty or forty pages at a time, sometimes sentences running for seven pages at a time, as Austerlitz reports his long, rambling story in Sebald鈥檚 famous, ethereal style. And, like with Sebald鈥檚 other novels, it is filled with photographs, randomly occurring, sometimes relating to the text and sometimes not. He is a grown man, describing his quest for his identity and his history, and most importantly, and concretely, his real parents. So, as with Sebald鈥檚 other novels, Austerlitz is about history, time, memory, self and heritage; he is a voice of the post-war world, a world that Sebald understood, would never be the same for literature. As the New York Times said, with Primo Levi, Sebald is the 鈥減rime speaker of the Holocaust鈥�. And Susan Sontag said,
鈥淚s literary greatness still possible? What would a noble literary enterprise look like? One of the few answers available to English-speaking readers is the work of W.G. Sebald.鈥�
As I said in my first pre-review, I believe Sebald to be one of the most important writers of the latter half of the 20th century. It saddens me greatly that he only managed to write four novels before his death at the age of 57, after suffering a brain aneurysm whilst driving; he died before his car swerved out of control and collided with an oncoming lorry, severely injuring his daughter, though thankfully she survived the crash. There is a brilliant interview that took place, if I remember rightly, just over a week before his death, with Michael Silverblatt which I highly recommend. In fact, Silverblatt is perhaps one of the best interviewers out there for writers and has many fantastic ones, especially his ones with David Foster Wallace.
Sebald鈥擯hoto from the New Yorker
I have come to the end of Sebald鈥檚 oeuvre then. Next year I plan to reread The Rings of Saturn, and then I鈥檒l probably reread Vertigo and The Emigrants too. Then, before I know it, it鈥檒l be time to return to Austerlitz鈥檚 narrative, which will just as moving and important as it was now, and in 20 years, 40 years, I believe it will stand the same. I think about Austerlitz when I take books from my grandmother's bookcase, old editions of Goethe and Hesse, written in German, a language she no longer understands. Her own language, in a way, lost. And I realise that where we come from, who we are, what defines us, how we create ourselves from our pasts, and what our pasts do to create us: these are things that never fade.
I exist only because my German grandmother and her brother were two of 35 children brought to England at the end of the Second World War on the Kindertransport by an English Red Cross Charity worker named Edith Snellgrove. For whatever reason, she fell in love with my grandmother and my great-uncle, and, though not formally, adopted them. My grandmother is still alive today, whom I see twice a week, though she suffers from dementia and schizophrenia and has no command of the German language anymore. My brother and I slightly resent the fact we were never taught German, or indeed any other language, as children. Edith Snellgrove spoke 9 languages fluently and though she taught my grandmother bits of French and Russian, she was never invested enough to learn properly. In fact, when I was a child, my grandmother went once a week to German classes, to try and hold onto her native language that was left in Germany when she was brought to a foreign country by, essentially, a stranger, and had to learn English. Her father, Friedhelm Jung, died in 1944 in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp; he was stationed in Crimea as soon as the War broke out鈥攈e was already in prison in 1939, for refusing to give money to the Hitler Church. With me now, in my home, I have a box filled with photographs and even Friedhelm鈥檚 letters from Crimea that he sent to his wife, detailing, where he could, what it was like and how he was. These letters have mostly been translated by an old German teacher my grandmother met at a Quaker Meeting House. I could go on, but all this I hope to one day write into a novel, and this isn鈥檛 about my grandmother, but about Austerlitz.
Jacques Austerlitz is without a past. Of course, I don鈥檛 mean this literally. We all have pasts. One of my old professors used to talk about people, like good characters in novels, being like asteroids or stars in the sky, scorching traces behind them, burning history into space and time. Austerlitz has a trace behind him, but he recognises it is not a trace he associates with himself. In the same way, I look at the trace my grandmother has left behind her here in England, and I wonder if once she looked back and thought how unfamiliar her own life felt to her. That is what Austerlitz鈥檚 life seems to him. As I read the novel, I felt his character鈥檚 emptiness and alienation, the same feelings that arose out of Sebald鈥檚 other, brilliant, novel The Emigrants. His first novel, Vertigo, does not lack those feelings, though they are more rooted by the sense of, well, vertigo. And we do not have to look far to see the feelings of alienation, time and memory in The Rings of Saturn either. The scope in the other novels, however, are wider: there are multiple characters, multiple stories, fragments, sometimes almost fractal鈥� But in Austerlitz, our vision is concentrated on this boy who was sent on the Kindertransport in 1939 by his parents to escape the persecution of the Jews, heading for his new Welsh parents. By the time our narrator meets Austerlitz, he meets a man who feels he has left the wrong trace behind him in the sky. As he says himself at one point in the novel, We take almost all the decisive steps in our lives as a result of slight inner adjustments of which we are barely conscious. Thus begins Austerlitz鈥檚 narrative, his quest; and really, it is the oldest quest we know, a quest for home.
Sebald鈥檚 choice of structure differs from what we are used to. Austerlitz鈥檚 narrative comprises most of the book; there are no speech marks, there are no conversations, per se, and the narrator 鈥榮ays鈥� nothing.. Though the narrator does have internal thoughts. Here is a beautiful observation he has on Austerlitz: I observed the way his ideas, like the stars themselves, gradually emerged from the whirling nebulae of his astrophysical fantasies. Instead, Austerlitz鈥檚 monologue is a reel, paragraphs running for thirty or forty pages at a time, sometimes sentences running for seven pages at a time, as Austerlitz reports his long, rambling story in Sebald鈥檚 famous, ethereal style. And, like with Sebald鈥檚 other novels, it is filled with photographs, randomly occurring, sometimes relating to the text and sometimes not. He is a grown man, describing his quest for his identity and his history, and most importantly, and concretely, his real parents. So, as with Sebald鈥檚 other novels, Austerlitz is about history, time, memory, self and heritage; he is a voice of the post-war world, a world that Sebald understood, would never be the same for literature. As the New York Times said, with Primo Levi, Sebald is the 鈥減rime speaker of the Holocaust鈥�. And Susan Sontag said,
鈥淚s literary greatness still possible? What would a noble literary enterprise look like? One of the few answers available to English-speaking readers is the work of W.G. Sebald.鈥�
As I said in my first pre-review, I believe Sebald to be one of the most important writers of the latter half of the 20th century. It saddens me greatly that he only managed to write four novels before his death at the age of 57, after suffering a brain aneurysm whilst driving; he died before his car swerved out of control and collided with an oncoming lorry, severely injuring his daughter, though thankfully she survived the crash. There is a brilliant interview that took place, if I remember rightly, just over a week before his death, with Michael Silverblatt which I highly recommend. In fact, Silverblatt is perhaps one of the best interviewers out there for writers and has many fantastic ones, especially his ones with David Foster Wallace.
Sebald鈥擯hoto from the New Yorker
I have come to the end of Sebald鈥檚 oeuvre then. Next year I plan to reread The Rings of Saturn, and then I鈥檒l probably reread Vertigo and The Emigrants too. Then, before I know it, it鈥檒l be time to return to Austerlitz鈥檚 narrative, which will just as moving and important as it was now, and in 20 years, 40 years, I believe it will stand the same. I think about Austerlitz when I take books from my grandmother's bookcase, old editions of Goethe and Hesse, written in German, a language she no longer understands. Her own language, in a way, lost. And I realise that where we come from, who we are, what defines us, how we create ourselves from our pasts, and what our pasts do to create us: these are things that never fade.
June 7, 2018
Un'animata solitudine
Pu貌 contenere spoiler
Sebald 猫 considerato forse il miglior scrittore tedesco degli ultimi decenni.
Dopo aver letto il piacevole breve testo "Il passeggiatore solitario", belle pagine sulle tracce di un altro grande, R. Walser, m'attendevo qualcosa di diverso da questo libro, "Austerlitz", salutato dai critici come autentico capolavoro, il cui protagonista 猫 un docente di Storia dell'Architettura, studioso solitario spesso in viaggio per l'Europa, visitatore di luoghi particolari e, bench茅 non in primo piano, alla ricerca delle proprie misteriose origini.
Qui non ho trovato quella lievit脿 di scrittura che immaginavo, bens矛 una prosa densa e corposa che procede come come un fiume in piena, con ampio periodare e lunghe frasi che si concatenano in un fluire compatto : 315 pagine con un solo 'punto a capo', fortunatamente corredate da bellissime fotografie in bianco e nero pertinenti al testo.
Questo libro sfavillante di cultura ci regala anche alcune brevi e fulminanti immagini di personaggi famosi : Schumann salvato "nelle acque gelide del Reno" ; oppure Casanova ormai vecchio e canuto bibliotecario nel castello di Dux tra uno sfarfallio di libri.
La dimensione pi霉 congeniale al protagonista 猫 quella austera e solitaria, in cui "prendere le distanze se qualcuno mi veniva troppo vicino" e non veder "altro intorno a me se non misteri e segni".
Una sala di lettura, "percorsa da leggeri mormorii, fruscii e colpetti di tosse", pu貌 parergli un luogo consono, con l'incerta sensazione di essere "sull'isola dei beati o, al contrario, in una colonia penale" . Oppure il cimitero, con "statue di angeli, perlopi霉 senza ali o comunque mutilate, che parevano impietrite proprio nell'atto di spiccare il volo" . E proprio a Parigi, su una tomba lungamente ricercata, scorge i nomi di due persone morte nel '44 ("morts en deportation"), dissolte "nell'aria grigia".
Pu貌 contenere spoiler
Sebald 猫 considerato forse il miglior scrittore tedesco degli ultimi decenni.
Dopo aver letto il piacevole breve testo "Il passeggiatore solitario", belle pagine sulle tracce di un altro grande, R. Walser, m'attendevo qualcosa di diverso da questo libro, "Austerlitz", salutato dai critici come autentico capolavoro, il cui protagonista 猫 un docente di Storia dell'Architettura, studioso solitario spesso in viaggio per l'Europa, visitatore di luoghi particolari e, bench茅 non in primo piano, alla ricerca delle proprie misteriose origini.
Qui non ho trovato quella lievit脿 di scrittura che immaginavo, bens矛 una prosa densa e corposa che procede come come un fiume in piena, con ampio periodare e lunghe frasi che si concatenano in un fluire compatto : 315 pagine con un solo 'punto a capo', fortunatamente corredate da bellissime fotografie in bianco e nero pertinenti al testo.
Questo libro sfavillante di cultura ci regala anche alcune brevi e fulminanti immagini di personaggi famosi : Schumann salvato "nelle acque gelide del Reno" ; oppure Casanova ormai vecchio e canuto bibliotecario nel castello di Dux tra uno sfarfallio di libri.
La dimensione pi霉 congeniale al protagonista 猫 quella austera e solitaria, in cui "prendere le distanze se qualcuno mi veniva troppo vicino" e non veder "altro intorno a me se non misteri e segni".
Una sala di lettura, "percorsa da leggeri mormorii, fruscii e colpetti di tosse", pu貌 parergli un luogo consono, con l'incerta sensazione di essere "sull'isola dei beati o, al contrario, in una colonia penale" . Oppure il cimitero, con "statue di angeli, perlopi霉 senza ali o comunque mutilate, che parevano impietrite proprio nell'atto di spiccare il volo" . E proprio a Parigi, su una tomba lungamente ricercata, scorge i nomi di due persone morte nel '44 ("morts en deportation"), dissolte "nell'aria grigia".
November 28, 2020
This book received the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2019, it was ranked 5th on The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.
鈥漇tanding on the ruins of history, standing both in and on top of history鈥檚 depository, Jacques Austerlitz is joined by his name to these ruins: and again, at the end of the book, as at the beginning, he threatens to become simply part of the rubble of history, a thing, a depository of facts and dates, not a human being.鈥�
His name is Jacques Austerlitz. He did not grow up with that name. He grew up in Wales as the son of a Calvinist preacher/retired missionary and his timid, colorless wife. They called him Dafydd Elias. It was a relief when he escaped this dreary half-life of oppressive thoughts and a plodding existence, waiting patiently for an afterlife. When finally he was allowed to go to school, it was as if he鈥檇 escaped from a prison sentence. It was at school that he learned of his unusual name. It is a name that denotes a merging of cultures, Czechoslovankian and French. Are there clues in that?
He discovers that he arrived in Britain during the summer of 1939 as an infant refugee on a kindertransport from Czechoslovakia. His life before he arrived in Britain is a blank canvas, as if, while he was carried across the ocean, his memories fled back to his homeland.
He goes to Oxford and discovers he is drawn to European architecture. He has a nervous breakdown. He knows he must return to Czechoslovakia and fill in the gaps of his missing life. He finds some clues that help unlock the hidden door in his own mind, allowing the language of his past life and the memories to start flooding into his brain. 鈥滻 have even thought that I could still apprehend the dying away of my native tongue, the faltering and fading sounds which I think lingered on in me at least for a while, like something shut up and scratching or knocking, something which, out of fear, stops its noise and falls silent whenever one tries to listen to it.鈥�
An unknown narrator tells us this story through a series of meetings he has with Austerlitz. They meet first in Antwerp and then in a cavalcade of European cities. It is as if they are drawn to each other and there is almost a supernatural need for this story to be told to the narrator so that he can share it with us. Each time they meet, Austerlitz picks up the thread of the story at the very moment he left it when they last parted. He weaves together sections of his life and introduces us to people he met along his journey to find himself.
There are so many wonderfully written passages to quote, but the ones that are lingering in my memories this morning are the ones that involve loss. 鈥滻 remember, said Austerlitz, how Alphonso once told his great-nephew and me that everything was fading before our eyes, and that many of the loveliest of colors had already disappeared, or existed only where no one saw them, in the submarine gardens fathoms deep below the surface of the sea.鈥� There is certainly a nostalgia for the past being felt by Alphonso, but to even think about the loss of colors from the modern age that will never be seen again is a disconcerting thought. We鈥檒l never see the world the same way as Alphonso did, and neither will our children see the same world we did. Maybe the color isn鈥檛 gone though, maybe it has just faded from his own eyes?
鈥滻t was as if time, which usually runs so irrevocably away, had stood still here, as if the years behind us were still to come.鈥� I once stepped into an old man鈥檚 house, and it was as if his front door had been a portal to 1942. In the world that he could control, the interior of his house, he made time stand still. I felt this moment of discombobulation as if, when I stepped out of his door and back into the real world, my era would be waiting in the distant future.
鈥漊nfortunately the tribe of the Aztecs had died out years ago, and that at best an ancient perroquet which still remembered a few words of their language might survive here and there.鈥� It freaks me out to contemplate the idea that a race of people can die out and that their language only survives in the feeble lexicon of a handful of parrots.
鈥滻 wandered, all through that winter, up and down the long corridors, staring out for hours through one of the dirty windows at the cemetery below, where we are standing now, feeling nothing inside my head but the four burnt-out walls of my brain.鈥� I鈥檝e never had a nervous breakdown, but it is always one of those lingering concerns that, eventually, one day, my brain will rebel against me and say, enough is enough...I鈥檓 pulling the plug. One doesn鈥檛 know who he will be on the other side, or if he will ever recover who he was, or maybe it's best he doesn鈥檛. It is a scary thought to think of the shattered remains of my brain, like a building that has been hit by a bomb.
I have, of course, dabbled with the idea of reading W. G. Sebald. Nobel committee members have stated that he would have eventually won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He had an untimely end, an inconvenient car crash, that left him dead at fifty-seven. I wonder if he had time to be incensed that the stories still left to be told in his head would forever be just a few jottings in a notebook and of course, there are all the stories that he hadn鈥檛 even discovered yet. Louis Erdrich is the one who gave me the two-handed push in the back to finally read him. She was on a trip through Ojibwe country, and at night, while stuck in some cheap motel being gently swayed by the passing semi trucks, she would read Austerlitz. I was riding along with her, reading the tale of her travel in her Books and Island book. She talked about the long, complex sentences in Austerlitz. There is one sentence that goes on for more than seven pages. That might even be more Faulkneresque than William Faulkner himself. She said she had to read sentences over and over again, but she didn鈥檛 see it as a burden.
I have a very good attention span and found it interesting (I actually chuckled a few times at finding myself caught out) to discover myself losing the thread of a sentence. I, too, had to go back and reread sentences, whole pages; sometimes I skipped back two or three pages to begin again. There is one point when I contemplated whether I was really smart enough to read this book, but I鈥檓 a stubborn man when it comes to books. As I read, there was a growing understanding that I simply must finish this book, not because it is challenging, but because this book is too important not to understand its story. I kept waiting for that familiar click in my head when my brain has made the adjustments to the writing style, but it never really happened. I鈥檓 not sure we are supposed to be comfortable with the complexity of the structure. I also felt the fluttering of butterflies in my stomach that told me that I had stumbled upon something special.
As I sit here at my computer writing this review, contemplating my reading experience, I have the strong urge to reread it. This time I will be completely zoned in, impervious to distractions, and grasp the nuance of every sentence the moment I read it (I do beguile myself). I want to brush away the feeling that I failed the book in some way. With that feeling, I also feel euphoric, like I鈥檝e ventured into something unknown and came away a better person. New vistas may have opened up in my mind. What else can I deduce from all this other than that the book is a masterpiece?
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit I also have a Facebook blogger page at: and an Instagram account
鈥漇tanding on the ruins of history, standing both in and on top of history鈥檚 depository, Jacques Austerlitz is joined by his name to these ruins: and again, at the end of the book, as at the beginning, he threatens to become simply part of the rubble of history, a thing, a depository of facts and dates, not a human being.鈥�
His name is Jacques Austerlitz. He did not grow up with that name. He grew up in Wales as the son of a Calvinist preacher/retired missionary and his timid, colorless wife. They called him Dafydd Elias. It was a relief when he escaped this dreary half-life of oppressive thoughts and a plodding existence, waiting patiently for an afterlife. When finally he was allowed to go to school, it was as if he鈥檇 escaped from a prison sentence. It was at school that he learned of his unusual name. It is a name that denotes a merging of cultures, Czechoslovankian and French. Are there clues in that?
He discovers that he arrived in Britain during the summer of 1939 as an infant refugee on a kindertransport from Czechoslovakia. His life before he arrived in Britain is a blank canvas, as if, while he was carried across the ocean, his memories fled back to his homeland.
He goes to Oxford and discovers he is drawn to European architecture. He has a nervous breakdown. He knows he must return to Czechoslovakia and fill in the gaps of his missing life. He finds some clues that help unlock the hidden door in his own mind, allowing the language of his past life and the memories to start flooding into his brain. 鈥滻 have even thought that I could still apprehend the dying away of my native tongue, the faltering and fading sounds which I think lingered on in me at least for a while, like something shut up and scratching or knocking, something which, out of fear, stops its noise and falls silent whenever one tries to listen to it.鈥�
An unknown narrator tells us this story through a series of meetings he has with Austerlitz. They meet first in Antwerp and then in a cavalcade of European cities. It is as if they are drawn to each other and there is almost a supernatural need for this story to be told to the narrator so that he can share it with us. Each time they meet, Austerlitz picks up the thread of the story at the very moment he left it when they last parted. He weaves together sections of his life and introduces us to people he met along his journey to find himself.
There are so many wonderfully written passages to quote, but the ones that are lingering in my memories this morning are the ones that involve loss. 鈥滻 remember, said Austerlitz, how Alphonso once told his great-nephew and me that everything was fading before our eyes, and that many of the loveliest of colors had already disappeared, or existed only where no one saw them, in the submarine gardens fathoms deep below the surface of the sea.鈥� There is certainly a nostalgia for the past being felt by Alphonso, but to even think about the loss of colors from the modern age that will never be seen again is a disconcerting thought. We鈥檒l never see the world the same way as Alphonso did, and neither will our children see the same world we did. Maybe the color isn鈥檛 gone though, maybe it has just faded from his own eyes?
鈥滻t was as if time, which usually runs so irrevocably away, had stood still here, as if the years behind us were still to come.鈥� I once stepped into an old man鈥檚 house, and it was as if his front door had been a portal to 1942. In the world that he could control, the interior of his house, he made time stand still. I felt this moment of discombobulation as if, when I stepped out of his door and back into the real world, my era would be waiting in the distant future.
鈥漊nfortunately the tribe of the Aztecs had died out years ago, and that at best an ancient perroquet which still remembered a few words of their language might survive here and there.鈥� It freaks me out to contemplate the idea that a race of people can die out and that their language only survives in the feeble lexicon of a handful of parrots.
鈥滻 wandered, all through that winter, up and down the long corridors, staring out for hours through one of the dirty windows at the cemetery below, where we are standing now, feeling nothing inside my head but the four burnt-out walls of my brain.鈥� I鈥檝e never had a nervous breakdown, but it is always one of those lingering concerns that, eventually, one day, my brain will rebel against me and say, enough is enough...I鈥檓 pulling the plug. One doesn鈥檛 know who he will be on the other side, or if he will ever recover who he was, or maybe it's best he doesn鈥檛. It is a scary thought to think of the shattered remains of my brain, like a building that has been hit by a bomb.
I have, of course, dabbled with the idea of reading W. G. Sebald. Nobel committee members have stated that he would have eventually won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He had an untimely end, an inconvenient car crash, that left him dead at fifty-seven. I wonder if he had time to be incensed that the stories still left to be told in his head would forever be just a few jottings in a notebook and of course, there are all the stories that he hadn鈥檛 even discovered yet. Louis Erdrich is the one who gave me the two-handed push in the back to finally read him. She was on a trip through Ojibwe country, and at night, while stuck in some cheap motel being gently swayed by the passing semi trucks, she would read Austerlitz. I was riding along with her, reading the tale of her travel in her Books and Island book. She talked about the long, complex sentences in Austerlitz. There is one sentence that goes on for more than seven pages. That might even be more Faulkneresque than William Faulkner himself. She said she had to read sentences over and over again, but she didn鈥檛 see it as a burden.
I have a very good attention span and found it interesting (I actually chuckled a few times at finding myself caught out) to discover myself losing the thread of a sentence. I, too, had to go back and reread sentences, whole pages; sometimes I skipped back two or three pages to begin again. There is one point when I contemplated whether I was really smart enough to read this book, but I鈥檓 a stubborn man when it comes to books. As I read, there was a growing understanding that I simply must finish this book, not because it is challenging, but because this book is too important not to understand its story. I kept waiting for that familiar click in my head when my brain has made the adjustments to the writing style, but it never really happened. I鈥檓 not sure we are supposed to be comfortable with the complexity of the structure. I also felt the fluttering of butterflies in my stomach that told me that I had stumbled upon something special.
As I sit here at my computer writing this review, contemplating my reading experience, I have the strong urge to reread it. This time I will be completely zoned in, impervious to distractions, and grasp the nuance of every sentence the moment I read it (I do beguile myself). I want to brush away the feeling that I failed the book in some way. With that feeling, I also feel euphoric, like I鈥檝e ventured into something unknown and came away a better person. New vistas may have opened up in my mind. What else can I deduce from all this other than that the book is a masterpiece?
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May 22, 2022
E.G.Sebald her eserinde beni 艧a艧谋rtmaya devam ediyor. Asla kendini tekrarlam谋yor. Bu kez 4 paragrafl谋k bir kurgu ile birbirine son derece yumu艧ak ge莽i艧 yapan upuzun c眉mlelerle 枚yk眉lerini bir anlat谋c谋 (kendisi ?) a臒z谋ndan, bir romana ismini veren kahraman谋m谋z Austerlitz鈥檌n a臒z谋ndan anlat谋yor. Tabii kendi tan谋m谋yla hi莽bir hayvanlar ansiklopedisinde anlat谋lmayan 枚zel bir hayvan t眉r眉 olan 鈥渋nsan谋鈥� oda臒谋na alarak. Yazar谋n 莽ocukluk travmas谋 olan sava艧谋n y谋k谋m谋n谋 bu kez Austerlitz鈥檌n g枚z眉nden okuyoruz.
Anlat谋c谋n谋n (yazar谋n ?) 1900鈥檒眉 y谋lar谋n sonlar谋nda Bel莽ika Anvers gar谋nda Austerlitz ile kar艧谋la艧mas谋yla ba艧layan yolculu臒u Paris鈥檛e, Prag鈥檛a, Londra鈥檇a, Galler鈥檇e devam edip gidiyor. Peki kim bu Austerlitz? Hayat谋n谋 Gallerliler, 陌ngilizler ve Frans谋zlar谋n aras谋nda ge莽iren, yava艧 yava艧 kendini yal颅n谋z b谋rakan, bunun fark谋na vard谋臒谋nda ise ger莽ek k枚kenini d眉艧眉nen ve onlarca y谋l sonra an谋lar谋n谋 hat谋rlamaya 莽al谋艧arak k枚klerini arayan, tecrit edilmi艧lik ve 莽aresizlik duygusu i莽inde olan entellekt眉el bir mimar Austerlitz. Ara艧t谋rmakta oldu臒u 鈥渂urjuva d枚nemi mi颅marl谋k ve uygarl谋k tarihi鈥� i莽inde kapitalist d枚nemin mimari 眉slubunu, kendini en 莽ok cezaevlerinde, kalelerde, mahkeme, ope颅ra ve tren garlar谋, hastanelerde g枚sterdi臒ini saptayan, bu nedenle 枚yk眉s眉nde buralar谋 枚nceleyen bir mimar.
Austerlitz鈥檌n m眉thi艧 g枚zlem g眉c眉 Sebald鈥櫮眓 betimlemeleriyle okumaya doyulmayacak tablolar yarat谋yor. Kurmaca y枚n眉 yokmu艧, sanki t眉m yaz谋lanlar ger莽ekmi艧 gibi okuyorsak kitab谋 bu Sebald鈥櫮眓 kalemini ne denli etkili kulland谋臒谋n谋 g枚steriyor, tabii erken 枚l眉m眉 ile nice ba艧ka b眉y眉k eserlerden mahrum kald谋臒谋m谋z谋 d眉艧眉n眉p kahrolmamak elde de臒il. Ne Austerlitz ad谋n谋n ne anlama geldi臒ini, ne onun k枚kenini, ne de 莽ocuk ya艧ta neden 陌ngiltere鈥檡e geldi臒ini anlatmayaca臒谋m. Okursan谋z bu g眉zel kitab谋n tad谋n谋 ka莽谋rmak istemem 莽眉nk眉. Te颅rezin'deki 鈥淕etto M眉zesi鈥� b枚l眉m眉ne geldi臒inizde hala tad谋n谋z kalm谋艧sa tabii...
Jacques Austerlitz y谋llarca bast谋rm谋艧 oldu臒u, ama art谋k i莽inde tutamad谋臒谋 ve 莽谋kmas谋na izin verdi臒i 鈥渞eddedilmi艧lik ve yok edilmi艧lik鈥� duygusuyla ba艧 edeme颅mesini anlat谋rken, ge莽irdi臒i ruhsal bunal谋m谋n hastanede sonlanmas谋 hi莽 艧a艧谋rt谋c谋 olmad谋 benim i莽in, bunca y眉k nas谋l ta艧谋n谋r ki ? Bazen bir m眉ze, bazen bir hastane veya k眉t眉phane, bazen bir kale bazen bir tren gar谋 枚yk眉lere mekan olur, 枚yle g眉zel anlat谋l谋r ki bu mekanlar, 枚yk眉n眉n 枚n眉ne ge莽erler, bu edebiyat g眉zelli臒ini Sebald鈥檇a hep g枚r眉yoruz. Ayr谋ca 莽ok emek gerektiren ara艧t谋rmalar谋yla ge莽mi艧in izlerini s眉rerek bug眉ne ders niteli臒inde mesajlar b谋rak谋yor, belle臒imizi taze tutmaya gayret ediyor.
Sava艧 konulu eserlerde sadece Sebald鈥檇a g枚rd眉臒眉m bir 枚zellik adil olmakt谋r. 2. D眉nya Sava艧谋n谋n kirli y眉z眉n眉 bir Alman olmas谋na ra臒men tarafs谋zl谋kla sergiliyor, kah Nazileri, kah m眉ttefikleri, kah kapolar谋, Nazilerle i艧birli臒i yapan i艧gal edilmi艧 眉lkelerin halklar谋n谋, kendi halk谋n谋, bombalanan yerlerdeki 枚rne臒in 陌ngiltere鈥檇e Coventry ile Almanya鈥檇a Hamburg鈥檇a ya艧ayan sivil halk谋 kendi 鈥渋nsanl谋k terazisinde鈥� tart谋yor.
Roman m谋 okudum, belgesel-an谋 kitab谋 m谋 bilmiyorum, bilmem de gerekmiyor, ancak uzun s眉re dilimden d眉艧meyecek san谋r谋m, 鈥渄edi Austerlitz鈥�.
Mutlaka okuyun, okutun.
Anlat谋c谋n谋n (yazar谋n ?) 1900鈥檒眉 y谋lar谋n sonlar谋nda Bel莽ika Anvers gar谋nda Austerlitz ile kar艧谋la艧mas谋yla ba艧layan yolculu臒u Paris鈥檛e, Prag鈥檛a, Londra鈥檇a, Galler鈥檇e devam edip gidiyor. Peki kim bu Austerlitz? Hayat谋n谋 Gallerliler, 陌ngilizler ve Frans谋zlar谋n aras谋nda ge莽iren, yava艧 yava艧 kendini yal颅n谋z b谋rakan, bunun fark谋na vard谋臒谋nda ise ger莽ek k枚kenini d眉艧眉nen ve onlarca y谋l sonra an谋lar谋n谋 hat谋rlamaya 莽al谋艧arak k枚klerini arayan, tecrit edilmi艧lik ve 莽aresizlik duygusu i莽inde olan entellekt眉el bir mimar Austerlitz. Ara艧t谋rmakta oldu臒u 鈥渂urjuva d枚nemi mi颅marl谋k ve uygarl谋k tarihi鈥� i莽inde kapitalist d枚nemin mimari 眉slubunu, kendini en 莽ok cezaevlerinde, kalelerde, mahkeme, ope颅ra ve tren garlar谋, hastanelerde g枚sterdi臒ini saptayan, bu nedenle 枚yk眉s眉nde buralar谋 枚nceleyen bir mimar.
Austerlitz鈥檌n m眉thi艧 g枚zlem g眉c眉 Sebald鈥櫮眓 betimlemeleriyle okumaya doyulmayacak tablolar yarat谋yor. Kurmaca y枚n眉 yokmu艧, sanki t眉m yaz谋lanlar ger莽ekmi艧 gibi okuyorsak kitab谋 bu Sebald鈥櫮眓 kalemini ne denli etkili kulland谋臒谋n谋 g枚steriyor, tabii erken 枚l眉m眉 ile nice ba艧ka b眉y眉k eserlerden mahrum kald谋臒谋m谋z谋 d眉艧眉n眉p kahrolmamak elde de臒il. Ne Austerlitz ad谋n谋n ne anlama geldi臒ini, ne onun k枚kenini, ne de 莽ocuk ya艧ta neden 陌ngiltere鈥檡e geldi臒ini anlatmayaca臒谋m. Okursan谋z bu g眉zel kitab谋n tad谋n谋 ka莽谋rmak istemem 莽眉nk眉. Te颅rezin'deki 鈥淕etto M眉zesi鈥� b枚l眉m眉ne geldi臒inizde hala tad谋n谋z kalm谋艧sa tabii...
Jacques Austerlitz y谋llarca bast谋rm谋艧 oldu臒u, ama art谋k i莽inde tutamad谋臒谋 ve 莽谋kmas谋na izin verdi臒i 鈥渞eddedilmi艧lik ve yok edilmi艧lik鈥� duygusuyla ba艧 edeme颅mesini anlat谋rken, ge莽irdi臒i ruhsal bunal谋m谋n hastanede sonlanmas谋 hi莽 艧a艧谋rt谋c谋 olmad谋 benim i莽in, bunca y眉k nas谋l ta艧谋n谋r ki ? Bazen bir m眉ze, bazen bir hastane veya k眉t眉phane, bazen bir kale bazen bir tren gar谋 枚yk眉lere mekan olur, 枚yle g眉zel anlat谋l谋r ki bu mekanlar, 枚yk眉n眉n 枚n眉ne ge莽erler, bu edebiyat g眉zelli臒ini Sebald鈥檇a hep g枚r眉yoruz. Ayr谋ca 莽ok emek gerektiren ara艧t谋rmalar谋yla ge莽mi艧in izlerini s眉rerek bug眉ne ders niteli臒inde mesajlar b谋rak谋yor, belle臒imizi taze tutmaya gayret ediyor.
Sava艧 konulu eserlerde sadece Sebald鈥檇a g枚rd眉臒眉m bir 枚zellik adil olmakt谋r. 2. D眉nya Sava艧谋n谋n kirli y眉z眉n眉 bir Alman olmas谋na ra臒men tarafs谋zl谋kla sergiliyor, kah Nazileri, kah m眉ttefikleri, kah kapolar谋, Nazilerle i艧birli臒i yapan i艧gal edilmi艧 眉lkelerin halklar谋n谋, kendi halk谋n谋, bombalanan yerlerdeki 枚rne臒in 陌ngiltere鈥檇e Coventry ile Almanya鈥檇a Hamburg鈥檇a ya艧ayan sivil halk谋 kendi 鈥渋nsanl谋k terazisinde鈥� tart谋yor.
Roman m谋 okudum, belgesel-an谋 kitab谋 m谋 bilmiyorum, bilmem de gerekmiyor, ancak uzun s眉re dilimden d眉艧meyecek san谋r谋m, 鈥渄edi Austerlitz鈥�.
Mutlaka okuyun, okutun.
December 5, 2024
Searching for the Lost Identity
When I was reading 'Austerlitz' I did not want it to end in spite of its painful subject. It is definitely one of the best books I have read in 2024.
The author focuses on just one life of the millions affected by the Holocaust. Of course, other books describing similar traumatic experience (and true stories) have come to mind, for example, 'Un secret' by Philippe Grimbert and 'W or the Memory of Childhood' by Georges Perec but the dreamlike atmosphere of 'Austerlitz' mesmerizes you at once. It seems there are no clear borderlines between fiction and memoir, memoir and historical narrative as there is a very thin line between past and present.
Almost all his life the protagonist was subconsciously scared to open Pandora's box of his family's tragic past. At the same time his chilhood memories were knocking at him from the depth of his dreams. He could not feel whole without knowing where he came from, who he was, if he was ever loved in his life. And so Austerlitz starts his painstaking search for the answers piecing together the fragments of his past shattered by the war, embracing his true identity.
Reading this beautiful, melancholic, enigmatic and intellectually rich work, following these endless sentences has been like a meditative journey into memory's labyrinth. It gives you a new perspective into the themes of loss, displacement, memory, time and regaining one's identity.
'Our mightiest projects ... most obviously betray the degree of our insecurity.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'Everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every extinguished life.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'The dead are outside time ... and they are not the only ones.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'I felt ... as if the dead were returning from their exile.'
----------------------------------------------------------------
'The pictures had a memory of their own and remembered us.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'I must have made a mistake, and now I am living the wrong life.'
------------------------------------------------------------
'We ... have appointments to keep in the past.'
When I was reading 'Austerlitz' I did not want it to end in spite of its painful subject. It is definitely one of the best books I have read in 2024.
The author focuses on just one life of the millions affected by the Holocaust. Of course, other books describing similar traumatic experience (and true stories) have come to mind, for example, 'Un secret' by Philippe Grimbert and 'W or the Memory of Childhood' by Georges Perec but the dreamlike atmosphere of 'Austerlitz' mesmerizes you at once. It seems there are no clear borderlines between fiction and memoir, memoir and historical narrative as there is a very thin line between past and present.
Almost all his life the protagonist was subconsciously scared to open Pandora's box of his family's tragic past. At the same time his chilhood memories were knocking at him from the depth of his dreams. He could not feel whole without knowing where he came from, who he was, if he was ever loved in his life. And so Austerlitz starts his painstaking search for the answers piecing together the fragments of his past shattered by the war, embracing his true identity.
Reading this beautiful, melancholic, enigmatic and intellectually rich work, following these endless sentences has been like a meditative journey into memory's labyrinth. It gives you a new perspective into the themes of loss, displacement, memory, time and regaining one's identity.
'Our mightiest projects ... most obviously betray the degree of our insecurity.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'Everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every extinguished life.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'The dead are outside time ... and they are not the only ones.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'I felt ... as if the dead were returning from their exile.'
----------------------------------------------------------------
'The pictures had a memory of their own and remembered us.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
'I must have made a mistake, and now I am living the wrong life.'
------------------------------------------------------------
'We ... have appointments to keep in the past.'
July 29, 2020
螖喂维尾伪蟽伪 蟽蔚 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟿慰 渭蠀胃喂蟽蟿蠈蟻畏渭伪, 蟿畏谓 蟿蟻委蟿畏 蟺喂慰 蟽蠀谓伪喂蟽胃畏渭伪蟿喂魏维 蠁慰蟻蟿喂蟽渭苇谓畏 蠁蟻维蟽畏, 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂蠅 蟽蠀谓伪谓蟿萎蟽蔚喂 蟺慰蟿苇 蟽蔚 位慰纬慰蟿蔚蠂谓喂魏蠈 苇蟻纬慰. 螚 蟺蟻蠋蟿畏 蔚委谓伪喂 畏 伪蟻蠂萎 蟿慰蠀 胃蟻萎谓慰蠀 蟿畏蟼 螒谓蟿喂纬蠈谓畏蟼: 芦惟, 蟿维蠁蔚 渭慰蠀, 蠅, 谓蠀蠁喂维蟿喂魏蠈 渭慰蠀, 蠅 伪喂蠋谓喂伪, 尾伪胃喂维 蟽蟿畏 纬畏, 蟽魏伪渭渭苇谓畏 魏伪蟿慰喂魏喂维 渭慰蠀禄. 螚 未蔚蠉蟿蔚蟻畏 蔚委谓伪喂 蟿伪 位蠈纬喂伪 蟿慰蠀 纬喂伪蟿蟻慰蠉 螤伪蟽魏维位, 蟽蟿畏谓 芦螤蔚蟻喂慰蠀蟽委伪 蟿蠅谓 巍慰蠀纬魏蠈谓禄, 蟽蟿慰 蟺蔚未委慰 蟿畏蟼 渭维蠂畏蟼: 芦Elle est morte禄. 螝伪喂 畏 蟿蟻委蟿畏 蠀蟺维蟻蠂蔚喂 蟽蔚 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟿慰 尾喂尾位委慰 蔚委谓伪喂 魏蟻伪蠀纬萎 蟿畏蟼 畏位喂魏喂蠅渭苇谓畏蟼 螔苇蟻伪蟼 蟺慰蠀 伪谓伪蠁蠅谓蔚委: 芦Jacquot, dis, est-ce que c'est vraiment toi?禄 螝伪喂 蟽蟿喂蟼 蟿蟻蔚喂蟼 蟺蔚蟻喂蟺蟿蠋蟽蔚喂蟼 苇蠂慰蠀渭蔚 渭喂伪 蟽蟺慰蠀未萎 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿畏谓 伪蟺蠋位蔚喂伪. 螚 蠂伪渭苇谓畏 味蠅萎, 蟿伪 蠂伪渭苇谓伪 蠈谓蔚喂蟻伪, 蟿慰 蠂伪渭苇谓慰 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓. 螝伪喂 慰 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼, 慰 魏蔚谓蟿蟻喂魏蠈蟼 萎蟻蠅伪蟼 蟿畏蟼 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪蟼 蟿慰蠀 Sebald, 蔚委谓伪喂 蠂伪渭苇谓慰蟼. 唯维蠂谓蔚喂 谓伪 尾蟻蔚喂 魏维蟿喂, 蟿慰 慰蟺慰委慰 未蔚谓 蠀蟺维蟻蠂蔚喂 蟺位苇慰谓 魏伪喂 蟽蠀谓蔚蟺蠋蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 魏伪蟿伪未喂魏伪蟽渭苇谓慰蟼 谓伪 蠀蟺慰蠁苇蟻蔚喂 伪蟺蠈 苇谓伪 伪未喂维魏慰蟺慰 伪委蟽胃畏渭伪 魏蔚谓慰蠉, 蟺慰蠀 蟿慰谓 伪蟻蟻蠅蟽蟿伪委谓蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟿慰 魏伪蟿伪蟻蟻伪魏蠋谓蔚喂 蠄蠀蠂喂魏维 魏伪喂 蟽蠅渭伪蟿喂魏维. 螣 伪谓蠋谓蠀渭慰蟼 伪蠁畏纬畏蟿萎蟼 (委蟽蠅蟼 渭喂伪 蔚魏未慰蠂萎 蟿慰蠀 委未喂慰蠀 蟿慰蠀 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪), 蟿慰谓 蟽蠀谓伪谓蟿维 蟿蠀蠂伪委伪, 蟿慰谓 蠂维谓蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟿慰谓 尉伪谓伪尾蟻委蟽魏蔚喂, 魏喂 伪蟺蠈 苇谓伪 蟽畏渭蔚委慰 魏伪喂 渭蔚蟿维 慰 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼 蟿慰谓 未喂伪位苇纬蔚喂 纬喂伪 谓伪 蟿慰蠀 未喂畏纬畏胃蔚委 蟿畏谓 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪 蟿慰蠀, 蟿畏谓 蟺蔚蟻喂蟺苇蟿蔚喂维 蟿慰蠀 蟽蟿畏谓 蟺蟻慰蟽蟺维胃蔚喂维 蟿慰蠀 谓伪 尾蟻蔚喂 蟺位畏蟻慰蠁慰蟻委蔚蟼 蟽蠂蔚蟿喂魏维 渭蔚 蟿慰蠀蟼 蠂伪渭苇谓慰蠀蟼 纬慰谓蔚委蟼 蟿慰蠀, 魏伪喂 蟿慰 位畏蟽渭慰谓畏渭苇谓慰 蟿慰蠀 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓.
螣 蟿蟻蠈蟺慰蟼 蟺慰蠀 位蔚喂蟿慰蠀蟻纬蔚委 慰 渭畏蠂伪谓喂蟽渭蠈蟼 蟿畏蟼 渭谓萎渭畏蟼, 蟿伪 蔚蟻蔚胃委蟽渭伪蟿伪 蟺慰蠀 尉蔚魏位蔚喂未蠋谓慰蠀谓 蔚喂魏蠈谓蔚蟼 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓, 蟽蔚 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟿慰 苇蟻纬慰, 蔚蟻渭畏谓蔚蠉蔚蟿伪喂 魏伪喂 未喂蔚蟻蔚蠀谓维蟿伪喂 渭蔚 渭喂伪 渭苇胃慰未慰 蟺慰蠀 胃蠀渭委味蔚喂 魏维蟿喂 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 蔚谓未慰蟽魏蠈蟺畏蟽畏 蟿慰蠀 螤蟻慰蠀蟽蟿, 蠂蠅蟻委蟼 蠅蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 谓伪 苇蠂蔚喂 蟿畏谓 尾蔚尾伪喂蠈蟿畏蟿伪 魏伪喂 蟿畏 位蔚蟺蟿慰渭蔚蟻萎 魏伪蟿伪纬蟻伪蠁萎 蟺慰蠀 伪蟺慰蟿蠀蟺蠋谓蔚蟿伪喂 蟽蟿慰 芦螒谓伪味畏蟿蠋谓蟿伪蟼 蟿慰谓 蠂伪渭苇谓慰 蠂蟻蠈谓慰禄. 螕喂伪蟿委 蟽蟿畏谓 蟺蟻慰魏蔚喂渭苇谓畏 蟺蔚蟻委蟺蟿蠅蟽畏 慰 萎蟻蠅伪蟼, 未蔚谓 胃蠀渭维蟿伪喂. 螤伪位蔚蠉蔚喂 谓伪 胃蠀渭畏胃蔚委, 蟺蟻慰蟽蟺伪胃蔚委 谓伪 未喂伪蟽蠋蟽蔚喂 魏维蟿喂 渭苇蟽伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿伪 蟽蟺伪蟻维纬渭伪蟿伪 蟿畏蟼 渭谓萎渭畏蟼. 螖蔚谓 魏伪蟿伪蠁苇蟻蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟽蟺慰蠀未伪委伪 蟺蟻维纬渭伪蟿伪, 伪位位维 渭蔚 蟿畏 蠁伪谓蟿伪蟽委伪 蟿慰蠀 魏伪喂 渭蔚 蔚位维蠂喂蟽蟿伪 蠂蔚喂蟻慰蟺喂伪蟽蟿维 蟿蔚魏渭萎蟻喂伪 (蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼 魏蠀蟻委蠅蟼, 伪位位维 魏伪喂 伪蟺慰魏蠈渭渭伪蟿伪 蔚喂蟽喂蟿畏蟻委蠅谓, 魏伪蟻苇 伪蟺蠈 未蠀蟽蔚蠉蟻蔚蟿伪 蠁喂位渭 魏伪喂 蔚蟺喂蟿蠈蟺喂蔚蟼 苇蟻蔚蠀谓蔚蟼, 蟽蠀谓慰渭喂位委蔚蟼 渭蔚 伪蠀蟿蠈蟺蟿蔚蟼 渭维蟻蟿蠀蟻蔚蟼 魏伪喂 尾喂尾位喂慰纬蟻伪蠁喂魏苇蟼 魏伪蟿伪纬蟻伪蠁苇蟼 魏蟿位.) 蟺蟻慰蟽蟺伪胃蔚委 谓伪 伪谓伪蟺位畏蟻蠋蟽蔚喂 蟿伪 魏蔚谓维. 螘委谓伪喂 蔚蟺喂蟽蟿萎渭慰谓伪蟼 慰 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼, 伪位位维 未蠀蟽蟿蠀蠂蠋蟼 伪谓萎魏蔚喂 蟽蔚 蔚魏蔚委谓畏 蟿畏谓 胃位喂尾蔚蟻萎 魏伪蟿畏纬慰蟻委伪 蟿蠅谓 蠅蟻伪委蠅谓 渭蠀伪位蠋谓 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂慰蠀谓 渭蔚纬维位慰 蟺蟻蠈尾位畏渭伪 未喂伪蠂蔚委蟻喂蟽畏蟼 蟿慰蠀 蠀位喂魏慰蠉 蟿慰蠀蟼. 螝喂 苇蟿蟽喂 蠈位伪 蟺伪蟻伪渭苇谓慰蠀谓 渭喂蟽慰蟿蔚位蔚喂蠅渭苇谓伪, 魏蟻蠀蟺蟿喂魏维, 未蠀蟽蔚蟻渭萎谓蔚蠀蟿伪 魏伪喂 伪蟺蟻慰蟽未喂蠈蟻喂蟽蟿伪.
螒蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼 蟺慰蠀 蟺蔚蟻喂位伪渭尾维谓慰谓蟿伪喂 蟽蟿慰 尾喂尾位委慰, 渭慰蠀 苇魏伪谓伪谓 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 伪蟻蠂萎 渭蔚纬维位畏 蔚谓蟿蠉蟺蠅蟽畏. 螒蟺蠈 蟿慰 尉伪谓胃蠈 伪纬慰蟻维魏喂 蟽蟿慰 蔚尉蠋蠁蠀位位慰 蟿慰蠀 尾喂尾位委慰蠀 渭苇蠂蟻喂 蟿慰 渭喂魏蟻蠈 未维蟽慰蟼 蟿畏蟼 蔚胃谓喂魏萎蟼 尾喂尾位喂慰胃萎魏畏蟼 蟿畏蟼 螕伪位位委伪蟼, 蠈位蔚蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 伪位畏胃喂谓苇蟼 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼, 蟿喂蟼 慰蟺慰委蔚蟼 蟿慰蟺慰胃蔚蟿蔚委 蔚喂魏慰谓慰纬蟻伪蠁喂魏维 慰 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪蟼 蟽蔚 蟽蟿蟻伪蟿畏纬喂魏维 蟽畏渭蔚委伪 蟿慰蠀 苇蟻纬慰蠀, 苇蟿蟽喂 蠋蟽蟿蔚 谓伪 蠀蟺慰纬蟻伪渭渭委味慰蠀谓 蟿伪 位蔚纬蠈渭蔚谓维 蟿慰蠀 渭蔚 渭喂伪 蔚蟺委蠁伪蟽畏 伪位畏胃慰蠁维谓蔚喂伪蟼. 螒位位维 伪魏蠈渭伪 未蔚谓 苇蠂蠅 魏伪蟿伪位维尾蔚喂 蟿畏谓 蟿蔚蠂谓喂魏萎 渭蔚 蟿畏谓 慰蟺慰委伪 未苇谓蔚喂 蟿慰 蠀位喂魏蠈 蟿慰蠀, 萎 蟺喂慰 伪蟺位维 蟿委 萎蟻胃蔚 蟺蟻蠋蟿慰 畏 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委伪, 未畏位伪未萎 畏 蔚喂魏蠈谓伪, 萎 蟿慰 魏蔚委渭蔚谓慰; 螕喂伪蟿委 蟺苇蟻伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 魏蔚谓蟿蟻喂魏萎 未喂萎纬畏蟽畏 蟿慰蠀 萎蟻蠅伪 蟺慰蠀 蠄维蠂谓蔚喂 蟺位畏蟻慰蠁慰蟻委蔚蟼 纬喂伪 蟿慰蠀蟼 纬慰谓蔚委蟼 蟿慰蠀, 蠀蟺维蟻蠂慰蠀谓 蟺慰位位苇蟼 渭喂魏蟻蠈蟿蔚蟻蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蠀谓蟿慰渭蠈蟿蔚蟻蔚蟼 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼, 蟺慰位蠉 蠂伪位伪蟻维 未蔚渭苇谓蔚蟼 蟽蟿慰谓 魏慰蟻渭蠈 蟿慰蠀 苇蟻纬慰蠀, 蟽蟿畏谓 慰蠀蟽委伪 蔚委谓伪喂 蟺伪蟻蔚魏尾维蟽蔚喂蟼 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰 魏蔚谓蟿蟻喂魏蠈 胃苇渭伪, 蟺慰蠀, 蠅蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 渭苇蟽伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼, 萎 渭维位位慰谓 蠂维蟻畏 蟽蔚 伪蠀蟿苇蟼, 位蔚喂蟿慰蠀蟻纬慰蠉谓 蟽伪谓 蟽蠀谓未蔚蟿喂魏慰委 魏蟻委魏慰喂 魏伪喂 蟽蠀谓喂蟽蟿慰蠉谓 苇谓伪 蔚谓喂伪委慰 魏伪喂 伪蟻喂蟽蟿慰蟿蔚蠂谓喂魏维 未蔚渭苇谓慰 蟽蠉谓慰位慰. 螝伪喂 蟿慰 胃苇渭伪 渭蔚 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 蟿喂蟼 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 未蔚谓 蟿喂蟼 蟽蟿萎谓蔚喂 魏伪喂 未蔚谓 蟿喂蟼 未畏渭喂慰蠀蟻纬蔚委 慰 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪蟼 蔚蟺委 蟿慰蠉蟿慰蠀, 蟺蟻慰蠇蟺萎蟻蠂伪谓 魏伪喂 蟿喂蟼 蟽蠀谓苇位蔚尉蔚 魏伪喂 蟿喂蟼 蔚谓蟽蠅渭维蟿蠅蟽蔚 苇蟿蟽喂 蠋蟽蟿蔚 谓伪 渭慰喂维味慰蠀谓 蟽伪谓 谓伪 蠁蟿喂维蠂蟿畏魏伪谓 纬喂伪 谓伪 蟽蠀谓慰未蔚蠉蟽慰蠀谓 蟿喂蟼 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼 蟿慰蠀, 蟿蠈蟽慰 蟿伪喂蟻喂伪蟽蟿苇蟼 魏伪喂 伪蟺慰位蠉蟿蠅蟼 魏伪蟿伪蟿慰蟺喂蟽蟿喂魏苇蟼 蔚委谓伪喂. 螤慰位位苇蟼 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 尉蔚蟺蔚蟻谓慰蠉谓 蟽蔚 味蠅谓蟿维谓喂伪 伪魏蠈渭伪 魏伪喂 蟿喂蟼 蟺喂慰 位蔚蟺蟿蔚蟺委位蔚蟺蟿蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟺蔚蟻委蟿蔚蠂谓蔚蟼 蟺蔚蟻喂纬蟻伪蠁苇蟼 蟿慰蠀 尾喂尾位委慰蠀, 蠈蟺蠅蟼 伪蟼 蟺慰蠉渭蔚 畏 蔚喂魏蠈谓伪 蟿畏蟼 渭蔚位伪蠂蟻喂谓萎蟼 纬蠀谓伪委魏伪蟼 蟺慰蠀 蠀蟺慰蟿委胃蔚蟿伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 畏 螁纬魏伪胃伪, 畏 渭畏蟿苇蟻伪 蟿慰蠀 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼.
螖喂维尾伪蟽伪 蟽蔚 魏维蟺慰喂蔚蟼 魏蟻喂蟿喂魏苇蟼 蟺蠅蟼 蟽蔚 魏维蟺慰喂慰蠀蟼 伪谓伪纬谓蠋蟽蟿蔚蟼, 慰 魏蔚谓蟿蟻喂魏蠈蟼 萎蟻蠅伪蟼 渭慰喂维味蔚喂 伪谓慰位慰魏位萎蟻蠅蟿慰蟼 魏伪喂 蠁伪蟽渭伪蟿喂魏蠈蟼. 螕喂伪 蔚渭苇谓伪 喂蟽蠂蠉蔚喂 蟿慰 伪谓蟿委胃蔚蟿慰, 尾蟻萎魏伪 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 蟺慰位蠉 蠂蔚喂蟻慰蟺喂伪蟽蟿蠈蟼 魏伪喂 伪谓胃蟻蠋蟺喂谓慰蟼. 韦慰谓 蟽蠀渭蟺维胃畏蟽伪 魏伪喂 渭慰蠀 蠁维谓畏魏蔚 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委蠂蔚 渭蔚纬维位畏 蟽蠀谓苇蟺蔚喂伪. 螘委谓伪喂 慰 蟿蟻蠈蟺慰蟼 苇魏胃蔚蟽畏蟼 蟿蠅谓 纬蔚纬慰谓蠈蟿蠅谓 蟺慰蠀 尾蟻萎魏伪 魏维蟺蠅蟼 蠄蠀蠂蟻蠈, 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 伪蠁畏纬萎蟽蔚喂蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿喂蟼 伪蠁畏纬萎蟽蔚喂蟼 蟺慰蠀 未蔚谓 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位慰蠉谓 蟿畏谓 蟿蠀蟺喂魏萎 位慰纬慰蟿蔚蠂谓喂魏萎 伪谓伪蟺伪蟻维蟽蟿伪蟽畏, 蟽伪谓 谓伪 胃苇位蔚喂 慰 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪蟼 谓伪 渭伪蟼 蠀蟺蔚谓胃蠀渭委味蔚喂, 伪未喂维魏慰蟺伪, 蟺蠅蟼 蠈蟽伪 伪谓伪蠁苇蟻蔚喂, 苇蠂慰蠀谓 纬委谓蔚喂 萎未畏 魏伪喂 苇蠂慰蠀谓 萎未畏 蟿蔚位蔚喂蠋蟽蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 蟺蟻蠈魏蔚喂蟿伪喂 纬喂伪 渭喂伪 蟽蠀谓维谓蟿畏蟽畏 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蔚 味蠅谓蟿伪谓慰蠉蟼 魏伪喂 蟺蔚胃伪渭苇谓慰蠀蟼. 危蔚 苇谓伪 蟽畏渭蔚委慰 蟺伪蟻伪胃苇蟿蔚喂 魏喂蠈位伪蟼 渭喂伪 蠈渭慰蟻蠁畏 蔚尉萎纬畏蟽畏 纬喂伪 蟿慰 蟺慰喂蠈谓 伪蠀蟿蠋谓 蟿蠅谓 谓蔚魏蟻蠋谓, 蠈蟿伪谓 位苇蔚喂:
芦螣 螆尾伪谓 苇位蔚纬蔚 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼 纬喂伪 蟿慰蠀蟼 蟺蔚胃伪渭苇谓慰蠀蟼 蟺慰蠀 蠂维胃畏魏伪谓 蟺蟻蠈蠅蟻伪, 蟺慰蠀 魏伪蟿伪位维尾伪喂谓伪谓 蟺蠅蟼 蟽蟿蔚蟻萎胃畏魏伪谓 蟿伪 蠈蟽伪 未喂魏伪喂蠅渭伪蟿喂魏维 蟿慰蠀蟼 伪谓萎魏伪谓, 魏伪喂 萎胃蔚位伪谓 谓伪 蔚蟺喂蟽蟿蟻苇蠄慰蠀谓 蟺委蟽蠅 蟽蟿畏 味蠅萎. 螝喂 伪谓 蔚委蠂蔚蟼 蟿畏谓 喂魏伪谓蠈蟿畏蟿伪, 蟿蠈蟿蔚 渭蟺慰蟻慰蠉蟽蔚蟼 谓伪 蟿慰蠀蟼 尾位苇蟺蔚喂蟼 魏维胃蔚 蟿蠈蟽慰, 苇蟿蟽喂 苇位蔚纬蔚 慰 螆尾伪谓. 螠蔚 蟿畏谓 蟺蟻蠋蟿畏 渭伪蟿喂维 胃蠉渭喂味伪谓 魏伪谓慰谓喂魏慰蠉蟼 伪谓胃蟻蠋蟺慰蠀蟼 伪位位维 伪谓 魏慰喂蟿慰蠉蟽蔚蟼 蟺蟻慰蟽蔚蠂蟿喂魏蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 蠁伪委谓慰谓蟿伪谓 蟿慰 胃慰位蠈 蟺蔚蟻委纬蟻伪渭渭维 蟿慰蠀蟼 蟽伪谓 谓伪 蟿蟻蔚渭慰蟺伪委味蔚喂. 螝伪喂 萎蟿伪谓 蟽蠀谓萎胃蠅蟼 魏维蟺蠅蟼 魏慰谓蟿蠉蟿蔚蟻慰喂 伪蟺蠈 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 萎蟿伪谓 蠈蟽慰 味慰蠉蟽伪谓, 纬喂伪蟿委 畏 蔚渭蟺蔚喂蟻委伪 蟿慰蠀 胃伪谓维蟿慰蠀, 苇位蔚纬蔚 慰 螆尾伪谓, 渭伪蟼 渭蔚喂蠋谓蔚喂, 蠈蟺蠅蟼 苇谓伪 魏慰渭渭维蟿喂 伪蟺蠈 蠉蠁伪蟽渭伪 位喂谓蠈, 蟺慰蠀 渭蟺伪委谓蔚喂 渭蔚蟿维 蟿慰 蟺蟻蠋蟿慰 蟺位蠉蟽喂渭慰. 螣喂 蟺蔚胃伪渭苇谓慰喂 蟿喂蟼 蟺蔚蟻喂蟽蟽蠈蟿蔚蟻蔚蟼 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 蟺蔚蟻蟺伪蟿慰蠉蟽伪谓 渭慰谓伪蠂慰委 蟿慰蠀蟼, 蠅蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 魏维蟺慰喂蔚蟼 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 苇尾纬伪喂谓伪谓 蟽蔚 渭喂魏蟻苇蟼 蟺伪蟻苇蔚蟼. 韦慰蠀蟼 蔚委蠂伪谓 未蔚喂 谓伪 蠁慰蟻慰蠉谓 蟽蟿慰位苇蟼 渭蔚 味蠅畏蟻维 蠂蟻蠋渭伪蟿伪 萎 蟿蠀位喂纬渭苇谓慰蠀蟼 蟽蔚 纬魏蟻委味慰蠀蟼 渭伪谓未蠉蔚蟼, 谓伪 蟺慰蟻蔚蠉慰谓蟿伪喂 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿慰谓 位蠈蠁慰, 蟺维谓蠅 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 蟺蠈位畏, 伪魏慰位慰蠀胃蠋谓蟿伪蟼 蟿慰谓 伪蟺伪位蠈 蟻蠀胃渭蠈 蔚谓蠈蟼 蟿蠀渭蟺维谓慰蠀 魏伪喂 蔚位维蠂喂蟽蟿伪 蠄畏位蠈蟿蔚蟻慰喂 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰蠀蟼 伪纬蟻慰蟿喂魏慰蠉蟼 蠁蟻维蠂蟿蔚蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼 慰蟺慰委慰蠀蟼 未喂伪蟺蔚蟻谓慰蠉蟽伪谓禄.
螒蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼 渭慰蠀 胃蠉渭喂蟽伪谓 蟿畏谓 蟽蠀谓萎胃蔚喂伪 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂慰蠀渭蔚 蟽蟿慰谓 蟿蠈蟺慰 渭慰蠀, 蠈蟿伪谓 魏维蟺慰喂慰蟼 胃苇位蔚喂 谓伪 蟽蔚 蟻蠅蟿萎蟽蔚喂 伪谓 蟺蟻蠈位伪尾蔚蟼 谓伪 纬谓蠅蟻委蟽蔚喂蟼 魏维蟺慰喂慰谓 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂蔚喂 蟺位苇慰谓 蟺蔚胃维谓蔚喂, 未蔚谓 蟽蔚 蟻蠅蟿维蔚喂 伪谓 蟿慰谓 蟺蟻蠈位伪尾蔚蟼 味蠅谓蟿伪谓蠈, 蟽蔚 蟻蠅蟿维蔚喂 伪谓 芦蟿慰谓 胃蠀渭萎胃畏魏蔚蟼禄. 螌蠂喂 伪谓 蟿慰谓 芦胃蠀渭维蟽伪喂禄 伪位位维 伪谓 芦蟿慰谓 胃蠀渭萎胃畏魏蔚蟼禄 魏喂 苇蟿蟽喂 魏维蟺蠅蟼 未喂伪蠂蠅蟻委味慰蠀谓 蠈蟽伪 伪谓萎魏慰蠀谓 蟽蟿慰 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓, 纬喂伪蟿委 蟿蔚位喂魏维 畏 未喂魏萎 渭伪蟼 伪位位慰喂蠅渭苇谓畏 蔚喂魏蠈谓伪 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 蟺伪蟻伪渭苇谓蔚喂, 蠈蟿伪谓 蠈位伪 尾蠀胃委味慰谓蟿伪喂 蟽蟿畏谓 蟺喂慰 伪谓伪蟺蠈蠁蔚蠀魏蟿畏 位萎胃畏, 伪蠀蟿萎 蟺慰蠀 蟽蠀谓慰未蔚蠉蔚喂 蟿慰谓 胃维谓伪蟿慰. 螛蠀渭萎胃畏魏伪 蔚蟺委蟽畏蟼 未喂伪尾维味慰谓蟿伪蟼 蟿畏谓 蟺蟻慰蟽蟺维胃蔚喂伪 蟿慰蠀 萎蟻蠅伪 谓伪 蟽蠀谓未苇蟽蔚喂 蟿慰 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓 蟿慰蠀 渭蔚 渭喂伪 尉蔚蠂伪蟽渭苇谓畏 纬位蠋蟽蟽伪, 渭喂伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 纬位蠋蟽蟽蔚蟼 蟺慰蠀 维魏慰蠀蟽蔚 魏伪蟿维 蟿畏谓 蟺伪喂未喂魏萎 蟿慰蠀 畏位喂魏委伪, 蟺蠅蟼 畏 位苇尉畏 芦veverka禄 蟺慰蠀 蟽畏渭伪委谓蔚喂 蟽魏委慰蠀蟻慰蟼, 伪魏慰蠉纬蔚蟿伪喂 蟺伪蟻蠈渭慰喂伪 渭蔚 蔚魏蔚委谓畏 蟺慰蠀 蠂蟻畏蟽喂渭慰蟺慰喂慰蠉渭蔚 魏喂 蔚渭蔚委蟼 蟽蟿慰谓 蟿蠈蟺慰 渭慰蠀 纬喂鈥� 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟿慰 味蠅维魏喂. 螘渭蔚委蟼 蟿伪 位苇渭蔚 尾蔚蟻尾蔚蟻委蟿蟽蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟺喂蟽蟿蔚蠉蠅 蟺蠅蟼 蟿伪 尾萎蟿伪 蔚委谓伪喂 纬喂伪 蟿畏谓 伪蟺伪位萎 纬慰蠉谓伪 蟿畏蟼 慰蠀蟻维蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼, 蟿伪 蟻蠅 纬喂伪 蟿畏谓 蟿伪蠂蠉蟿畏蟿维 蟿慰蠀蟼 谓伪 蟽魏伪蟻蠁伪位蠋谓慰蠀谓 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿伪 未苇谓蟿蟻伪 魏伪喂 谓伪 蠂维谓慰谓蟿伪喂 魏伪喂 蟿伪 苇蠄喂位慰谓 纬喂伪 蟿慰谓 蔚谓胃慰蠀蟽喂伪蟽渭蠈 蟺慰蠀 蟺蠀蟻慰未慰蟿蔚委 蟽蠀蠂谓维 蟿慰 蟽蠀谓伪蟺维谓蟿畏渭伪 渭蔚 伪蠀蟿维 蟿伪 蠂伪蟻喂蟿蠅渭苇谓伪 蟺位伪蟽渭伪蟿维魏喂伪. 螝喂 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 纬位蠅蟽蟽喂魏苇蟼 胃蔚蠅蟻委蔚蟼 蟺慰蠀 蠀蟺慰蟽蟿畏蟻委味慰蠀谓 蟺蠅蟼 魏维谓慰蠀渭蔚 位苇尉蔚喂蟼 伪蟺蠈 萎蠂慰蠀蟼 魏伪喂 慰喂 萎蠂慰喂 伪蟺慰蟿蠀蟺蠋谓慰蠀谓 蔚喂魏蠈谓蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蠀谓伪喂蟽胃萎渭伪蟿伪.
违蟺维蟻蠂慰蠀谓 蔚蟺委蟽畏蟼 蟺慰位位苇蟼, 伪蠂谓苇蟼 伪位位维 喂蟽蠂蠀蟻苇蟼 尾喂尾位喂魏苇蟼 蔚喂魏蠈谓蔚蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿慰 苇蟻纬慰, 蟿慰 渭蠅蟻蠈 蟺慰蠀 蟽蠋味蔚蟿伪喂 蟽蔚 苇谓伪 魏伪位维胃喂, 蟿伪 蟿蔚委蠂畏 蟿畏蟼 螜蔚蟻喂蠂慰蠉蟼 魏伪喂 慰 渭蔚纬维位慰蟼 魏伪蟿伪魏位蠀蟽渭蠈蟼 畏 蠁蠀纬萎 蟽蟿畏谓 螒委纬蠀蟺蟿慰 魏伪喂 畏 蟺慰蟻蔚委伪 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿畏谓 苇蟻畏渭慰 魏伪喂 蠁伪委谓蔚蟿伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 蠈位蔚蟼 慰喂 蔚魏未慰蠂苇蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼, 渭慰喂蟻伪委伪 蔚蟺伪谓伪位伪渭尾维谓慰谓蟿伪喂 渭蔚 未喂伪蠁慰蟻蔚蟿喂魏慰蠉蟼 蟿蟻蠈蟺慰蠀蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿畏谓 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪 蟿畏蟼 伪谓胃蟻蠅蟺蠈蟿畏蟿伪蟼. 螝维蟺慰喂慰喂 胃伪 蟽蠅胃慰蠉谓 魏伪喂 魏维蟺慰喂慰喂 胃伪 尾慰蠀位喂维尉慰蠀谓 魏伪喂 蔚委谓伪喂 蟿慰 蠀未维蟿喂谓慰 蟽蟿慰喂蠂蔚委慰, 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 魏伪位蠉蟺蟿蔚喂 蟿伪 蟺维谓蟿伪 蟿蔚位喂魏维, 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 未喂伪蟽蠋味蔚喂 蟿伪 蠂蟻蠋渭伪蟿伪 魏伪喂 蟿畏谓 蟺喂慰 蟽蟺维谓喂伪 魏伪喂 伪魏蟻喂尾慰胃蠋蟻畏蟿畏 慰渭慰蟻蠁喂维:
芦螛蠀渭维渭伪喂, 蔚委蟺蔚 慰 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼, 蟺蠅蟼 魏维蟺慰蟿蔚 慰 螒位蠁蠈谓蟽慰 未喂畏纬萎胃畏魏蔚 蟽蔚 蔚渭苇谓伪 魏伪喂 蟽蟿慰谓 伪谓喂蠄喂蠈 蟿慰蠀 蟺蠅蟼 蠈位伪 蟽尾萎谓慰谓蟿伪喂 渭蟺蟻慰蟽蟿维 蟽蟿伪 渭维蟿喂伪 渭伪蟼, 魏伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 萎未畏 蟺慰位位维 伪蟺蠈 蟿伪 蠅蟻伪喂蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 蠂蟻蠋渭伪蟿伪 苇蠂慰蠀谓 蠂伪胃蔚委 蟺伪谓蟿慰蟿喂谓维 萎 蟽蠀谓蔚蠂委味慰蠀谓 谓伪 蠀蟺维蟻蠂慰蠀谓 蔚魏蔚委 蟺慰蠀 未蔚谓 蟿伪 蟺喂维谓蔚喂 伪谓胃蟻蠋蟺慰蠀 渭维蟿喂, 蟽蟿慰蠀蟼 蠀蟺慰尾蟻蠉蠂喂慰蠀蟼 魏萎蟺慰蠀蟼 尾伪胃喂维 魏维蟿蠅 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 蔚蟺喂蠁维谓蔚喂伪 蟿畏蟼 胃维位伪蟽蟽伪蟼. 危蟿伪 渭喂魏蟻维蟿伪 蟿慰蠀, 渭伪蟼 蔚委蟺蔚, 蟽蠀谓萎胃喂味蔚 谓伪 蟺蔚蟻蟺伪蟿维蔚喂 蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿慰蠀蟼 维蟽蟺蟻慰蠀蟼 尾蟻维蠂慰蠀蟼 蟿慰蠀 螡蟿苇尾慰谓 魏伪喂 蟿畏蟼 螝慰蟻谓慰蠀维位畏蟼, 蔚魏蔚委 蟺慰蠀 蟿伪 魏蠉渭伪蟿伪 伪喂蠋谓蔚蟼 蟿蠋蟻伪 蔚委蠂伪谓 蟽魏维蠄蔚喂 魏慰喂位蠈蟿畏蟿蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蟺畏位喂苇蟼, 胃伪蠀渭维味慰谓蟿伪蟼 蟿畏谓 伪谓蔚尉维谓蟿位畏蟿畏 蟺慰喂魏喂位委伪 蟿畏蟼 位蔚蟺蟿蔚蟺委位蔚蟺蟿畏蟼 蠁伪谓蟿伪蟽渭伪纬慰蟻委伪蟼 蟺慰蠀 蟿伪位伪谓蟿蔚蠀蠈蟿伪谓 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蟿伪 味蠅喂魏维, 蠁蠀蟿喂魏维 魏伪喂 慰蟻蠀魏锟斤拷维 尾伪蟽委位蔚喂伪, 蟿伪 味蠅蠈蠁蠀蟿伪, 蟿伪 魏慰蟻维位位喂伪, 蟿喂蟼 胃伪位维蟽蟽喂蔚蟼 伪谓蔚渭蠋谓蔚蟼, 蟿伪 蔚蠂喂谓蠈未蔚蟻渭伪, 蟿伪 伪谓胃蠈味蠅伪 魏伪喂 蟿伪 慰蟽蟿蟻伪魏蠈未蔚蟻渭伪 蟺慰蠀 畏 蟺伪位委蟻蟻慰喂伪 蟿伪 尉苇尾蟻伪味蔚 未蠀慰 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 蟿畏 渭苇蟻伪, 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蟿伪 蠁蠉魏喂伪 蟺慰蠀 蟿蟻蔚渭慰蠉位喂伪味伪谓 慰位蠈纬蠀蟻维 蟿慰蠀蟼, 魏伪喂 蟽伪谓 蟿蟻伪尾喂蠈蟿伪谓 蟿慰 谓蔚蟻蠈, 伪蟺慰魏维位蠀蟺蟿伪谓 蟿畏谓 蔚尉伪委蟽喂伪 喂蟻喂未委味慰蠀蟽伪 味蠅萎 蟿慰蠀蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿喂蟼 位伪魏魏慰蠉尾蔚蟼, 蔚魏胃苇蟿慰谓蟿伪蟼 尉伪谓维 蟽蟿慰 蠁蠅蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蟿慰谓 伪苇蟻伪 蠈位蔚蟼 蟿喂蟼 伪蟺慰蠂蟻蠋蟽蔚喂蟼 蟿慰蠀 慰蠀蟻维谓喂慰蠀 蟿蠈尉慰蠀, 蟿慰 蟽渭伪蟻伪纬未委, 蟿慰 魏蟻蔚渭蔚味委 魏伪喂 蟿慰 蟿蟻喂伪谓蟿伪蠁蠀位位委, 蟿慰 魏委蟿蟻喂谓慰 蟿畏蟼 蠋蠂蟻伪蟼 魏伪喂 蟿慰 尾蔚位慰蠉未喂谓慰 渭伪蠉蟻慰禄.
违蟺维蟻蠂蔚喂 蟽蔚 苇谓伪 蟽畏渭蔚委慰, 畏 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪 蟿畏蟼 蔚胃谓喂魏萎蟼 尾喂尾位喂慰胃萎魏畏蟼 蟿畏蟼 螕伪位位委伪蟼, 蟺慰蠀 渭蔚蟿伪蠁苇蟻胃畏魏蔚 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰 蟺伪位喂蠈 魏蟿委蟻喂慰 蟽蟿慰 魏伪喂谓慰蠉蟻纬喂慰. 韦慰 谓苇慰 蔚委谓伪喂 渭慰谓蟿苇蟻谓慰, 蔚委谓伪喂 蟽蠉纬蠂蟻慰谓慰 魏伪喂 蔚谓蟿蠀蟺蠅蟽喂伪魏维 蟿蔚蟻维蟽蟿喂慰. 惟蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 慰 萎蟻蠅伪蟼, 蟿慰 伪蟺蔚蠂胃维谓蔚蟿伪喂, 胃蔚蠅蟻蔚委 蟺蠅蟼 未蔚谓 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蟻魏蔚蟿维 蠁喂位喂魏蠈 纬喂伪 蟿慰谓 伪谓伪纬谓蠋蟽蟿畏 蟽蔚 蟽蠉纬魏蟻喂蟽畏 渭蔚 蟿慰 蟺伪位喂蠈. 螛蔚蠅蟻蔚委 蟺蠅蟼 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位蔚委 苇谓伪 渭谓畏渭蔚委慰 蔚纬蠅喂蟽渭慰蠉 魏伪喂 渭蔚纬伪位慰渭伪谓委伪蟼, 蠂蟿喂蟽渭苇谓慰 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蔚 苇谓伪谓 蟿蠈蟺慰 蠈蟺慰蠀 蟺伪位喂蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 蔚委蠂蔚 蟽蠀谓蟿蔚位蔚蟽蟿蔚委 苇谓伪 渭蔚纬维位慰 苇纬魏位畏渭伪. 螝伪喂 蟿蠋蟻伪 蠀蟺维蟻蠂蔚喂 蔚魏蔚委 苇谓伪 渭喂魏蟻蠈 未维蟽慰蟼 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蟿伪 尾喂尾位委伪, 慰蟻伪蟿蠈 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 蟿蔚蟻维蟽蟿喂蔚蟼 蟿味伪渭伪蟻委蔚蟼, 苇谓伪 未维蟽慰蟼 伪蟺蠈 未苇谓蟿蟻伪 渭蔚蟿伪蠁蠀蟿蔚蠀渭苇谓伪, 蔚尉蠈蟻喂蟽蟿伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 伪位位慰蟿喂谓萎 蟿慰蠀蟼 魏伪蟿慰喂魏委伪, 魏伪喂 蟽蠀蠂谓维 蟿伪 蟺慰蠀位喂维 味伪位喂蟽渭苇谓伪, 蟺苇蠁蟿慰蠀谓 谓蔚魏蟻维, 蠂蟿蠀蟺蠋谓蟿伪蟼 渭蔚 未蠉谓伪渭畏 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿伪 蟿味维渭喂伪 蟺慰蠀 蟽伪谓 伪蠈蟻伪蟿慰 蠁蟻慰蠉蟻喂慰, 蟺蔚蟻喂尾维位位慰蠀谓 蟿伪 尾喂尾位委伪. 韦蔚位喂魏维, 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蠀蟿蠈 伪魏蟻喂尾蠋蟼, 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 伪蠈蟻伪蟿蔚蟼 慰蠂蠀蟻蠋蟽蔚喂蟼 蟺慰蠀 尾伪蟽蟿慰蠉谓 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位蔚蟽渭伪蟿喂魏蠈蟿蔚蟻伪, 伪蟽蠉纬魏蟻喂蟿伪 魏伪位蠉蟿蔚蟻伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 维位位蔚蟼, 蟿喂蟼 蟺苇蟿蟻喂谓蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蠀位喂魏苇蟼 蔚魏未慰蠂苇蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼. 螝伪喂 蟿蔚位喂魏维, 苇蟿蟽喂 谓慰渭委味蠅, 蟺蠅蟼 慰 魏伪胃苇谓伪蟼 蟺蟻苇蟺蔚喂 谓伪 未喂伪位苇尉蔚喂 伪谓 伪蠀蟿蠈 胃伪 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位蔚委 苇谓伪 蔚委未慰蟼 蟺蟻慰蟽蟿伪蟿蔚蠀蟿喂魏萎蟼 渭蠈谓蠅蟽畏蟼 萎 渭喂伪 渭慰蟻蠁萎 伪蟺慰渭蠈谓蠅蟽畏蟼, 渭喂伪 未蠀蟽未喂维魏蟻喂蟿畏 伪位位维 伪蟺蟿萎 蠁蠀位伪魏萎.
螣 蟿蟻蠈蟺慰蟼 蟺慰蠀 位蔚喂蟿慰蠀蟻纬蔚委 慰 渭畏蠂伪谓喂蟽渭蠈蟼 蟿畏蟼 渭谓萎渭畏蟼, 蟿伪 蔚蟻蔚胃委蟽渭伪蟿伪 蟺慰蠀 尉蔚魏位蔚喂未蠋谓慰蠀谓 蔚喂魏蠈谓蔚蟼 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓, 蟽蔚 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟿慰 苇蟻纬慰, 蔚蟻渭畏谓蔚蠉蔚蟿伪喂 魏伪喂 未喂蔚蟻蔚蠀谓维蟿伪喂 渭蔚 渭喂伪 渭苇胃慰未慰 蟺慰蠀 胃蠀渭委味蔚喂 魏维蟿喂 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 蔚谓未慰蟽魏蠈蟺畏蟽畏 蟿慰蠀 螤蟻慰蠀蟽蟿, 蠂蠅蟻委蟼 蠅蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 谓伪 苇蠂蔚喂 蟿畏谓 尾蔚尾伪喂蠈蟿畏蟿伪 魏伪喂 蟿畏 位蔚蟺蟿慰渭蔚蟻萎 魏伪蟿伪纬蟻伪蠁萎 蟺慰蠀 伪蟺慰蟿蠀蟺蠋谓蔚蟿伪喂 蟽蟿慰 芦螒谓伪味畏蟿蠋谓蟿伪蟼 蟿慰谓 蠂伪渭苇谓慰 蠂蟻蠈谓慰禄. 螕喂伪蟿委 蟽蟿畏谓 蟺蟻慰魏蔚喂渭苇谓畏 蟺蔚蟻委蟺蟿蠅蟽畏 慰 萎蟻蠅伪蟼, 未蔚谓 胃蠀渭维蟿伪喂. 螤伪位蔚蠉蔚喂 谓伪 胃蠀渭畏胃蔚委, 蟺蟻慰蟽蟺伪胃蔚委 谓伪 未喂伪蟽蠋蟽蔚喂 魏维蟿喂 渭苇蟽伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿伪 蟽蟺伪蟻维纬渭伪蟿伪 蟿畏蟼 渭谓萎渭畏蟼. 螖蔚谓 魏伪蟿伪蠁苇蟻蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟽蟺慰蠀未伪委伪 蟺蟻维纬渭伪蟿伪, 伪位位维 渭蔚 蟿畏 蠁伪谓蟿伪蟽委伪 蟿慰蠀 魏伪喂 渭蔚 蔚位维蠂喂蟽蟿伪 蠂蔚喂蟻慰蟺喂伪蟽蟿维 蟿蔚魏渭萎蟻喂伪 (蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼 魏蠀蟻委蠅蟼, 伪位位维 魏伪喂 伪蟺慰魏蠈渭渭伪蟿伪 蔚喂蟽喂蟿畏蟻委蠅谓, 魏伪蟻苇 伪蟺蠈 未蠀蟽蔚蠉蟻蔚蟿伪 蠁喂位渭 魏伪喂 蔚蟺喂蟿蠈蟺喂蔚蟼 苇蟻蔚蠀谓蔚蟼, 蟽蠀谓慰渭喂位委蔚蟼 渭蔚 伪蠀蟿蠈蟺蟿蔚蟼 渭维蟻蟿蠀蟻蔚蟼 魏伪喂 尾喂尾位喂慰纬蟻伪蠁喂魏苇蟼 魏伪蟿伪纬蟻伪蠁苇蟼 魏蟿位.) 蟺蟻慰蟽蟺伪胃蔚委 谓伪 伪谓伪蟺位畏蟻蠋蟽蔚喂 蟿伪 魏蔚谓维. 螘委谓伪喂 蔚蟺喂蟽蟿萎渭慰谓伪蟼 慰 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼, 伪位位维 未蠀蟽蟿蠀蠂蠋蟼 伪谓萎魏蔚喂 蟽蔚 蔚魏蔚委谓畏 蟿畏谓 胃位喂尾蔚蟻萎 魏伪蟿畏纬慰蟻委伪 蟿蠅谓 蠅蟻伪委蠅谓 渭蠀伪位蠋谓 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂慰蠀谓 渭蔚纬维位慰 蟺蟻蠈尾位畏渭伪 未喂伪蠂蔚委蟻喂蟽畏蟼 蟿慰蠀 蠀位喂魏慰蠉 蟿慰蠀蟼. 螝喂 苇蟿蟽喂 蠈位伪 蟺伪蟻伪渭苇谓慰蠀谓 渭喂蟽慰蟿蔚位蔚喂蠅渭苇谓伪, 魏蟻蠀蟺蟿喂魏维, 未蠀蟽蔚蟻渭萎谓蔚蠀蟿伪 魏伪喂 伪蟺蟻慰蟽未喂蠈蟻喂蟽蟿伪.
螒蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼 蟺慰蠀 蟺蔚蟻喂位伪渭尾维谓慰谓蟿伪喂 蟽蟿慰 尾喂尾位委慰, 渭慰蠀 苇魏伪谓伪谓 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 伪蟻蠂萎 渭蔚纬维位畏 蔚谓蟿蠉蟺蠅蟽畏. 螒蟺蠈 蟿慰 尉伪谓胃蠈 伪纬慰蟻维魏喂 蟽蟿慰 蔚尉蠋蠁蠀位位慰 蟿慰蠀 尾喂尾位委慰蠀 渭苇蠂蟻喂 蟿慰 渭喂魏蟻蠈 未维蟽慰蟼 蟿畏蟼 蔚胃谓喂魏萎蟼 尾喂尾位喂慰胃萎魏畏蟼 蟿畏蟼 螕伪位位委伪蟼, 蠈位蔚蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 伪位畏胃喂谓苇蟼 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼, 蟿喂蟼 慰蟺慰委蔚蟼 蟿慰蟺慰胃蔚蟿蔚委 蔚喂魏慰谓慰纬蟻伪蠁喂魏维 慰 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪蟼 蟽蔚 蟽蟿蟻伪蟿畏纬喂魏维 蟽畏渭蔚委伪 蟿慰蠀 苇蟻纬慰蠀, 苇蟿蟽喂 蠋蟽蟿蔚 谓伪 蠀蟺慰纬蟻伪渭渭委味慰蠀谓 蟿伪 位蔚纬蠈渭蔚谓维 蟿慰蠀 渭蔚 渭喂伪 蔚蟺委蠁伪蟽畏 伪位畏胃慰蠁维谓蔚喂伪蟼. 螒位位维 伪魏蠈渭伪 未蔚谓 苇蠂蠅 魏伪蟿伪位维尾蔚喂 蟿畏谓 蟿蔚蠂谓喂魏萎 渭蔚 蟿畏谓 慰蟺慰委伪 未苇谓蔚喂 蟿慰 蠀位喂魏蠈 蟿慰蠀, 萎 蟺喂慰 伪蟺位维 蟿委 萎蟻胃蔚 蟺蟻蠋蟿慰 畏 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委伪, 未畏位伪未萎 畏 蔚喂魏蠈谓伪, 萎 蟿慰 魏蔚委渭蔚谓慰; 螕喂伪蟿委 蟺苇蟻伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 魏蔚谓蟿蟻喂魏萎 未喂萎纬畏蟽畏 蟿慰蠀 萎蟻蠅伪 蟺慰蠀 蠄维蠂谓蔚喂 蟺位畏蟻慰蠁慰蟻委蔚蟼 纬喂伪 蟿慰蠀蟼 纬慰谓蔚委蟼 蟿慰蠀, 蠀蟺维蟻蠂慰蠀谓 蟺慰位位苇蟼 渭喂魏蟻蠈蟿蔚蟻蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蠀谓蟿慰渭蠈蟿蔚蟻蔚蟼 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼, 蟺慰位蠉 蠂伪位伪蟻维 未蔚渭苇谓蔚蟼 蟽蟿慰谓 魏慰蟻渭蠈 蟿慰蠀 苇蟻纬慰蠀, 蟽蟿畏谓 慰蠀蟽委伪 蔚委谓伪喂 蟺伪蟻蔚魏尾维蟽蔚喂蟼 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰 魏蔚谓蟿蟻喂魏蠈 胃苇渭伪, 蟺慰蠀, 蠅蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 渭苇蟽伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼, 萎 渭维位位慰谓 蠂维蟻畏 蟽蔚 伪蠀蟿苇蟼, 位蔚喂蟿慰蠀蟻纬慰蠉谓 蟽伪谓 蟽蠀谓未蔚蟿喂魏慰委 魏蟻委魏慰喂 魏伪喂 蟽蠀谓喂蟽蟿慰蠉谓 苇谓伪 蔚谓喂伪委慰 魏伪喂 伪蟻喂蟽蟿慰蟿蔚蠂谓喂魏维 未蔚渭苇谓慰 蟽蠉谓慰位慰. 螝伪喂 蟿慰 胃苇渭伪 渭蔚 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 蟿喂蟼 蠁蠅蟿慰纬蟻伪蠁委蔚蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 未蔚谓 蟿喂蟼 蟽蟿萎谓蔚喂 魏伪喂 未蔚谓 蟿喂蟼 未畏渭喂慰蠀蟻纬蔚委 慰 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪蟼 蔚蟺委 蟿慰蠉蟿慰蠀, 蟺蟻慰蠇蟺萎蟻蠂伪谓 魏伪喂 蟿喂蟼 蟽蠀谓苇位蔚尉蔚 魏伪喂 蟿喂蟼 蔚谓蟽蠅渭维蟿蠅蟽蔚 苇蟿蟽喂 蠋蟽蟿蔚 谓伪 渭慰喂维味慰蠀谓 蟽伪谓 谓伪 蠁蟿喂维蠂蟿畏魏伪谓 纬喂伪 谓伪 蟽蠀谓慰未蔚蠉蟽慰蠀谓 蟿喂蟼 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼 蟿慰蠀, 蟿蠈蟽慰 蟿伪喂蟻喂伪蟽蟿苇蟼 魏伪喂 伪蟺慰位蠉蟿蠅蟼 魏伪蟿伪蟿慰蟺喂蟽蟿喂魏苇蟼 蔚委谓伪喂. 螤慰位位苇蟼 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 尉蔚蟺蔚蟻谓慰蠉谓 蟽蔚 味蠅谓蟿维谓喂伪 伪魏蠈渭伪 魏伪喂 蟿喂蟼 蟺喂慰 位蔚蟺蟿蔚蟺委位蔚蟺蟿蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟺蔚蟻委蟿蔚蠂谓蔚蟼 蟺蔚蟻喂纬蟻伪蠁苇蟼 蟿慰蠀 尾喂尾位委慰蠀, 蠈蟺蠅蟼 伪蟼 蟺慰蠉渭蔚 畏 蔚喂魏蠈谓伪 蟿畏蟼 渭蔚位伪蠂蟻喂谓萎蟼 纬蠀谓伪委魏伪蟼 蟺慰蠀 蠀蟺慰蟿委胃蔚蟿伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 畏 螁纬魏伪胃伪, 畏 渭畏蟿苇蟻伪 蟿慰蠀 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼.
螖喂维尾伪蟽伪 蟽蔚 魏维蟺慰喂蔚蟼 魏蟻喂蟿喂魏苇蟼 蟺蠅蟼 蟽蔚 魏维蟺慰喂慰蠀蟼 伪谓伪纬谓蠋蟽蟿蔚蟼, 慰 魏蔚谓蟿蟻喂魏蠈蟼 萎蟻蠅伪蟼 渭慰喂维味蔚喂 伪谓慰位慰魏位萎蟻蠅蟿慰蟼 魏伪喂 蠁伪蟽渭伪蟿喂魏蠈蟼. 螕喂伪 蔚渭苇谓伪 喂蟽蠂蠉蔚喂 蟿慰 伪谓蟿委胃蔚蟿慰, 尾蟻萎魏伪 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 蟺慰位蠉 蠂蔚喂蟻慰蟺喂伪蟽蟿蠈蟼 魏伪喂 伪谓胃蟻蠋蟺喂谓慰蟼. 韦慰谓 蟽蠀渭蟺维胃畏蟽伪 魏伪喂 渭慰蠀 蠁维谓畏魏蔚 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委蠂蔚 渭蔚纬维位畏 蟽蠀谓苇蟺蔚喂伪. 螘委谓伪喂 慰 蟿蟻蠈蟺慰蟼 苇魏胃蔚蟽畏蟼 蟿蠅谓 纬蔚纬慰谓蠈蟿蠅谓 蟺慰蠀 尾蟻萎魏伪 魏维蟺蠅蟼 蠄蠀蠂蟻蠈, 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 伪蠁畏纬萎蟽蔚喂蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿喂蟼 伪蠁畏纬萎蟽蔚喂蟼 蟺慰蠀 未蔚谓 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位慰蠉谓 蟿畏谓 蟿蠀蟺喂魏萎 位慰纬慰蟿蔚蠂谓喂魏萎 伪谓伪蟺伪蟻维蟽蟿伪蟽畏, 蟽伪谓 谓伪 胃苇位蔚喂 慰 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪蟼 谓伪 渭伪蟼 蠀蟺蔚谓胃蠀渭委味蔚喂, 伪未喂维魏慰蟺伪, 蟺蠅蟼 蠈蟽伪 伪谓伪蠁苇蟻蔚喂, 苇蠂慰蠀谓 纬委谓蔚喂 萎未畏 魏伪喂 苇蠂慰蠀谓 萎未畏 蟿蔚位蔚喂蠋蟽蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 蟺蟻蠈魏蔚喂蟿伪喂 纬喂伪 渭喂伪 蟽蠀谓维谓蟿畏蟽畏 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蔚 味蠅谓蟿伪谓慰蠉蟼 魏伪喂 蟺蔚胃伪渭苇谓慰蠀蟼. 危蔚 苇谓伪 蟽畏渭蔚委慰 蟺伪蟻伪胃苇蟿蔚喂 魏喂蠈位伪蟼 渭喂伪 蠈渭慰蟻蠁畏 蔚尉萎纬畏蟽畏 纬喂伪 蟿慰 蟺慰喂蠈谓 伪蠀蟿蠋谓 蟿蠅谓 谓蔚魏蟻蠋谓, 蠈蟿伪谓 位苇蔚喂:
芦螣 螆尾伪谓 苇位蔚纬蔚 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼 纬喂伪 蟿慰蠀蟼 蟺蔚胃伪渭苇谓慰蠀蟼 蟺慰蠀 蠂维胃畏魏伪谓 蟺蟻蠈蠅蟻伪, 蟺慰蠀 魏伪蟿伪位维尾伪喂谓伪谓 蟺蠅蟼 蟽蟿蔚蟻萎胃畏魏伪谓 蟿伪 蠈蟽伪 未喂魏伪喂蠅渭伪蟿喂魏维 蟿慰蠀蟼 伪谓萎魏伪谓, 魏伪喂 萎胃蔚位伪谓 谓伪 蔚蟺喂蟽蟿蟻苇蠄慰蠀谓 蟺委蟽蠅 蟽蟿畏 味蠅萎. 螝喂 伪谓 蔚委蠂蔚蟼 蟿畏谓 喂魏伪谓蠈蟿畏蟿伪, 蟿蠈蟿蔚 渭蟺慰蟻慰蠉蟽蔚蟼 谓伪 蟿慰蠀蟼 尾位苇蟺蔚喂蟼 魏维胃蔚 蟿蠈蟽慰, 苇蟿蟽喂 苇位蔚纬蔚 慰 螆尾伪谓. 螠蔚 蟿畏谓 蟺蟻蠋蟿畏 渭伪蟿喂维 胃蠉渭喂味伪谓 魏伪谓慰谓喂魏慰蠉蟼 伪谓胃蟻蠋蟺慰蠀蟼 伪位位维 伪谓 魏慰喂蟿慰蠉蟽蔚蟼 蟺蟻慰蟽蔚蠂蟿喂魏蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 蠁伪委谓慰谓蟿伪谓 蟿慰 胃慰位蠈 蟺蔚蟻委纬蟻伪渭渭维 蟿慰蠀蟼 蟽伪谓 谓伪 蟿蟻蔚渭慰蟺伪委味蔚喂. 螝伪喂 萎蟿伪谓 蟽蠀谓萎胃蠅蟼 魏维蟺蠅蟼 魏慰谓蟿蠉蟿蔚蟻慰喂 伪蟺蠈 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 萎蟿伪谓 蠈蟽慰 味慰蠉蟽伪谓, 纬喂伪蟿委 畏 蔚渭蟺蔚喂蟻委伪 蟿慰蠀 胃伪谓维蟿慰蠀, 苇位蔚纬蔚 慰 螆尾伪谓, 渭伪蟼 渭蔚喂蠋谓蔚喂, 蠈蟺蠅蟼 苇谓伪 魏慰渭渭维蟿喂 伪蟺蠈 蠉蠁伪蟽渭伪 位喂谓蠈, 蟺慰蠀 渭蟺伪委谓蔚喂 渭蔚蟿维 蟿慰 蟺蟻蠋蟿慰 蟺位蠉蟽喂渭慰. 螣喂 蟺蔚胃伪渭苇谓慰喂 蟿喂蟼 蟺蔚蟻喂蟽蟽蠈蟿蔚蟻蔚蟼 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 蟺蔚蟻蟺伪蟿慰蠉蟽伪谓 渭慰谓伪蠂慰委 蟿慰蠀蟼, 蠅蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 魏维蟺慰喂蔚蟼 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 苇尾纬伪喂谓伪谓 蟽蔚 渭喂魏蟻苇蟼 蟺伪蟻苇蔚蟼. 韦慰蠀蟼 蔚委蠂伪谓 未蔚喂 谓伪 蠁慰蟻慰蠉谓 蟽蟿慰位苇蟼 渭蔚 味蠅畏蟻维 蠂蟻蠋渭伪蟿伪 萎 蟿蠀位喂纬渭苇谓慰蠀蟼 蟽蔚 纬魏蟻委味慰蠀蟼 渭伪谓未蠉蔚蟼, 谓伪 蟺慰蟻蔚蠉慰谓蟿伪喂 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿慰谓 位蠈蠁慰, 蟺维谓蠅 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 蟺蠈位畏, 伪魏慰位慰蠀胃蠋谓蟿伪蟼 蟿慰谓 伪蟺伪位蠈 蟻蠀胃渭蠈 蔚谓蠈蟼 蟿蠀渭蟺维谓慰蠀 魏伪喂 蔚位维蠂喂蟽蟿伪 蠄畏位蠈蟿蔚蟻慰喂 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰蠀蟼 伪纬蟻慰蟿喂魏慰蠉蟼 蠁蟻维蠂蟿蔚蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼 慰蟺慰委慰蠀蟼 未喂伪蟺蔚蟻谓慰蠉蟽伪谓禄.
螒蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委蔚蟼 渭慰蠀 胃蠉渭喂蟽伪谓 蟿畏谓 蟽蠀谓萎胃蔚喂伪 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂慰蠀渭蔚 蟽蟿慰谓 蟿蠈蟺慰 渭慰蠀, 蠈蟿伪谓 魏维蟺慰喂慰蟼 胃苇位蔚喂 谓伪 蟽蔚 蟻蠅蟿萎蟽蔚喂 伪谓 蟺蟻蠈位伪尾蔚蟼 谓伪 纬谓蠅蟻委蟽蔚喂蟼 魏维蟺慰喂慰谓 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂蔚喂 蟺位苇慰谓 蟺蔚胃维谓蔚喂, 未蔚谓 蟽蔚 蟻蠅蟿维蔚喂 伪谓 蟿慰谓 蟺蟻蠈位伪尾蔚蟼 味蠅谓蟿伪谓蠈, 蟽蔚 蟻蠅蟿维蔚喂 伪谓 芦蟿慰谓 胃蠀渭萎胃畏魏蔚蟼禄. 螌蠂喂 伪谓 蟿慰谓 芦胃蠀渭维蟽伪喂禄 伪位位维 伪谓 芦蟿慰谓 胃蠀渭萎胃畏魏蔚蟼禄 魏喂 苇蟿蟽喂 魏维蟺蠅蟼 未喂伪蠂蠅蟻委味慰蠀谓 蠈蟽伪 伪谓萎魏慰蠀谓 蟽蟿慰 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓, 纬喂伪蟿委 蟿蔚位喂魏维 畏 未喂魏萎 渭伪蟼 伪位位慰喂蠅渭苇谓畏 蔚喂魏蠈谓伪 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 蟺伪蟻伪渭苇谓蔚喂, 蠈蟿伪谓 蠈位伪 尾蠀胃委味慰谓蟿伪喂 蟽蟿畏谓 蟺喂慰 伪谓伪蟺蠈蠁蔚蠀魏蟿畏 位萎胃畏, 伪蠀蟿萎 蟺慰蠀 蟽蠀谓慰未蔚蠉蔚喂 蟿慰谓 胃维谓伪蟿慰. 螛蠀渭萎胃畏魏伪 蔚蟺委蟽畏蟼 未喂伪尾维味慰谓蟿伪蟼 蟿畏谓 蟺蟻慰蟽蟺维胃蔚喂伪 蟿慰蠀 萎蟻蠅伪 谓伪 蟽蠀谓未苇蟽蔚喂 蟿慰 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓 蟿慰蠀 渭蔚 渭喂伪 尉蔚蠂伪蟽渭苇谓畏 纬位蠋蟽蟽伪, 渭喂伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 纬位蠋蟽蟽蔚蟼 蟺慰蠀 维魏慰蠀蟽蔚 魏伪蟿维 蟿畏谓 蟺伪喂未喂魏萎 蟿慰蠀 畏位喂魏委伪, 蟺蠅蟼 畏 位苇尉畏 芦veverka禄 蟺慰蠀 蟽畏渭伪委谓蔚喂 蟽魏委慰蠀蟻慰蟼, 伪魏慰蠉纬蔚蟿伪喂 蟺伪蟻蠈渭慰喂伪 渭蔚 蔚魏蔚委谓畏 蟺慰蠀 蠂蟻畏蟽喂渭慰蟺慰喂慰蠉渭蔚 魏喂 蔚渭蔚委蟼 蟽蟿慰谓 蟿蠈蟺慰 渭慰蠀 纬喂鈥� 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟿慰 味蠅维魏喂. 螘渭蔚委蟼 蟿伪 位苇渭蔚 尾蔚蟻尾蔚蟻委蟿蟽蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟺喂蟽蟿蔚蠉蠅 蟺蠅蟼 蟿伪 尾萎蟿伪 蔚委谓伪喂 纬喂伪 蟿畏谓 伪蟺伪位萎 纬慰蠉谓伪 蟿畏蟼 慰蠀蟻维蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼, 蟿伪 蟻蠅 纬喂伪 蟿畏谓 蟿伪蠂蠉蟿畏蟿维 蟿慰蠀蟼 谓伪 蟽魏伪蟻蠁伪位蠋谓慰蠀谓 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿伪 未苇谓蟿蟻伪 魏伪喂 谓伪 蠂维谓慰谓蟿伪喂 魏伪喂 蟿伪 苇蠄喂位慰谓 纬喂伪 蟿慰谓 蔚谓胃慰蠀蟽喂伪蟽渭蠈 蟺慰蠀 蟺蠀蟻慰未慰蟿蔚委 蟽蠀蠂谓维 蟿慰 蟽蠀谓伪蟺维谓蟿畏渭伪 渭蔚 伪蠀蟿维 蟿伪 蠂伪蟻喂蟿蠅渭苇谓伪 蟺位伪蟽渭伪蟿维魏喂伪. 螝喂 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 纬位蠅蟽蟽喂魏苇蟼 胃蔚蠅蟻委蔚蟼 蟺慰蠀 蠀蟺慰蟽蟿畏蟻委味慰蠀谓 蟺蠅蟼 魏维谓慰蠀渭蔚 位苇尉蔚喂蟼 伪蟺蠈 萎蠂慰蠀蟼 魏伪喂 慰喂 萎蠂慰喂 伪蟺慰蟿蠀蟺蠋谓慰蠀谓 蔚喂魏蠈谓蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蠀谓伪喂蟽胃萎渭伪蟿伪.
违蟺维蟻蠂慰蠀谓 蔚蟺委蟽畏蟼 蟺慰位位苇蟼, 伪蠂谓苇蟼 伪位位维 喂蟽蠂蠀蟻苇蟼 尾喂尾位喂魏苇蟼 蔚喂魏蠈谓蔚蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿慰 苇蟻纬慰, 蟿慰 渭蠅蟻蠈 蟺慰蠀 蟽蠋味蔚蟿伪喂 蟽蔚 苇谓伪 魏伪位维胃喂, 蟿伪 蟿蔚委蠂畏 蟿畏蟼 螜蔚蟻喂蠂慰蠉蟼 魏伪喂 慰 渭蔚纬维位慰蟼 魏伪蟿伪魏位蠀蟽渭蠈蟼 畏 蠁蠀纬萎 蟽蟿畏谓 螒委纬蠀蟺蟿慰 魏伪喂 畏 蟺慰蟻蔚委伪 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿畏谓 苇蟻畏渭慰 魏伪喂 蠁伪委谓蔚蟿伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 蠈位蔚蟼 慰喂 蔚魏未慰蠂苇蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼, 渭慰喂蟻伪委伪 蔚蟺伪谓伪位伪渭尾维谓慰谓蟿伪喂 渭蔚 未喂伪蠁慰蟻蔚蟿喂魏慰蠉蟼 蟿蟻蠈蟺慰蠀蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿畏谓 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪 蟿畏蟼 伪谓胃蟻蠅蟺蠈蟿畏蟿伪蟼. 螝维蟺慰喂慰喂 胃伪 蟽蠅胃慰蠉谓 魏伪喂 魏维蟺慰喂慰喂 胃伪 尾慰蠀位喂维尉慰蠀谓 魏伪喂 蔚委谓伪喂 蟿慰 蠀未维蟿喂谓慰 蟽蟿慰喂蠂蔚委慰, 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 魏伪位蠉蟺蟿蔚喂 蟿伪 蟺维谓蟿伪 蟿蔚位喂魏维, 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 未喂伪蟽蠋味蔚喂 蟿伪 蠂蟻蠋渭伪蟿伪 魏伪喂 蟿畏谓 蟺喂慰 蟽蟺维谓喂伪 魏伪喂 伪魏蟻喂尾慰胃蠋蟻畏蟿畏 慰渭慰蟻蠁喂维:
芦螛蠀渭维渭伪喂, 蔚委蟺蔚 慰 螒慰蠉蟽蟿蔚蟻位喂蟿蟼, 蟺蠅蟼 魏维蟺慰蟿蔚 慰 螒位蠁蠈谓蟽慰 未喂畏纬萎胃畏魏蔚 蟽蔚 蔚渭苇谓伪 魏伪喂 蟽蟿慰谓 伪谓喂蠄喂蠈 蟿慰蠀 蟺蠅蟼 蠈位伪 蟽尾萎谓慰谓蟿伪喂 渭蟺蟻慰蟽蟿维 蟽蟿伪 渭维蟿喂伪 渭伪蟼, 魏伪喂 蟺蠅蟼 萎未畏 蟺慰位位维 伪蟺蠈 蟿伪 蠅蟻伪喂蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 蠂蟻蠋渭伪蟿伪 苇蠂慰蠀谓 蠂伪胃蔚委 蟺伪谓蟿慰蟿喂谓维 萎 蟽蠀谓蔚蠂委味慰蠀谓 谓伪 蠀蟺维蟻蠂慰蠀谓 蔚魏蔚委 蟺慰蠀 未蔚谓 蟿伪 蟺喂维谓蔚喂 伪谓胃蟻蠋蟺慰蠀 渭维蟿喂, 蟽蟿慰蠀蟼 蠀蟺慰尾蟻蠉蠂喂慰蠀蟼 魏萎蟺慰蠀蟼 尾伪胃喂维 魏维蟿蠅 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 蔚蟺喂蠁维谓蔚喂伪 蟿畏蟼 胃维位伪蟽蟽伪蟼. 危蟿伪 渭喂魏蟻维蟿伪 蟿慰蠀, 渭伪蟼 蔚委蟺蔚, 蟽蠀谓萎胃喂味蔚 谓伪 蟺蔚蟻蟺伪蟿维蔚喂 蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿慰蠀蟼 维蟽蟺蟻慰蠀蟼 尾蟻维蠂慰蠀蟼 蟿慰蠀 螡蟿苇尾慰谓 魏伪喂 蟿畏蟼 螝慰蟻谓慰蠀维位畏蟼, 蔚魏蔚委 蟺慰蠀 蟿伪 魏蠉渭伪蟿伪 伪喂蠋谓蔚蟼 蟿蠋蟻伪 蔚委蠂伪谓 蟽魏维蠄蔚喂 魏慰喂位蠈蟿畏蟿蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蟺畏位喂苇蟼, 胃伪蠀渭维味慰谓蟿伪蟼 蟿畏谓 伪谓蔚尉维谓蟿位畏蟿畏 蟺慰喂魏喂位委伪 蟿畏蟼 位蔚蟺蟿蔚蟺委位蔚蟺蟿畏蟼 蠁伪谓蟿伪蟽渭伪纬慰蟻委伪蟼 蟺慰蠀 蟿伪位伪谓蟿蔚蠀蠈蟿伪谓 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蟿伪 味蠅喂魏维, 蠁蠀蟿喂魏维 魏伪喂 慰蟻蠀魏锟斤拷维 尾伪蟽委位蔚喂伪, 蟿伪 味蠅蠈蠁蠀蟿伪, 蟿伪 魏慰蟻维位位喂伪, 蟿喂蟼 胃伪位维蟽蟽喂蔚蟼 伪谓蔚渭蠋谓蔚蟼, 蟿伪 蔚蠂喂谓蠈未蔚蟻渭伪, 蟿伪 伪谓胃蠈味蠅伪 魏伪喂 蟿伪 慰蟽蟿蟻伪魏蠈未蔚蟻渭伪 蟺慰蠀 畏 蟺伪位委蟻蟻慰喂伪 蟿伪 尉苇尾蟻伪味蔚 未蠀慰 蠁慰蟻苇蟼 蟿畏 渭苇蟻伪, 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蟿伪 蠁蠉魏喂伪 蟺慰蠀 蟿蟻蔚渭慰蠉位喂伪味伪谓 慰位蠈纬蠀蟻维 蟿慰蠀蟼, 魏伪喂 蟽伪谓 蟿蟻伪尾喂蠈蟿伪谓 蟿慰 谓蔚蟻蠈, 伪蟺慰魏维位蠀蟺蟿伪谓 蟿畏谓 蔚尉伪委蟽喂伪 喂蟻喂未委味慰蠀蟽伪 味蠅萎 蟿慰蠀蟼 渭苇蟽伪 蟽蟿喂蟼 位伪魏魏慰蠉尾蔚蟼, 蔚魏胃苇蟿慰谓蟿伪蟼 尉伪谓维 蟽蟿慰 蠁蠅蟼 魏伪喂 蟽蟿慰谓 伪苇蟻伪 蠈位蔚蟼 蟿喂蟼 伪蟺慰蠂蟻蠋蟽蔚喂蟼 蟿慰蠀 慰蠀蟻维谓喂慰蠀 蟿蠈尉慰蠀, 蟿慰 蟽渭伪蟻伪纬未委, 蟿慰 魏蟻蔚渭蔚味委 魏伪喂 蟿慰 蟿蟻喂伪谓蟿伪蠁蠀位位委, 蟿慰 魏委蟿蟻喂谓慰 蟿畏蟼 蠋蠂蟻伪蟼 魏伪喂 蟿慰 尾蔚位慰蠉未喂谓慰 渭伪蠉蟻慰禄.
违蟺维蟻蠂蔚喂 蟽蔚 苇谓伪 蟽畏渭蔚委慰, 畏 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪 蟿畏蟼 蔚胃谓喂魏萎蟼 尾喂尾位喂慰胃萎魏畏蟼 蟿畏蟼 螕伪位位委伪蟼, 蟺慰蠀 渭蔚蟿伪蠁苇蟻胃畏魏蔚 伪蟺蠈 蟿慰 蟺伪位喂蠈 魏蟿委蟻喂慰 蟽蟿慰 魏伪喂谓慰蠉蟻纬喂慰. 韦慰 谓苇慰 蔚委谓伪喂 渭慰谓蟿苇蟻谓慰, 蔚委谓伪喂 蟽蠉纬蠂蟻慰谓慰 魏伪喂 蔚谓蟿蠀蟺蠅蟽喂伪魏维 蟿蔚蟻维蟽蟿喂慰. 惟蟽蟿蠈蟽慰 慰 萎蟻蠅伪蟼, 蟿慰 伪蟺蔚蠂胃维谓蔚蟿伪喂, 胃蔚蠅蟻蔚委 蟺蠅蟼 未蔚谓 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蟻魏蔚蟿维 蠁喂位喂魏蠈 纬喂伪 蟿慰谓 伪谓伪纬谓蠋蟽蟿畏 蟽蔚 蟽蠉纬魏蟻喂蟽畏 渭蔚 蟿慰 蟺伪位喂蠈. 螛蔚蠅蟻蔚委 蟺蠅蟼 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位蔚委 苇谓伪 渭谓畏渭蔚委慰 蔚纬蠅喂蟽渭慰蠉 魏伪喂 渭蔚纬伪位慰渭伪谓委伪蟼, 蠂蟿喂蟽渭苇谓慰 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蔚 苇谓伪谓 蟿蠈蟺慰 蠈蟺慰蠀 蟺伪位喂蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 蔚委蠂蔚 蟽蠀谓蟿蔚位蔚蟽蟿蔚委 苇谓伪 渭蔚纬维位慰 苇纬魏位畏渭伪. 螝伪喂 蟿蠋蟻伪 蠀蟺维蟻蠂蔚喂 蔚魏蔚委 苇谓伪 渭喂魏蟻蠈 未维蟽慰蟼 伪谓维渭蔚蟽伪 蟽蟿伪 尾喂尾位委伪, 慰蟻伪蟿蠈 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 蟿蔚蟻维蟽蟿喂蔚蟼 蟿味伪渭伪蟻委蔚蟼, 苇谓伪 未维蟽慰蟼 伪蟺蠈 未苇谓蟿蟻伪 渭蔚蟿伪蠁蠀蟿蔚蠀渭苇谓伪, 蔚尉蠈蟻喂蟽蟿伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 伪位位慰蟿喂谓萎 蟿慰蠀蟼 魏伪蟿慰喂魏委伪, 魏伪喂 蟽蠀蠂谓维 蟿伪 蟺慰蠀位喂维 味伪位喂蟽渭苇谓伪, 蟺苇蠁蟿慰蠀谓 谓蔚魏蟻维, 蠂蟿蠀蟺蠋谓蟿伪蟼 渭蔚 未蠉谓伪渭畏 蔚蟺维谓蠅 蟽蟿伪 蟿味维渭喂伪 蟺慰蠀 蟽伪谓 伪蠈蟻伪蟿慰 蠁蟻慰蠉蟻喂慰, 蟺蔚蟻喂尾维位位慰蠀谓 蟿伪 尾喂尾位委伪. 韦蔚位喂魏维, 蔚委谓伪喂 伪蠀蟿蠈 伪魏蟻喂尾蠋蟼, 伪蠀蟿苇蟼 慰喂 伪蠈蟻伪蟿蔚蟼 慰蠂蠀蟻蠋蟽蔚喂蟼 蟺慰蠀 尾伪蟽蟿慰蠉谓 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位蔚蟽渭伪蟿喂魏蠈蟿蔚蟻伪, 伪蟽蠉纬魏蟻喂蟿伪 魏伪位蠉蟿蔚蟻伪 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 维位位蔚蟼, 蟿喂蟼 蟺苇蟿蟻喂谓蔚蟼 魏伪喂 蠀位喂魏苇蟼 蔚魏未慰蠂苇蟼 蟿慰蠀蟼. 螝伪喂 蟿蔚位喂魏维, 苇蟿蟽喂 谓慰渭委味蠅, 蟺蠅蟼 慰 魏伪胃苇谓伪蟼 蟺蟻苇蟺蔚喂 谓伪 未喂伪位苇尉蔚喂 伪谓 伪蠀蟿蠈 胃伪 伪蟺慰蟿蔚位蔚委 苇谓伪 蔚委未慰蟼 蟺蟻慰蟽蟿伪蟿蔚蠀蟿喂魏萎蟼 渭蠈谓蠅蟽畏蟼 萎 渭喂伪 渭慰蟻蠁萎 伪蟺慰渭蠈谓蠅蟽畏蟼, 渭喂伪 未蠀蟽未喂维魏蟻喂蟿畏 伪位位维 伪蟺蟿萎 蠁蠀位伪魏萎.
May 6, 2025
3.5?
Maybe I'm in a slumpp but this book felt too digressive for me while I did enjoy reading this from the subject matter and I liked the historical aspect x
Maybe I'm in a slumpp but this book felt too digressive for me while I did enjoy reading this from the subject matter and I liked the historical aspect x
March 28, 2025
2025/09
Months ago Jay and I were talking about books that mean a lot to us, books that, one way or another, had spoken to us at some point through our reading journey, and Austerlitz was brought up in our conversation. I was so curious as to why this book was so meaningful to him, but I didn't want to get into the thick of it without having read it first, so I bet Jay that I'd read it before he could finish The Portrait of a Lady (one of my favorite novels of all time that he had started around that time), an unfair bet, I must say, considering the length of both novels. Here we are nonetheless, having experienced one of the best 21st-century books I have read in my life.
You might already know that I used to be biased years ago when talking about contemporary books, but at this point, it could be insulting to say that they are not worth the time. Sebald proved me wrong. I'm certain that Austerlitz will not only become a classic in the distant future鈥攊t probably is already鈥攃onsidering its complex narrative and timeless topics it contains, but its main character, Austerlitz, will be as well-known and unforgettable as David Copperfield or Jane Eyre are. It is funny to think that, when asking Jay why the novel was named after that town where a famous battle took place, he just said, read it and find out.
What I mostly enjoyed about Austerlitz was its pace and how the author intertwined a few subplots with the main plot (I promise I won't say anything about the story). Past, present, and a bunch of encounters. The narrator鈥攚hose name I don't remember; it was probably never mentioned鈥攎eets up with Austerlitz in not only quite a few places around Europe but at different times also. It feels both daunting and beautiful that they represent life: there are times when you are friends with someone, this person gets into your life for a while, and you become very good friends, but then, for some reason, your paths separate, but they might come together years, or even decades later. Austerlitz and the narrator developed a kind of bond that not even time could break. My friendship with Gero comes to mind as I type this: not only did we meet in a very awkward situation (both waiting outside of the classroom for one hour for our class to begin (first week of the term and I had just arrived in Buenos Aires) when they had sent an email saying there wouldn't be class that day鈥攁pparently everyone knew except for us who didn't check our emails), but our friendship is, even if we stop messaging each other for months, as genuine as it was back in 2018. I know every time we catch up on our lives again, there will be new things to say to one another. It will feel as though we had our last conversation just yesterday. Of course, Austerlitz has a lot more to say than we both say to each other.
Austerlitz is a story about belonging, about identity and resilience. A book with a bunch of existential ideas interwoven with historical facts and nonfiction that somewhat reminded me of Benjamin Labatut's The Maniac (it should be the other way around, shouldn't it?). After discussing my thoughts with Jay, I was finally able to see why he loves it so much. Or maybe not, and it's all an illusion of a past that is already gone.
My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:
Quality of writing [5/5]
Pace [4/5]
Plot development [4.5/5]
Characters [5/5]
Enjoyability [5/5]
Insightfulness [5/5]
Easy of reading [4/5]
Photos/Illustrations [N/A]
Total [32.5/7] = 4.64
Months ago Jay and I were talking about books that mean a lot to us, books that, one way or another, had spoken to us at some point through our reading journey, and Austerlitz was brought up in our conversation. I was so curious as to why this book was so meaningful to him, but I didn't want to get into the thick of it without having read it first, so I bet Jay that I'd read it before he could finish The Portrait of a Lady (one of my favorite novels of all time that he had started around that time), an unfair bet, I must say, considering the length of both novels. Here we are nonetheless, having experienced one of the best 21st-century books I have read in my life.
You might already know that I used to be biased years ago when talking about contemporary books, but at this point, it could be insulting to say that they are not worth the time. Sebald proved me wrong. I'm certain that Austerlitz will not only become a classic in the distant future鈥攊t probably is already鈥攃onsidering its complex narrative and timeless topics it contains, but its main character, Austerlitz, will be as well-known and unforgettable as David Copperfield or Jane Eyre are. It is funny to think that, when asking Jay why the novel was named after that town where a famous battle took place, he just said, read it and find out.
What I mostly enjoyed about Austerlitz was its pace and how the author intertwined a few subplots with the main plot (I promise I won't say anything about the story). Past, present, and a bunch of encounters. The narrator鈥攚hose name I don't remember; it was probably never mentioned鈥攎eets up with Austerlitz in not only quite a few places around Europe but at different times also. It feels both daunting and beautiful that they represent life: there are times when you are friends with someone, this person gets into your life for a while, and you become very good friends, but then, for some reason, your paths separate, but they might come together years, or even decades later. Austerlitz and the narrator developed a kind of bond that not even time could break. My friendship with Gero comes to mind as I type this: not only did we meet in a very awkward situation (both waiting outside of the classroom for one hour for our class to begin (first week of the term and I had just arrived in Buenos Aires) when they had sent an email saying there wouldn't be class that day鈥攁pparently everyone knew except for us who didn't check our emails), but our friendship is, even if we stop messaging each other for months, as genuine as it was back in 2018. I know every time we catch up on our lives again, there will be new things to say to one another. It will feel as though we had our last conversation just yesterday. Of course, Austerlitz has a lot more to say than we both say to each other.
Austerlitz is a story about belonging, about identity and resilience. A book with a bunch of existential ideas interwoven with historical facts and nonfiction that somewhat reminded me of Benjamin Labatut's The Maniac (it should be the other way around, shouldn't it?). After discussing my thoughts with Jay, I was finally able to see why he loves it so much. Or maybe not, and it's all an illusion of a past that is already gone.
My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:
Quality of writing [5/5]
Pace [4/5]
Plot development [4.5/5]
Characters [5/5]
Enjoyability [5/5]
Insightfulness [5/5]
Easy of reading [4/5]
Photos/Illustrations [N/A]
Total [32.5/7] = 4.64
December 18, 2023
褌械褉锌褨褌懈 薪械 屑芯卸褍, 泻芯谢懈 泻薪懈谐邪 屑械薪械 褔芯屑褍褋褜 褍褔懈褌褜, 邪谢械 褑褟 薪邪胁褔懈谢邪. 邪 褋邪屑械 鈥� 褋褌邪胁懈褌懈褋褟 写芯 褍泻褉邪褩薪褑褨胁, 褖芯 褍薪懈泻邪褞褌褜 胁谢邪褋薪芯褩 褨褋褌芯褉褨褩 泄 褍褋褨谢褟泻芯 胁褨写褏褉械褖褍褞褌褜褋褟 胁褨写 胁薪褍褌褉褨褕薪褨褏 锌芯褕褍泻褨胁 褉邪写褕械 薪械 蟹 褉芯蟹写褉邪褌褍胁邪薪薪褟屑, 邪 蟹褨 褖械屑泻懈屑 卸邪谢械屑. 蟹褉械褕褌芯褞 褌邪泻邪 锌芯胁械写褨薪泻邪 薪械 胁 芯褋褌邪薪薪褞 褔械褉谐褍 褋锌褉懈褔懈薪械薪邪 蟹邪褏懈褋薪懈屑 屑械褏邪薪褨蟹屑芯屑. 蟹械斜邪谢褜写 胁褋械芯褏芯锌薪芯 (褔懈 斜芯写邪泄 薪邪 斜邪谐邪褌褜芯褏 褉褨胁薪褟褏) 锌芯泻邪蟹邪胁 褟泻 胁褨写斜褍胁邪褦褌褜褋褟 褉褍泄薪邪褑褨褟 芯褋芯斜懈褋褌芯褋褌褨, 褖芯 薪邪写褌芯 写芯胁谐芯 锌褨写写邪褦褌褜褋褟 褑褜芯屑褍 屑械褏邪薪褨蟹屑芯胁褨. 褟泻 蟹薪邪薪薪褟 蟹邪屑褨薪褞褞褌褜 锌邪屑鈥櫻徰傃�. 褨 褟泻 褑械 锌褉懈蟹胁芯写懈褌褜 写芯 薪械胁屑褨薪薪褟 谐芯胁芯褉懈褌懈 薪械 谢懈褕械 锌褉芯 褋胁芯褞 锌邪屑鈥櫻徰傃�, 邪 泄 褍蟹邪谐邪谢褨, 褟泻 褑械 胁褨写斜懈褉邪褦 褌芯斜褨 屑芯胁褍. 邪褍褋褌械褉谢褨褑 薪褨斜懈 蟹屑褨谐 锌褉芯泻懈薪褍褌懈褋褟 蟹 褑褜芯谐芯 斜械蟹锌邪屑鈥櫻徰傃佈傂残�. 褔懈 褋褌邪胁 胁褨薪 胁褨写 褌芯谐芯 褖邪褋谢懈胁懈屑? 薪褨. 邪谢械 锌芯褔邪胁 锌械褉械斜褍胁邪褌懈 胁 褉械邪谢褜薪芯褋褌褨 泄 褉芯蟹褍屑褨褌懈 褩褩.
邪 褖械 锌褨褋谢褟 鈥溞把冄佈傂笛€谢褨褑邪鈥� 鈥� 薪械 褌械 褕芯斜 胁写邪褦褌褜褋褟 胁褨写鈥櫻斝毙把傂秆佈� 薪邪褉械褕褌褨 胁褨写 褋械斜械, 邪谢械 锌褉懈薪邪泄屑薪褨 鈥� 褟泻芯褋褜 谢械谐褕械 鈥溞惭栃囱囇冃残把傂� 锌褉芯胁懈薪褍 褔械褉械蟹 褋胁芯褦 写芯褌械锌械褉 蟹褍屑懈褋薪械 薪械斜邪卸邪薪薪褟 胁褋械 褑械 蟹薪邪褌懈鈥�.
屑械褌芯写 蟹械斜邪谢褜写邪 褨 褋邪屑 蟹械斜邪谢褜写 鈥� 写褍卸械 褍薪褨泻邪谢褜薪褨. 褔芯谐芯 胁邪褉褌褍褦 泄芯谐芯 胁屑褨薪薪褟 谐芯胁芯褉懈褌懈 锌褉芯 褋泻谢邪写薪械 褔械褉械蟹 邪褉褏褨褌械泻褌褍褉褍 褨 薪械胁懈锌邪写泻芯胁褨 胁懈锌邪写泻芯胁褨 蟹薪懈屑泻懈. 薪邪胁褨褌褜 褍 泄芯谐芯 写芯胁卸械谢械蟹薪懈褏 蟹械斜邪谢褜写褋褜泻懈褏 褉械褔械薪薪褟褏 薪械屑邪褦 卸芯写薪芯谐芯 蟹邪泄胁芯谐芯 褋谢芯胁邪, 斜芯 胁芯薪懈 胁蟹邪谐邪谢褨 薪械 褋邪屑芯褑褨谢褜, 邪 褨薪褋褌褉褍屑械薪褌 (褨 写褍卸械 锌芯褌褍卸薪懈泄 褍 泄芯谐芯 褉褍泻邪褏. 蟹褉械褕褌芯褞, 褟泻 褨 胁褋褨 褨薪褕褨).
邪 褖械 锌褨褋谢褟 鈥溞把冄佈傂笛€谢褨褑邪鈥� 鈥� 薪械 褌械 褕芯斜 胁写邪褦褌褜褋褟 胁褨写鈥櫻斝毙把傂秆佈� 薪邪褉械褕褌褨 胁褨写 褋械斜械, 邪谢械 锌褉懈薪邪泄屑薪褨 鈥� 褟泻芯褋褜 谢械谐褕械 鈥溞惭栃囱囇冃残把傂� 锌褉芯胁懈薪褍 褔械褉械蟹 褋胁芯褦 写芯褌械锌械褉 蟹褍屑懈褋薪械 薪械斜邪卸邪薪薪褟 胁褋械 褑械 蟹薪邪褌懈鈥�.
屑械褌芯写 蟹械斜邪谢褜写邪 褨 褋邪屑 蟹械斜邪谢褜写 鈥� 写褍卸械 褍薪褨泻邪谢褜薪褨. 褔芯谐芯 胁邪褉褌褍褦 泄芯谐芯 胁屑褨薪薪褟 谐芯胁芯褉懈褌懈 锌褉芯 褋泻谢邪写薪械 褔械褉械蟹 邪褉褏褨褌械泻褌褍褉褍 褨 薪械胁懈锌邪写泻芯胁褨 胁懈锌邪写泻芯胁褨 蟹薪懈屑泻懈. 薪邪胁褨褌褜 褍 泄芯谐芯 写芯胁卸械谢械蟹薪懈褏 蟹械斜邪谢褜写褋褜泻懈褏 褉械褔械薪薪褟褏 薪械屑邪褦 卸芯写薪芯谐芯 蟹邪泄胁芯谐芯 褋谢芯胁邪, 斜芯 胁芯薪懈 胁蟹邪谐邪谢褨 薪械 褋邪屑芯褑褨谢褜, 邪 褨薪褋褌褉褍屑械薪褌 (褨 写褍卸械 锌芯褌褍卸薪懈泄 褍 泄芯谐芯 褉褍泻邪褏. 蟹褉械褕褌芯褞, 褟泻 褨 胁褋褨 褨薪褕褨).
October 29, 2024
鈥淓ven now, when I try to remember them, when I look back at the crab-like plan of Breendonk and read the words of the captions鈥擣ormer Office, Printing Works, Huts, Jacques Ochs Hall, Solitary Confinement Cell, Mortuary, Relics Store, and Museum鈥攖he darkness does not lift but becomes yet heavier as I think how little we can hold in mind, how everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every extinguished life, how the world is, as it were, draining itself, in that the history of countless places and objects which themselves have no power of memory is never heard, never described or passed on.鈥�
I have to admit I was a little nervous at first. The novel is more than 400 pages with no chapters or even paragraphs. It felt like climbing a perpendicular rock face, with nothing to assist me but em-dashes on which to rest my feet. Much of the time, my eyes would dutifully go down each page, focusing briefly on every line, while my mind was many miles away. Then I鈥檇 do a double-take worthy of Wile E. Coyote and plunge into the abyss, arms flailing like a scarecrow in a windstorm, until the rope attached to my harness yanked me short.
Perhaps what kept me going were the copious pencil scribblings left behind by a previous borrower of my library copy (such a crime would have been unforgivable had I not been so confused about what to look for). Elements that might have seemed irrelevant in a superficial reading took on the importance they deserved: pigeons (鈥淭o this day no one knows how these birds, sent off on their journey into so menacing a void, their hearts surely almost breaking with fear in their presentiment of the vast distances they must cover, make straight for their place of origin鈥�), columbaria, moths (鈥淚 believe, said Austerlitz, they know they have lost their way, since if you do not put them out again carefully they will stay where they are, never moving, until the last breath is out of their bodies鈥�), buttoned gloves, star-shaped patterns鈥�
Sifting through the remnants of his past, like Walter Benjamin鈥檚 materialist historian, Austerlitz has to conduct himself like archaeologists excavating the ruins of a forgotten city鈥攈as 鈥渢o return again and again to the same matter; to scatter it as one scatters earth, to turn it over as one turns over soil. For the matter itself is only a deposit, a stratum, which yields only to the most meticulous examination what constitutes the real treasure hidden within the earth: the images, severed from all earlier associations, that stand鈥攍ike precious fragments or torsos in a collector鈥檚 gallery鈥攊n the prosaic rooms of our later understanding.鈥� The fragments Austerlitz finds, like the ones Benjamin describes, are already gone, or else so decayed as to be hardly decipherable. Unsatisfied with every stroke of the spade, Austerlitz 鈥渕ust 鈥� assay [the] spade in ever-new places, and in the old ones delve to ever-deeper layers.鈥� Dan Jacobson鈥檚 vertigo before the chasm of the Kimberly diamond mines, where so many Africans were sacrificed, toward the end of the novel, becomes the metaphor for the 鈥渧anished past鈥� of Austerlitz鈥檚 family and people (and Jacobson鈥檚 own), which 鈥渃an never be brought up from those depths again.鈥� (Jacobson: 鈥渆verything about [my grandfather] as an individual that had been hidden from me before I went [to Lithuania] remains hidden still, and always will do so. His secrets are enclosed in time past like the pattern inside an uncut agate stone: not just beyond amendment or erasure, but unknowable too.鈥�) Austerlitz鈥檚 ghosts can鈥檛 be laid to rest, and he himself becomes a mere shadow, unable to get into the sunlight from the shadow of the Holocaust, made ghostly by Time, grief, and the vanishing of things.
I have to admit I was a little nervous at first. The novel is more than 400 pages with no chapters or even paragraphs. It felt like climbing a perpendicular rock face, with nothing to assist me but em-dashes on which to rest my feet. Much of the time, my eyes would dutifully go down each page, focusing briefly on every line, while my mind was many miles away. Then I鈥檇 do a double-take worthy of Wile E. Coyote and plunge into the abyss, arms flailing like a scarecrow in a windstorm, until the rope attached to my harness yanked me short.
Perhaps what kept me going were the copious pencil scribblings left behind by a previous borrower of my library copy (such a crime would have been unforgivable had I not been so confused about what to look for). Elements that might have seemed irrelevant in a superficial reading took on the importance they deserved: pigeons (鈥淭o this day no one knows how these birds, sent off on their journey into so menacing a void, their hearts surely almost breaking with fear in their presentiment of the vast distances they must cover, make straight for their place of origin鈥�), columbaria, moths (鈥淚 believe, said Austerlitz, they know they have lost their way, since if you do not put them out again carefully they will stay where they are, never moving, until the last breath is out of their bodies鈥�), buttoned gloves, star-shaped patterns鈥�
Sifting through the remnants of his past, like Walter Benjamin鈥檚 materialist historian, Austerlitz has to conduct himself like archaeologists excavating the ruins of a forgotten city鈥攈as 鈥渢o return again and again to the same matter; to scatter it as one scatters earth, to turn it over as one turns over soil. For the matter itself is only a deposit, a stratum, which yields only to the most meticulous examination what constitutes the real treasure hidden within the earth: the images, severed from all earlier associations, that stand鈥攍ike precious fragments or torsos in a collector鈥檚 gallery鈥攊n the prosaic rooms of our later understanding.鈥� The fragments Austerlitz finds, like the ones Benjamin describes, are already gone, or else so decayed as to be hardly decipherable. Unsatisfied with every stroke of the spade, Austerlitz 鈥渕ust 鈥� assay [the] spade in ever-new places, and in the old ones delve to ever-deeper layers.鈥� Dan Jacobson鈥檚 vertigo before the chasm of the Kimberly diamond mines, where so many Africans were sacrificed, toward the end of the novel, becomes the metaphor for the 鈥渧anished past鈥� of Austerlitz鈥檚 family and people (and Jacobson鈥檚 own), which 鈥渃an never be brought up from those depths again.鈥� (Jacobson: 鈥渆verything about [my grandfather] as an individual that had been hidden from me before I went [to Lithuania] remains hidden still, and always will do so. His secrets are enclosed in time past like the pattern inside an uncut agate stone: not just beyond amendment or erasure, but unknowable too.鈥�) Austerlitz鈥檚 ghosts can鈥檛 be laid to rest, and he himself becomes a mere shadow, unable to get into the sunlight from the shadow of the Holocaust, made ghostly by Time, grief, and the vanishing of things.
June 18, 2018
Tempo e memoria
Un lento viaggio a ritroso nella memoria. Un viaggio nel tempo, nei ricordi sbiaditi, nelle fotografie consumate, in vecchi documenti. Parole e immagini scorrono davanti a noi anche se spesso non correlate. Il flusso dei pensieri vaga e ci porta in strane direzioni apparentemente senza ragione; ma c'猫 sempre una ragione, che improvvisamente prende forma.
Tempo e memoria.
Ogni costruzione, ogni edificio, ogni chiesa ogni castello trova la sua giustificazione d'essere nel passato, nelle sue origini, nei rapporti con il contesto, nei motivi che ne hanno decretato la necessit脿. Questi edifici, a volte enormi, sembrano poter sfidare il tempo e durare in eterno. Ma nulla 猫 eterno e queste costruzioni vengono spazzate via una volta che le persone coinvolte sono scomparse, crollano o sono semplicemente superate.
Anche l'uomo 猫 plasmato sulla base delle sue origini, sulla sua storia.
Il protagonista del romanzo, Austerlitz, in un percorso originalissimo, passa il tempo a ricordare anche piccoli episodi, all'apparenza insignificanti o secondari. A scrivere, a passeggiare di notte, a scattare centinaia d'istantanee a edifici, stazioni, caserme. O a rivedere mille volte vecchie fotografie in bianco e nero che tratta come preziosi frammenti utili a ricomporre i destini delle persone travolte dalla Storia. Lo stesso nome Austerlitz acquista significato solo se si conosce la storia della famosa battaglia e se si sa che 猫 anche il nome di una stazione da cui emergono dolorosi ricordi.
E' un uomo alla ricerca della sua storia, della sua lingua, delle sensazioni legate alla sua infanzia e che cerca di colmare il vuoto di significato che la mancanza delle sue stesse origini gli crea. Bellissimo il passaggio del riemergere della propria lingua nativa come da un magma oscuro. Sentire una parola straniera e stupirsi di conoscerne il significato.
Questo percorso di lento apprendimento, come una immagine fotografica mentre si sviluppa in una bacinella, lo porta dolorosamente e tristemente nell'Europa della guerra e delle deportazioni, delle baracche gelide, nella disperazione delle persone visibile dalle fotografie che sono rimaste a testimoniare.
Sebald approfondisce tutto in modo quasi maniacale e spesso si ha l'impressione che il discorso affrontato sia assolutamente avulso dal contesto; ma poi, come una folgore, improvvisamente tutto torna e se ne coglie il profondo significato. C'猫 quasi l'impressione che siano i documenti, le meditazioni, le fotografie a guidare la narrazione, invece che viceversa. Tutto ha un significato anche simbolico. Stazioni ferroviarie, da cui si parte e dove si arriva, ma anche dove ci si lascia. Le fotografie, che congelano il tempo ma, come la memoria, si consumano lentamente.
Tempo e memoria. Memoria e significato.
Ricordare 猫 ricostruire. E' far tornare alla vita cose ormai morte, nel periodo del ricordo. Ma se sono i ricordi a creare i significati, senza di questi tutto 猫 inutile e del passato non rester脿 quasi nulla. Senza l'uomo non c'猫 memoria.
Un libro meraviglioso scritto in modo divino con uno stile unico. Forse non 猫 per tutti; non 猫 adrenalinico, non 猫 veloce, non cattura immediatamente, non 猫 divertente. E' invece riflessivo, profondo, intelligente, originale, malinconico e richiede molta attenzione per cogliere le moltissime perle di cui 猫 disseminato.
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