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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.