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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—it probably is already—considering 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—whose name I don't remember; it was probably never mentioned—meets 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—apparently 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