Published originally in German as Die Ringe des Saturn. Eine englische Wallfahrt (1995), translated as The Rings of Saturn (1998) – with its curious archive of photographs – records a walking tour in August 1992 of the East Anglian coast and in Suffolk.
Many observations and subjects enter the mind of its narrator Winfried Georg Sebald (1944-2001) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Sebald and W. G. Sebald | The Poetry Foundation) These include lonely eccentrics, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), Stanley Kerry (1929-2014), Thomas Abrams and a scale model of the Temple of Jerusalem, recession-hit seaside towns, wooded hills, Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Roger Casement (1864-1916), Rembrandt’s ‘Anatomy Lesson‘ (1632), the natural history of the herring, the massive bombings of WWII, Charlotte Ives, François-René de Chateaubriand (1768 – 1848), Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883), Sir William Cuthbert Quilter (1841–1911) and Bawdsey Manor, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), secretive military installations at Orfordness, the dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (1835-1908), and the silk industry across Europe and in Norwich.
The title ‘Rings of Saturn’ refers to that planet’s rings as fragments of a destroyed moon, symbolizing the books themes of fragmented memory, history’s destructive cycles, and the melancholic interconnectedness of ruin and beauty which the author encounters during his walk. Once living vibrant people and places leave scattered historical traces. Human transience is the constant spectacle.
The style reminds one of Ronnie Corbett in the 1970s on ‘The Two Ronnies’.(The Two Ronnies Ronnie In The Chair 1973 British TV) In each episode he had a solo discursive monologue sitting in a padded armchair. “That reminds me about…”, except that Sebald’s digressions are highly erudite, historically well researched, and beautifully written. His prose is well polished and exact, pervaded by twin senses of resignation and melancholy. This is a strange and compelling hybrid of a book – travel, biography, history, myth, and memoir. It is a book to be cherished.
Winfried Georg Sebald suffered a heart attack, and died before his car swerved across a road near Norwich and collided with an oncoming lorry in December 2001.
Translated from the German by Michael Hulse.
Available in paperback at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rings-Saturn-W-G-Sebald/dp/0099448920/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389534328&sr=1-1&keywords=rings+of+saturn
A film documentary, Patience (After Sebald) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2118702/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1), directed by Grant Gee and released in 2012, is based on this book. Available on DVD at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Patience-After-Sebald-DVD-Grant/dp/B007C17YG8/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1389534671&sr=1-1&keywords=patience+sebald
Should you become engaged with Sebald, proceed to the biography by Carole Angier (reviewed by me here Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald by Carole Angier – Scott’s Book Review).
320 pages in Vintage Classics paperback edition
ISBN 978-0099448921
W. G. Sebald