Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald by Carole Angier

Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald Reviews

• 
  Jan Patrick Oppermann

  This first biography of the great WG (Max) Sebald was certainly anxiously expected. Three different reviews in the Guardian led me to believe that it might actually get somewhere with its complicated and elusive subject (the question of what exactly Sebald's texts are about in relation to Sebald's own life). I bought the book and read it over a long weekend. It's hit and miss, strikes and gutters as the Dude saysI would recommend it with some serious reservations. It's recommended because it is a serious attempt at unraveling the mysteries of Sebald's texts and of his life. Unfortunately the attempt does not fully succeed.
  First the good. The book is quite convincing in tracing the vicissitudes of Sebald's early life. Lots of details there, most of which are important and build up to a collective influence on Sebald's character and Weltanschauung, both of which went deeply into his books. Sebald's times in England are well told and exhaustively researched. Short of being able to draw on testimony from Sebald's wife and daughter (who were not available to Carole Angier, the biographer here), the English life of Sebald is probably definitively demonstrated here. Also, after reading this book we probably need no pursuit of what is fact and what is fiction in Sebald's literary works. Angier does a lot of just this sort of detective work. To my mind, it's a bit distracting from Sebald's emotional literary effect but it undoubtedly interests a lot of readers. Third, Angier's conclusion in Chapter 24 that Sebald is a mystical writer (she arrives at this via a reading of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Letter to Lord Chandos) and that he was so intensely sensitive to human suffering that his own feeling had to transform itself into the task of writing as an ethical demand of justice (in the form of witnessing), is essentially correct.
  However, just this conclusion needs to be discussed some . After all, what matters in the READING of Sebald is what happens to us as readers, psychologically and emotionally. Like the literature of most great writers, Sebald's writing opens up something within us. The attention he provides to nature, to things, to memories, to individuated human stories, is an attention to the self in a transcendent and transformative fashion. Given this profound effect of Sebald's great literature, it would have been good if the author had paid attention to it. After all, what literature does to the reader is ultimately indicative of its worth than whether it is based on fact or comes from the author's imagination (and even manipulation).
  And there is another issue here. The book is written by an English biographer for an English audience. This is understandable since Sebald's effect was, and perhaps continues to be, greatest in the anglophone world. Sebald spent the greater part of his life in England and loved it. However, as a writer he remained entirely German: not just because he wrote in German but so because his conscious and unconscious points of reference are for the most part German language authors. To trace the "meaning" of Sebald's work as a whole, it is necessary to include his writings on (mostly Austrian and Swiss) German language writers in some detail. I harbour the suspicion that Sebald very much subscribed to Borges' projection of precursors on to his own mythical Kafka. While Angier mentions various luminaries in the Germanic canon, analysis (speculation, too) would be needed to show Sebald's place in German language literature.
  To sum up. This is a decent first biography of a notoriously difficult subject. Some fundamental work has been done, and it need not be repeated by future Sebald biographies. But it is to be hoped that the next Sebald biography comes from a scholar in the field of German language literature, preferably one who is psychologically intuitive and places emphasis on the experience of reading Sebald. I am somehow imagining a rather unorthodox biography now a personalised account of reading Sebald against the background of researching Sebald's life and times?
• 
  M. Foster

  I found this work, an unauthorised biography, fascinating. I am reasonably well versed in the Sebald corpus but this shed new light for me. I accept what some of the other reviewers have said regarding the author's style and content but I think that Angier's remarks, deductions, narrative, etc., are revealing a great deal of the character of Sebald and the sitz im leben of his writings. The fleshing out of friends, acquaintances, all add to my enjoyment of his characters. The end notes and the very carefully constructed web site linked to the book by Bloomsbury are all an addition to what we know or surmise about Sebald and his thoughts. IMO well worth buying and well worth reading. Maybe one day there will be an authorised biography but until then, this is than satisfactory.
• 
  Walden

  Sebaldian scholars will all have to read this biography as it is currently the only one, and other reviewers will be writing to that audience anyway,so instead I will just say something for those who are not literary scholars but ordinary readers who, like me, like what they have previously read by W.G. Sebald and are interested in the 'background' to those books and the author's life. Simply put I think that this biography will address those issues and do so in a way that is both accessible and enjoyable. In practice for the non scholar the book is 450 long if I make a second reading I will attend to all the footnotes but on this first reading I did not want to break the flow of my reading. The narrative structure flow well with only the brief oddity which did not seem a deliberate stylistic intention of the author. I cannot comment on the accuracy, or otherwise, for although I have read all of Sebald in English and even met him at a book signing for Vertigo in London many years ago I am no literary scholar, biographer or whatever would equip or qualify me to make such pronouncements. I can just say that I found it informative and engaging. As noted, this is the first biography although there is a veritable industry of secondary writings and further biographies can be expected which will add to this which while extensive is not comprehensive. That is not a criticism, there is only so much a first biography can do as they are a cumulative genre these biographies, plus the author did not have access to some key figures which others may yet obtain. To conclude, I think it well worth the time and effort spent reading as it certainly give me enjoyment, as well as insights into Sebald's life and influences that I did not previously have and which will inform my rereading of his books. It is perhaps harsh to give 4 stars and not 5, but the photographs key to any Sebald book are not great reproductions, adequate perhaps, but not good. That is not directly the author's fault but the publisher's, i.e. Bloomsbury.
• 
  goodreads Customer

  Be prepared for a long intensive read entailing cross referenced material. The reward is an enlightened view of the inner life of W G Sebold: a deep understanding of his writings is enabled.
  Be aware that he wrote in German but oversaw the translators' English versions with minute attention to detail.
  If you are not already a devotee of WGS then this book is not for you: if you are, then this is a treasure trove beyond all expectations. Many thanks to the author, Carole Angier