- Paperback: 88 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber (3 Dec 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571208010
- ISBN-13: 978-0571208012
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,703,051 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This work is a collaboration between two artists. It contains 23 short poems by W.G. Sebald, each of them paired with a related image by Tess Jaray. The oblique nature of his poems complements the tension and weightlessness of her works.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Familiar with the elegant prosodic fabric which Sebald drapes around topics horrific and inexpressible, I found myself delighted with these elegiac snippets, each one a microcosm of Sebald's prose writing. The poems in this collection are texts of remarkable compression, oblique in mode. One sentence, one idea, allows us a grasp of something more abstract than astrology and old clothes. This collection reminds me of Brecht's Buchov Elegien, Sebald's message, however, reaches further than the political; Sebald grapples with the metaphysical. Never does he presume to know, to articulate. As ever he presents and explores. We see the naturalist and the philosopher working together to fathom man, historical pattern and truth. The effect has echoes of picta poesis, emblematic poetry from the sixteenth to eighteenth century in Europe. The duality of this emblematic structure of picture with commentary extends beyond Tess Jaray's illustrations scaffolding Sebald's poetry, but in each of his poems we see one sentence, one image, one thought scaffolding the inexpressible, some sort of truth. This structure is somewhat a motif throughout Sebald's work. The picture can be an image, a building, a character, a story, a memory. The commentary is often wordless - implicit. And yet this emblematic structure upholsters Sebald's prose and poetry - the concrete illustrating the abstract, stories articulating the inexpressible.
Apparently
the red spots
on Jupiter are
centuries old
hurricanes
In the compressed, the concrete the inexpressible is captured, that is the aftermath of the horrific, the devastating, a distant objectivity, the physical repercussions of the past.
W.G. Sebald's collection is exploratory, significant and haunting.
Tess Jaray's illustrations are pure, significant and necessary.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Lovely book, beautifully designed and produced.
Sebalds Haiku like poems are strikingly evocative and bring to life snippets of (his?) consciousness, while Jaray's paintings are interpretations all in her minimal style; plain grounds with various repetitive grids overlaid, serving more as wallpaper or ambient lighting to accompany your eyes as you read the poems than as figurative illustrations.
Sebalds Haiku like poems are strikingly evocative and bring to life snippets of (his?) consciousness, while Jaray's paintings are interpretations all in her minimal style; plain grounds with various repetitive grids overlaid, serving more as wallpaper or ambient lighting to accompany your eyes as you read the poems than as figurative illustrations.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Memories and Deep Impressions
5 Oct 2005
Format:Paperback
In 1999 the late and greatly lamented WG Sebald collaborated with his admirer, artist Tess Jaray, to match each other's influence in producing twenty-three short poems each with an accompanying 'visualization'. The result is FOR YEARS NOW and while this may not bring new fans to those who love Sebald's 'novels', the book is beautiful reading.
Though Sebald taught in the UK and was wholly bilingual, his books were written in his native German. This short book of poetry is a significant diversion in that the poems were written in English. The subjects are like brief thoughts, mostly suffused with Sebald's signature melancholy and rather disappointed view of the universe he strolled. 'Please send me/ the brown coat/ the one I used/ to wear on/ my night journeys.' Incandescent moments, minimal words, yet each with Jaray's abstract illustrations makes a significant impact.
Simple though this short book is, it is further proof that Sebald was one of our more important writers who died far too young. Recommended. Grady Harp, October 05
Though Sebald taught in the UK and was wholly bilingual, his books were written in his native German. This short book of poetry is a significant diversion in that the poems were written in English. The subjects are like brief thoughts, mostly suffused with Sebald's signature melancholy and rather disappointed view of the universe he strolled. 'Please send me/ the brown coat/ the one I used/ to wear on/ my night journeys.' Incandescent moments, minimal words, yet each with Jaray's abstract illustrations makes a significant impact.
Simple though this short book is, it is further proof that Sebald was one of our more important writers who died far too young. Recommended. Grady Harp, October 05
Amazing
27 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I can even move it from back pocket to pocket and that is an unexpected pleasure for me as a travel guy !
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