Book Review: AUSTERLITZ, by W.G. Sebald

This is the sort of book that I want to begin again as soon as I finish the last page. In my experience, this doesn't mean that the book was merely "good," but that it had so much heft to it that there was no way of getting the whole thing in one reading--layers upon layers, you see? House of Leaves was like this.

AUSTERLITZ is a quiet book, full of beautiful sentences and meaningful moments of still-life quality, but don't get the idea that it's got a quick, engaging plot or anything, because it doesn't. Austerlitz is just some guy on a pensively paced journey to uncover his past, and the whole pieced-together story of his life is told to an unnamed narrator in a rambling, storytelling-type monologue. It is an eerie glimpse of the aftershocks of the Holocaust, and the way the story is told provides an interesting tempo for the whole thing--unchronologically, in a disjointed series of conversations between Austerlitz and the narrator. Without paragraphs.

That nearly killed me, the no paragraph thing. This is not a lunch break/waiting for the bus sort of read, heavens no--it'll take you ten minutes to find your place again, once you look up at the clock--but once I got a feel for it, I rather enjoyed the feeling that the unbroken telling lent the whole story (hint: use sticky notes or something to mark your line, rather than the old-fashioned bookmark marking the page business. That helped me immensely).

Also, Sebald uses photographs, which is interesting.

At any rate, this is certainly a book to read, but it is one to read when you have time. Take it to a remote cabin or something. Read it the weekend after finals, in the back yard with a cool beverage of your choice. You get the idea. AUSTERLITZ is one to be savored, not rushed.

RATING: 3

Book Review: HOUSE OF LEAVES, by Mark Z. Danielewski

I cannot adequately summarize this book, not without 45 minutes and several diagrams. For a much more to-the-point summary, I refer you to Sean at The Underground Wall, who wrote the review that sent me out, the very next day, to buy HOUSE OF LEAVES (you'll want to read down aways before you hit the House review). He writes a mean summary and, frankly, I do not feel I can do any better--so I won't try.

What I will try, however, is to communicate how incredible this book is. When I finished HOUSE, I was hard-pressed not to turn back to page -1- and start the whole show again--which is saying something, since this novel is the size of a Biology 101 textbook.

HOUSE demands to be obsessed over. The truth in the story is tricky to separate from the fiction, but the further in I got, the less I worried about fiction/nonfiction--I was effectively sucked in. In my copy there is a magnificent quote by Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn--read that one, too, while you're at it):

This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore, put down, or persuasively conclude reading. In fact, when you purchase your copy, you may reach a certain page and find me there, reduced in size like Vincent Price, in The Fly, still trapped in the web of it's malicious, beautiful pages.

I know, I know. I'm copping out and sending you off to other reviews, and quoting things off the book jacket at you--you may think I'm trying and failing to conceal my inadequacies in the face of such a book, such a challenge, but I'm not. I'm just failing, nevermind the trying.

Between Sean and Jonathan, you've just about got it. I will add this one thing: read the book. Do it. It's big, I know, but don't let that stop you. Probably you will find a wee Théa tucked away in your copy as well, because some part of my brain is certainly still computing Danielewski's fierce masterpiece. I will read it again; it's only a matter of time.

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I finally get the context for Poe's album, Haunted, and I'm a better person for it. Who knew she was Danielewski's kid sister?

For an interesting interview with Danielewski, click here.

RATING: 5