The Rings of Saturn, Hardcover

Contributor(s):

• Author: W. G. Sebald
• Translator: Michael Hulse

The Rings of Saturn, with its curious archive of photographs, records a walking tour of the eastern coast of England. A few of the things that cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is and is not Sebald) are lonely eccentrics. Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson," the natural history of the herring, Borges, a matchstick model of the Temple of Jerusalem, Sir Thomas Browne's skull, recession-hit seaside towns, Joseph Conrad, the once-thriving silk industry of Norwich, Swinburne, the dowager Empress Tzu Hsi, and the massive bombings of WWII.

Mesmerized by the mutability of all things, the narrator catalogs the transmigration of whole worlds: "On every new thing, there lies already the shadow of annihilation."

• Publishers Weekly - pg. 60 - 04/06/1998
• Kirkus Reviews / Best Of The Best/Highly Recommended - pg. 522 - 04/15/1998
• Kirkus Reviews / Exceptional Presentation - pg. 522 - 04/15/1998
• Kirkus Reviews / Book Of Special Distinction - pg. 522 - 04/15/1998
• Kirkus Reviews / Top 15 Book Of The Year - pg. 522 - 04/15/1998
• Kirkus Reviews / Highly Recommended - pg. 522 - 04/15/1998
• New York Times - pg. 5 - 07/26/1998
• NY Times Notable Bks of Year - pg. 72 - 01/01/1999
• Entertainment Weekly - pg. 78 - 06/21/2002