The Rings of Saturn

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."

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 06/17/1998
ISBN: 9780811213783
Pages: 296
Weight: 1.13lbs
Size: 8.31h x 5.67w x 1.08d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 04/06/1998 pg. 60
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/1998 pg. 522
New York Times 07/26/1998 pg. 5
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 01/01/1999 pg. 72
Entertainment Weekly 06/21/2002 pg. 78