Sebald interview on Bookworm

I couldn't find this video on KZbin after enjoying it for many years. One of the most articulate and wise conversations on literature between two wonderful thinkers. It was conducted by Michael Silverblatt on his Bookworm show on KCRW. The website for the interview, where it was downloaded from, is:
www.kcrw.com/news-culture/sho...

[@astro368]

I‘ve listened to this interview so many times and each time I find something new and revealing. Just like Sebald‘s books themselves

[@hughmanatee7657]

This interviewer is also Sebald’s perfect reader.

[@waywardbreed1]

This is a wonderful interview. So sad that Sebald died so relatively young. He had so much more to give. Rings of Saturn is possibly my favourite book of all time. Every time I read it, I pick up something new that I’d missed from prior readings. Some parts I feel I still have not taken in. Reading it is like wandering through a dream, some things clear, others pass by like air. I love the state his work puts me in. I could stay there forever.

[@GaryDaleBurns]

It was just one week later that he died in the car crash...btw the first major biography on Sebald was just published last year, it's called Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald by Carole Angier.

[@Richardwestwood-dp5wr]

​@@GaryDaleBurnsthanks

[@skyca7783]

Thank you so much for posting. The postwar conspiracy of silence had a lasting effect on my life. Incredible that he could write about things that our parents refused to talk about. Very moving. Tragic timing, days before the author's death, yet so fortunate to have this opportunity to learn from the author in person. Great interviewer as well.

[@JS-ti8ny]

What the Military Industrial Complex did to the German population and cities after the fall of the 3rd Reich was the definition of *Geneva War Crimes*

[@marichristian1072]

" Austerliz" is a novel, I'll never forget. What an honor to hear Sebald on his influences. I'm deeply in your debt for posting. Thank you.

[@connorveach5986]

I started reading it a couple years ago and just got distracted by other books. Glad I’ve held onto it tho. I love when literary books use pictures in interesting ways (actually can’t think of many other examples tho really) and I remember the prose being very tender and clean so I’ll most likely return to it at some point. That being said, got any other book recommendations?😏

[@sarahgreen8988]

Very grateful to find this....well done for sharing this with us.

[@jimearl4129]

Many thanks for this. Excellent interview of a favourite, brilliant author.

[@williamnelson792]

8 days before he died.

[@46metube]

Wow. How fortunate we are to have this. Just started reading The Rings of Saturn again. A book that will malinger in my thoughts, forever, probably. :)

[@kerrymuir9891]

seriously?

[@williamnelson792]

@@kerrymuir9891 yes

[@henryrobinson2222]

one of the great tragedies that he died so young, relatively speaking. just think of all the books he still had to write…but thank God for all the books he did write. almost unparalleled in the late 20th century I feel

[@soumyadeepdeb8844]

Thanks was looking for it

[@liammcooper]

Five minute discussion on Thomas Bernhard, nice.

[@Wrenasmir]

Liam Cooper This interview was my portal into the world of Thomas Bernhard’s novels

[@deaddilly]

@@Wrenasmir Same here. I've just come back to this interview after reading The Loser and now just finishing Extinction. Both have made a profound impact on me.

[@AniaKaliRo]

Thank you for sharing. Many, many thanks.

[@cabiriacabiria-fy5qv]

greatfull for posted this enterview❣

[@gregbogan7639]

I recently finished 'Austerlitz'. The book affected me, in so many ways.

[@tzirufim]

Me too, would you mind explaining your thoughts and impressions?

[@ensaladaconsardinas]

thanks for sharing it

[@sibengerard1856]

SILVERBLATT HAPPENS TO BE ONE OF THE MOST READ INDIVIDUALS- AT LEAST ON AMERICAN RADIO...

[@MrKlemps]

siben gerard This seems like a (very loud) defense of an attack that seems not to have been made. Perhaps a criticism of the interviewer has been deleted?

[@olegwiththeknowledge1729]

Has anyone else experienced the feeling of somambulance that the presenter talks about around 04:54? He says that he feels like he has dremt the connections in Sebalds story and I thought I was the only one.

[@Wrenasmir]

It’s such a perfect description of his prose style, isn’t it - the feeling of sleepwalking between ideas, the ‘sleight of hand’ as Sebald calls it, turning one concept, one geographic area, into something completely different without a clear demarcation between each.

[@olegwiththeknowledge1729]

@@Wrenasmir Yes, like water colors fading into each other. I think this is one of the reasons why every time I re-read his books it feels like I never red it before!

[@CaroleMora22]

The focus of my doctoral dissertation was Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, read closely through a post-Jungian lens while also applying active imagination. This text also emerged as a means of unpacking Jung's ideas. His use of language is masterful, immersive, utterly unforgettable, and I might even say, life-changing. Thanks for posting this final interview. It is unfortunate that he left us so soon, but we have his amazing writings. I recommend them highly.

[@a.j.6227]

Thank you!!! I love his narrative melody in his texts. Never heard his voice before. Just read his literature.

[@keegangore2757]

what an absolute legend

[@MB-pm4xe]

Great interview, great writer. I just wish Silverblatt would stop saying, "It seems to me..."

[@user-cv2df5cr8i]

This was a lonely walk - through all these landscapes -

[@sibengerard1856]

TWO REMARKABLY INTELLIGENT INDIVIDUALS...

[@trevorbarre5616]

A precise mind, to put it mildly. What he might have achieved, if only he could have lived longer!

[@activeone]

There is no "might", I believe; regardless of his shortened time on earth he achieved in that time more than many writers can ever hope to achieve.

[@guzelaziz]

What a wonderful interviewer is silverblatt

[@pauljones5066]

great interviewer imo

[@user-cv2df5cr8i]

„Conspiracy of Silence“ - three words subsuming the thread of the threats of silencing throughout lifes’ lifetimes of speechless lonely bystanders, incapable or unwilling to even try to form a single word, a tone or just a sigh - just a low sigh. Breathe?

[@jcastano]

Did he mean pericope, instead of periscope?

[@Wrenasmir]

I think by describing Bernhard’s narrative voice as ‘periscopic’ he was referring to the manner in which another voice, another life, is being shared through his own telling, as if using a periscope to look through and see the world through the one-level-removed eyes of another.

[@bbegins10]

As interviewed by Ferris Bueller

[@ava4088]

x

[@late_privktorian_era]

Holy shit he died a week after this?

[@Wrenasmir]

That’s right, 14th December.

[@johnhernan9238]

it is interesting to me at least this notion of tenderness, listening, witness (real or fictional) the « exiled » writer, giving voice to those who are sidelined. silverblatt uses the same notion when interviewing John Berger - himself and anglo writer « self exiling » in the French Alps, Sebald self exiled in UK. i think i will explore this some more.

[@Wrenasmir]

You’re right, I remember thinking the same during the Berger interview. I wonder if it’s a twist on Joyce’s “silence, exile, and cunning”, certainly the number of self exiled Irish writers, like Beckett, brought a similar sense of quiet (quietism, even) witness to the existential state of others, at home and abroad. It’s a fascinating position for the author to hold.

[@johnhernan9238]

@@Wrenasmir if we open the door towards Joyce / Beckett… quite the rabbit hole. i find Beckett fascinating because he also adopted a new language and wrote in French. i love to read authors who don’t write in their « native » language - this distance creates an understanding & precision in the adopted language that echos. like the great Aharon Appelfeld - recreating and rewriting oneself, in a sense.