Austerlitz

Austerlitz by W G Sebald was given to me by two lovely girlfriends as part of a leaving gift from the publishers we all worked at at the time. I suggested it to the book group, however when it came to being selected, very few members bought or read it and it was swiftly put aside in favour of something, well lighter.

Mistake, fellow book group members. This book is not an easy read. It has no chapters, but large text, pictures, and spends an inordinate amount of time on things such as star shaped fortresses at the beginning - only for all of these strange diversions to suddenly seem like the main route, the only route. It is beautiful, poetic in nature. The narrator, although first-person, is not the protagonist - he is faceless, nameless even, but yet reading it you get a palpable sense of him that you do not get with the protagonist Austerlitz, whose actions seem untraceable, not understandable.

It is not easy to read, not easy to get into and has a plot that only reveals itself when you as a reader would no longer be reading for a plot. And yet I loved it.