Vertigo
Like memory itself, this novel embodies and transcends time and ranges from the mid-18th century to the present. Essentially, it consists of four unequal parts. In the first and third, the unnamed narrator imagines the Italian wanderings of Marie-Henri Beyle (i.e. Stendhal) and Franz Kafka, two authors whose presence haunts the novel. In the more elaborate and labyrinthine second and fourth parts, the narrator’s own wanderings are reminisced. In this process of remembering, time is disjointed as the narrator revisits first Vienna then Verona and finally his childhood village, only identified as W. During this journey, the story drifts randomly from the 1940s to the present, with occasional forays into a more distant past. It is during these childhood musings that the novel’s fractured plot becomes coherent. Memory’s relation to space and time, we discover, is the central character.
At first the novel is disorienting and confusing, but it is always compelling. It draws the reader along and into a world of twisting and turning relations between reality and the memory of that reality. Clearly, Sebald’s first novel is challenging, but it is rich in historical and cultural detail, and ultimately the reader is rewarded for the effort.
