W. G. Sebald’s novel, Austerlitz,1 is one of his many intricate works which combine narrative fiction and philosophy. Its main character is Jacques Austerlitz, a Welsh-raised professor of architectural history in his late forties. The novel follows Jacques through his quest to piece together his life story, long forgotten by its subject due to a catastrophic event in his early childhood.
The novel begins with Jacques’s visit to Prague in the summer of 1957. Whilst there, he meets an elderly man whom Jacques soon learns is his father, Adolf Austerlitz, an architect and closeted Czech Jew. This encounter leads Jacques to make leaps in understanding that hold the key to unlocking his past and discovering his true identity.
Armed with the name of David Weiss, one of his father’s former cellmates at the Nazi concentration camp, Jacques’s quest leads him to Antwerp and the discovery of his mother’s memoir detailing her and her family’s flight to England during World War II. Jacques travels to London in a desperate attempt to find records of his own identity, yet all he comes across is a barrage of official documents all containing his old adopted name of Dafydd, and no hint of his real identity.
However, these discoveries eventually lead him to Brest-Litovski in East Prussia, the place from which he himself was taken away from in 1940 as a four-year-old to a children’s hostel in Wales. Here Jacques learns from a local historian the building’s true purpose, which had been a Nazi transit station for Jewish children, and his own horrific origin story.
Through Sebald’s vivid descriptions of the various locations Jacques visits throughout his journey, he is able to evoke a sense of dread and foreboding throughout Jacques’s tale as he begins to realise the full extent of his family’s horrific past. The author imbues the narrative with a profound interpretation of the Holocaust and its ongoing psychological impact on those touched by it. By weaving remembrance into its themes, Sebald has created an unparalleled piece of fiction that is both a rumination on tragic history and a modern existential masterpiece.
The success of Austerlitz lies in Sebald’s compelling writing which allows him to capture the full depth and breadth of Jacques’s story and his own experience of confronting his past. In his novel, Sebald brings out the idea that individual identity and history cannot be separated from wider events of the past and how our belated attempts at understanding can often bring forth sorrow and catharsis.
Austerlitz is a powerfully resonant and distinctive novel that will appeal to readers of all kinds. Through Sebald’s carefully crafted prose and meticulous attention to detail, this masterpiece of modern fiction will transport readers on an emotional journey of memory and identity that will remain with them for years to come.
