Austerlitz (novel)
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''Austerlitz'' is a 2001 novel by the German writer W. G. Sebald. It was Sebald's final novel. The book received the
National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
during the 1960s. Gradually, we come to understand his life history. He arrived in Britain during the summer of 1939 as an infant refugee on a
kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children from Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, total ...
from a
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
threatened by Hitler's Nazis. He was adopted by an elderly Welsh Nonconformist preacher and his sickly wife and spent his childhood near
Bala, Gwynedd Bala () is a town and community (Wales), community in Gwynedd, Wales. Formerly an Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), urban district, Bala lies in the Historic counties of Wales, historic county of Merionethshire, at the north end of Bal ...
, before attending a minor public school. His foster parents died, and Austerlitz learned something of his background. After school, he attended
Oriel College, Oxford Oriel College () is Colleges of the University of Oxford, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title for ...
and became an academic drawn to (and began his research in) European architecture. After a nervous breakdown, Austerlitz visited
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
, where he met a close friend of his lost parents, Vera, who often took care of "Jacquot" when his parents were away. As he speaks with her, memories return, including French and Czech expressions she taught him. The elderly lady tells him the fate of his mother, an actress and opera singer who was deported to
Theresienstadt Ghetto Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...
. From Prague, Austerlitz travels to Theriesenstadt, and after returning to England via train, with an emotionally difficult journey through Germany, manages to obtain a 14-minute video compilation of highlights from ''Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet'', the 1944 Nazi propaganda film, in which he believes he recognizes his mother. Vera, however, dismisses the woman from the documentary. Instead, she confirms the identity of Austerlitz's mother in a photograph of an anonymous actress, which Austerlitz found in the Prague theatrical archives. The novel shifts to contemporary
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
as Austerlitz seeks out any remaining evidence about his father's fate. He meets up with the narrator and tells him of his first sojourn in Paris in 1959 when he suffered his first nervous breakdown and was hospitalized; Marie de Verneuil, a young Frenchwoman with whom he became acquainted in the library, helps nurse him back to health. Sebald explores the ways in which collections of records, such as the
Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...
or National Library of France, entomb memories. During the novel the reader is taken on a guided tour of a lost European civilization: a world of fortresses, railway stations, concentration camps and libraries.


Background

Sebald saw a programme on BBC television about the Kindertransport entitled ''Whatever Happened to Susi?'' In 1939, 3-year-old twins Lotte and Susi Bechhöfer arrived in London on a Kindertransport evacuating Jewish children from Germany. Adopted by a childless Welsh minister and his wife, they were given a new identity to erase all traces of their previous existence. Only fifty years later, after Lotte's death from a brain tumour at the age of 35, did Susi Bechhöfer discover that their parents were Rosa Bechhöfer, a young Jewish woman who was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and Otto Hald, a soldier in Hitler's army. The discovery of her real identity propels Susi on a painful and courageous quest in search of her past and the surviving members of her natural family. In the course of her search, she confronts dark secrets from her own past and urgently needs to reappraise her life. In 1999, Susi published a memoir, ''Rosa's Child: One Woman's Search for Her Past'' and a film has been made from it titled ''Susi's Story''. Sebald told Joseph Cuomo in an interview that he tried to obtain a copy of the BBC programme, but the BBC would not release it. At the conclusion of the book the narrator takes from his rucksack a copy of Dan Jacobson's ''Heshel's Kingdom'', an account of his journey in the 1990s to
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
in search of traces of his grandfather Heshel's world. The Orthodox rabbi Heshel Melamed's sudden death in 1919 had provided an opportunity for his widow and nine children to leave Lithuania for South Africa, which, in light of events two decades later, had been a gift of life. "On his travels in Lithuania Jacobson finds scarcely any trace of his forebears, only signs everywhere of the annihilation from which Heshel's weak heart had preserved his immediate family when it stopped beating."


Style and structure

Formally, the novel is notable because of its lack of paragraphing, a digressive style, the blending of fact and fiction and very long and complex sentences. One such sentence runs to seven and a half pages and combines the history and description of Theresienstadt. It is prompted by Austerlitz's having read the major 1995 study of the ghetto, ''Theresienstadt 1941–1945: Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft'' by H. G. Adler, and recounting it to the narrator as they are walking around London, from St Clement's Hospital where Austerlitz had been admitted in 1993 after his arrival at Liverpool Street on his return from Prague. Mysterious and evocative photographs are also scattered throughout the book, enhancing the melancholy message of the text. The photographs are real, but the circumstances surrounding them are fictional. For example, the picture used for the front cover is said to be a picture of Austerlitz during his youth; in actuality, it is a picture of unnamed young boy, taken from a postcard from
Stockport Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt, Rivers Goyt and River Tame, Greater Manchester, Tame merge to create the River Mersey he ...
. James Wood calls these photographs "fictional twice over", in that they are both photographs of people who only exist in fiction and photographs of people who have faded into obscurity. Many of these features characterize Sebald's other works of fiction, including ''The Emigrants'', ''
The Rings of Saturn ''The Rings of Saturn'' ( - An English Pilgrimage) is a 1995 novel by the German writer W. G. Sebald. Its first-person narrative arc is the account by a nameless narrator (who resembles the author in typical Sebaldian fashion) on a walking tour ...
'' and ''
Vertigo Vertigo is a condition in which a person has the sensation that they are moving, or that objects around them are moving, when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. It may be associated with nausea, vomiting, perspira ...
''. Austerlitz tells his story to the narrator between 1967 and 1997. They first meet in Antwerp, and then in a few other places in Belgium (they take a ferry together back to England from
Zeebrugge Zeebrugge (; from , meaning "Bruges-on-Sea"; , ) is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with ...
). Between 1967 and 1975, they meet regularly in
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
, London, where Austerlitz works as an art historian and teacher; the narrator studies in England and travels to London by train. They lose touch after the narrator returns to Germany: he surmises that perhaps Austerlitz does not like to write letters to Germany. They meet again in December 1996, in the Great Eastern Hotel, London; the narrator has returned to England and has traveled to London to visit an eye doctor, running into Austerlitz by chance. They talk until late, then meet the next day in Greenwich.


Themes

A broad and pervasive theme of the novel is the metaphor of water as time, a metaphor which helps explain two (arguably three) appearances of Noah's Ark in the novel: the first a golden picture (reproduced on page 43 of the text) in the Freemasons' temple of the Great Eastern Hotel, London; the second a toy Noah's Ark in the hermetically sealed billiards room of Iver Grove, a then abandoned estate on the outskirts of postwar Oxford (later home to
Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (; born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...
); and the third (arguably) the new
Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...
in Paris.


Notable locations

The novel mentions and expands upon several locations in detail, including: *
Liverpool Street Station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...
(as well as the McDonald's located there) * Great Eastern Hotel, London (now called Andaz London Liverpool Street) * St. Clement's Hospital, London * Alderney Street, London * Rue de Richelieu, Paris *
Montparnasse Cemetery Montparnasse Cemetery () is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, in the city's 14th arrondissement of Paris, 14th arrondissement. The cemetery is roughly 47 acres and is the second largest cemetery in Paris. The cemetery has over 35,00 ...
* Theresienstadt * Fort Breendonk, Breendonk * Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris (in particular the ''Haut-de-jardin'' reading room) *
Lake Vyrnwy Lake Vyrnwy (, or ') is a reservoir in Powys, Wales, built in the 1880s for Liverpool Corporation Waterworks to supply Liverpool with fresh water. It flooded the head of the River Vyrnwy, Vyrnwy () valley and submerged the village of Llanwddyn ...
,
Powys Powys ( , ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county and Preserved counties of Wales, preserved county in Wales. It borders Gwynedd, Denbighshire, and Wrexham County Borough, Wrexham to the north; the English Ceremonial counties of England, ceremo ...
*
Barmouth Barmouth (formal ; colloquially ) is a seaside town and community in the county of Gwynedd, north-west Wales; it lies on the estuary of the Afon Mawddach and Cardigan Bay. Located in the historic county of Merionethshire, the Welsh form of t ...
,
Gwynedd Gwynedd () is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The ci ...
*
Antwerp Central Station Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
,
Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
, in particular the station restaurant


Reception

Upon release, ''Austerlitz '' was generally well-received among the British press. According to
Book Marks ''Literary Hub'' or ''LitHub'' is a daily literary website that was launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and '' Electric Literatur ...
, from American publications, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on five critics: one "rave", three "positive", and one "mixed". ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": ''
Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...
'', '' Times'', ''
Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
'', '' Sunday Telegraph'', ''
Observer An observer is one who engages in observation or in watching an experiment. Observer may also refer to: Fiction * ''Observer'' (novel), a 2023 science fiction novel by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress * ''Observer'' (video game), a cyberpunk horr ...
'', ''
Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'', ''
Spectator ''Spectator'' or ''The Spectator'' may refer to: *Spectator sport, a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its matches *Audience Publications Canada * '' The Hamilton Spectator'', a Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, ...
'', and '' Literary Review'' reviews under "Love It" and '' Guardian'' and '' Independent On Sunday'' reviews under "Pretty Good". In the United States, ''Austerlitz'' won the 2001
National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Salon Book Award. In the UK, the book won the 2002 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2002 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize.
Anthea Bell Anthea Bell (10 May 1936 – 18 October 2018) was an English translator of literary works, including children's literature, from French, German and Danish language, Danish. These include ''The Castle (novel), The Castle'' by Franz Kafka, ''Aus ...
won the 2002 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, awarded by the
Goethe-Institut The Goethe-Institut (; GI, ''Goethe Institute'') is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit German culture, cultural organization operational worldwide with more than 150 cultural centres, promoting the study of the German language abroad and en ...
Chicago, for her translation of ''Austerlitz'' into English. In 2019, it was ranked 5th on ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. The ''
New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' named it the 8th best book on their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list. In 2024 ''Austerlitz'' was chosen as the final novel of the twentieth century in Edwin Frank's book,'' Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel.'' Frank is the founder of the New York Review Books Classics series. Frank, Edwin. 2024. ''Stranger than Fiction : Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel.'' First edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.


Editions

* ''Austerlitz''. Munich: C. Hanser, 2001. * ''Austerlitz''. Translated by
Anthea Bell Anthea Bell (10 May 1936 – 18 October 2018) was an English translator of literary works, including children's literature, from French, German and Danish language, Danish. These include ''The Castle (novel), The Castle'' by Franz Kafka, ''Aus ...
. New York: Random House, 2001.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Austerlitz (Novel) 2001 German novels Novels by W. G. Sebald German-language novels German historical novels Novels about the aftermath of the Holocaust Novels set in Belgium Novels set in Paris Novels set in the 1960s Novels set in Antwerp National Book Critics Circle Award–winning works Novels set in Prague Novels set in Wales