SOURCE: Tate, Trudi. “The Writer Among the Ruins.” Quadrant 42, no. 11 (November 1998): 76-8.

In the following review, Tate appreciates Sebald's preoccupation with historical memory and the continuing relevance of the past in The Rings of Saturn.

Although W. G. Sebald lives in Britain and teaches at the University of East Anglia, he writes in German and publishes his books in his adopted homeland in translation. His first work to appear in English was The Emigrants (Harvill, 1996). His new book, The Rings of Saturn, tells of a walking trip along the coast of Suffolk. Part memoir, part mediation, the book interweaves personal memory and observation with a collection of historical narratives. Sebald's reflections on the history and geography of the eastern edge of England are as peculiar and haunting as the landscape itself.

Sebald undertook the walk, he tells us, in the hope that it might dispel the sense of...