But as soon as he started composing the pieces, they grew into something more elaborate. Rather, Sebald made various walks from summer 1992 to spring 1993 that were supposed to result in ten short essays to be published individually in a German newspaper. At the outset, however, it is worth pointing out that this walk never took place as described. In the German original, The Rings of Saturn was subtitled Eine englische Wallfahrt ( An English Pilgrimage): an apt classification for the remarkable psycho-geographical journey that Sebald embarks on with his readers, traversing time and space in a search that strives less for truth than for redemption.Ī melancholy perambulation across the Suffolk countryside provides the narrative framework of the book. With astounding ease, the narrative blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, art and documentary – navigating a wide-ranging literary territory across the temporalities of past, present, future. It defies classification more than any other piece in Sebald's œuvre, as it freely crosses genres such as autobiography, biography, travelogue and meditative essay. The Rings of Saturn is Sebald's masterpiece and probably the most extraordinary book in recent German letters. Moving from one subject, from one theme, from one concern, to another always requires some sleight of hand.
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