Conversationally Reading Sebald

Dirty Girl Farm haricots verts with honshimeji and roasted chili sauce at The Slanted Door, San Francisco

I confess to having been back from California for a week and I still don’t feel very organized. We ate well, walked far, and soaked up the fog. We also spent a few hours in City Lights Books and went out with a small bag of books. The only volume I’ve finished so far is Marguerite Yourcenar’s Mishima: A Vision of the Void, originally written in 1980. Although I have a great interest in Japanese literature, Mishima had always been on the fringe of my understanding. Yourcenar’s small book helped open a door for me. (By the way, I’ve just added her book Memoirs of Hadrian to My Desert Island Library.)

Rather than write something of my own about W.G. Sebald this week, I’d like to recommend Conversational Reading, where Scott Esposito has written a surprising number of great posts about Sebald over the past two years. One click and you’re there.