WORKS ON DIGITAL PAPER

Last night I was reminded of the sensation of realizing the book I'm reading is not the only book the author has written. It is a curious trick of the mind that it ingests all it perceives to make everything its own. In this case I am reading a wonderful book called Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. It is the sort of first person retelling of a second person's tale so compelling you must believe it is both a factual recount and surely the only novel the author has put to print. As if the whole byzantine labyrinth were far too perfectly conversational to be anything other than a vicarious memoir. Last night, over after-game beers at Marlow, a game we lost in the first two minutes on a header via throw-in, a game lost in the first two minutes thanks, in part, to the fact that the referee started the game a number of minutes early, ensuring key members of our team were not on the field, Big Dan explained to Elizabeth that Austerlitz is simply the best, not only, book in Sebald's oeuvre. Oddly, this struck me, oddly.

Photo link courtesy of Kelvin Freely.