Monatshefte

“Intertextuality is the last major field of Sebald research,” claimed J.J. Long ten years ago, and it is now hard to think of a critical study of Sebald that does not, in some way, engage with intertextuality (J.J. Long. W.G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity, New York 2007 [ed. note: see review article in Monatshefte 101.1, Spring 2009, 88– 105]). Susanne Schedel’s survey “Wer weiß, wie es vor Zeiten wirklich gewesen ist?” Textbeziehungen als Mittel der Geschichtsdarstellung bei W.G. Sebald provided a robust typology of the functions and modes of intertextuality in Sebald’s writings (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2004). Espen Ingebrigtsen’s new publication, Bisse ins Sacktuch. Zur mehrfachkodierten Intertextualität bei W.G. Sebald, although it would thus seem to address a well-worn topic, nonetheless comes as a welcome surprise for its originality and rigour. Ingebrigtsen clearly lays out his points of departure from Schedel’s work. Rather than depending on her typology, which orders intertextual references according to the degree and way in which they are ‘marked’ in Sebald’s text, his intention is to develop a more differentiated and critical approach to Sebald’s intertextuality.

For Ingebrigtsen, a study of Sebald’s intertextual methodology reveals the ways in which intertextual references not only support his overarching critique of historical violence, as Schedel argued, but also serve as a form of ethical restitution. Further, Sebald’s choice of intertextual references reveals his aesthetic tastes and biographical sympathies. Central to Ingebrigtsen’s project is the assertion that it is essential to pay attention to how and why each intertextual reference functions in the way that it does. Not all figures on loan have a uniform symbolism; not all textual citations, no matter how they are marked, carry the same poetic weight. Ingebrigtsen is not afraid to point out ethical problems, questionable citation practices and downright inaccuracies in Sebald’s work, while drawing on his own research in Sebald’s Arbeitsbibliothek to produce some new and intriguing insights into Sebald’s texts. [End Page 285]

The full set of Sebald’s intertextual references are not worked through systematically—such an undertaking would hardly be possible—in keeping with Ingebrigtsen’s central assertion that intertextual references in Sebald are never fixed codes, and therefore that it is not possible to establish a stable meaning for any one intertextual reference. Instead, he selects a representative assortment of case studies. First, he examines how the “archival subject” (Long 2007) of Jacques Austerlitz is composed via a series of references to outsider figures congenial to Sebald. Ingebrigtsen argues that a view of Jacques Austerlitz as a material, feeling subject can augment his primary function as “archival subject” in a novel that functions as an alternative medium of cognition and sedimentation. Sebald’s intertextual practice here means that Austerlitz generates an excess of meaning, as his suggestive name indicates, going beyond a merely traumatic style of discourse to one that creates an alternative family for Austerlitz in the form of a literary network of elective affinities.

Not all of Sebald’s literary affinities are with marginal, exilic figures; Ingebrigtsen includes a study of Sebald’s references to the canonical figures of Kafka, Hofmannsthal, and Proust. Again, these are not systematic studies—each of these authors would merit an entire book-length study in relation to Sebald—but instead demonstrate further functions of intertextuality. Ingebrigtsen’s references to Kafka are chosen to show how Sebald cites Kafka to add an edge of the uncanny to seemingly realistic descriptions, such as that of the deportation of Agáta Austerlitzova from Prague. He argues that such references posit an anti-metaphysical, literary truth and faith instead of the historical truth about his family that Austerlitz is fruitlessly seeking. Hofmannsthal is mainly significant for his Chandos letter, references to which are strewn through Sebald’s work; however, Ingebrigtsen argues that Sebald transforms this pretext in a way that demonstrates a negative conception of history, rather than the productive linguistic crisis in Hofmannsthal’s text. Again, Sebald’s muchstudied use of the Proustian motif of mémoire involontaire is shown to form a poignant counterpoint to the Proustian pretext, reversing the recuperative function of Marcel’s madeleine. The same is true of the references made to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s metaphor of the ‘city of language’; in Wittgenstein, this is a flexible metaphor for the dynamic structure of language, reversed in Austerlitz into a terrifying allegory for Austerlitz’s linguistic breakdown.

The study of Wittgenstein is perhaps the highlight of the book. Through careful analysis of Sebald’s texts, pretexts, and Arbeitsbibliothek, Ingebrigtsen argues that the references to Wittgenstein in Austerlitz and in “Paul Bereyter” have little relevance to the historical Wittgenstein or to his thought; rather, they demonstrate an affective and creative closeness to Wittgenstein as an imagined biographical figure. In fact, Sebald only refers once to Wittgenstein’s philosophy, in his essay on Broch, to demonstrate the limits of propositional language. Rather, Ingebrigtsen argues, Sebald uncritically appropriates Wittgenstein as a positive identificatory figure in a way that he scrupulously avoids with his own characters. Sebald thus (mis-)interprets Wittgenstein’s general critique of flawed philosophical systems as a critique that is analogous to his own cultural pessimism; more, Sebald uses Wittgenstein as a model for the kindly, holistic pedagogue Paul Bereyter while ignoring the historical evidence that Wittgenstein was often an authoritarian teacher who resorted to classroom violence. In conclusion, Ingebrigtsen notes that Sebald’s intertextual references can function [End Page 286] not only as indices of melancholy, but also as a wryly ironic commentary on the absurdities of modernity: not humour, precisely, but a form of resistance.

Ingebrigtsen has read widely and deeply in the field of Sebald studies, and also deploys a range of relevant theory, from Genette to Erll and Nünning, to make his points. However, while the methodological rigour is admirable, this book is perhaps most engaging in its fearless and attentive use of the Arbeitsbibliothek, sensitivity to the fluctuating significance of intertextual references within and between Sebald’s texts, and in intertextual sleuthing. Ingebrigtsen is not afraid to point out possible deficiencies in Sebald’s own research (e.g. tracing why it is that he might mistakenly have thought that Wittgenstein travelled to Kazakhstan), while at all times being attentive to the productive ironies, ambiguities, and poetic transformations of the intertextual material in Sebald’s work. This is a rewarding volume rich with insights, which will prove useful to all Sebald critics reflecting on the complex intertextuality of his work.