Sebald on my arse or, La république des livres

 As some of you know, or rather as most of you don't know, I'm currently doing an MA in English at Nottingham University.

Almost finished now. I 'just' need to write a dissertation, and as you could choose a creative writing option, well guess what? I chose that.

I'm writing (attempting to write) about Oxford. My favourite subject, at Nottingham, was to read about literary geographies. There I discovered the wonderful world of a psychogeographical Will Self, the poetry in prose of Kathleen Jamie's Findings, Robert McFarlane and his big books full of encyclopedic knowledge such as The Old Ways, and more work by Ballard (whom I knew but 'only' the scifi author). Even classics, such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, can also be read for their fantastic descriptions of landscape.

So yes I thought, what's the place I know most in this country? The place where I've lived most of my adult life? The place where I believe I have a good objectif of both 'town' and 'gown', city and university?

Oxford that is the place. Also, no one has evern written anything about this obscure corner of the world, right?

No panic. 

There are books to help.

Supervisor said I should start with The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald. Easy-peasy. Well not so.

First of all where to find such a book on a Sunday in Oxford? It was, as it is usual at work, one of those famous weeks where I just would get my Sunday off. I suppose I could have gone all the week to one of the two main Oxford booksellers (in fact the same company now, but never mind) Blackwell's or Waterstones (notice the s here? Blackwell's still embraces the possessive but Waterstones has decided to be more simple, and it reflect, I'm afraid the quality of service on a Sunday, Blackwell's a bit snooty at times but yeah, they have everything and you can get lost in the fabulous Norrington Room downstairs).

I wished I would have found the book second-hand in that great bookshop in Park End street, it was on three-levels if I remember it well, but it's long gone replaced by a posh boutique for hi-fi. Or there was another one in the High (High street for those who do not live in Oxford, though with all the Morse and Lewis and Endeavour series you've watched, you should know by now), replaced once again by something rather useless, is it a candy shop now? Or is that one gone as well? Not that I would regret it much. 

Anyway, yes, it had to be new, therefore full price and I was on the High and thought, let's give that new-ish bookshop a chance, the one in the Covered Market, Gulp Fiction. 

Nice place. I felt a bit like a 100 year old, but you feel like this often when you're past 50 and surrounded by students. Lots of books on table and if you buy one of them, you get a free coffee. Nice. I was determined though, and ventured into the alphabetical classification on the shelves. And yes, Sebald was there, this book and the famous Austerlitz as well (I say famous because the name of this novel appeared a few times when doing my academic readings, I've not read the book. Yet).

So yes, I found the book, I read the book. Not an easy one but some wonderful stories in it. Some touching moments about one of his colleagues, this woman academic, specialist of Flaubert (I can understand why you'd like to spend your brain life with him I have to say) who progressevily got trapped by her own papers and found herself completely surrounded. She looked a bit like Dürer's Melancolia, Sebald said to her. 

Cheerful. But apparently she really looked like that on the day so here you go.

About one week later, digesting the book still, I meet my mate C.W. at Dosa Park, a delicious and cheap South Indian restaurant opposite the ghost of the old train station, what is now the Said Business School. I knew somehow that he would have read it, being German and all that, and also reading so many books. His library has now taken most of the walls in his house. We struggled with some bits in the book, in fact, a lot of the book we struggled with. 'A bit boring' he said (he said this, not me! Though I feel the same a bit, sorry). 

One week or two later, because my friends J. and N. could not make it, we found ourselves together again, in the same restaurant, this time with E.P. my Italian friend. Not sure why but we mention Sebald again. 'Oh Max!' she said, yes I knew him. Apparently he was the first academic to invite her over to the United Kingdom and she found herself at the University of East Anglia with him. She goes on about how nice he was, and that he liked to be called Max, and that no one knew he wrote. I love that, this discretion. That's quite a change from the LinkedIn blahblah your eyes have to bear when at work. Then of course, E.P. oblige, a few gossips about his accidental death. Gossips are gossips and we'll leave it at that. Here is the photo (I have removed my friend):

A few days later, I'm at N. (a sickness forbids him to walk much, hence his absence at Dosa Park) and we speak about my project. He knows a lot about Oxford, having worked here most of his life, and studied here as well before, so we discuss buildings, and the many changes to the city. Apparently, the place that is quite iconic now in Oxford, Radcliffe square, was a complete mess till not sure when (the eighteenth century?), there were many streets there, all very curvey and medieval. They all disappeared to give way to the construction of the Radcliffe Camera, an extension of the Bodleian Library. My head is buzzing with facts and figures, which as you can see, I have compltely forgotten. Oh well. But before I leave, N.  lends me a book about Oxford, not the usual one though, the Cowley Road: Isolarion by James Attlee.

I'm very happy to be leaving the Oxford university world (and I have to admit I failed to like the latest book written by an academic on the subject, perhaps because I only read the bit about his criticism of an ex-employer of mine -anything but 'real Oxford' by the way. Call me old fashioned, but if you are invited to lunch in a place, you either accept it or refuse it, but if you accept it, there's no need to criticise the place afterwards? Perhaps he should have not gone to lunch and just pissed on the external wall? Not difficult, it's on the High) so here I am, attacking this new book which sounds like a liberation. The Cowley road, freedom! But here we go again, Sebald appears. Sebald and melancholia, Sebald and his profound protestant ethic, never mind that he was raised a Catholic, says the academic interviewed by Attlee, he fits very well in this protestant ethic. Yap... Sebald again. Oh kill me now.

I take refuge, a few days later, in the fantastic Westgate public library, built for people like me, always in a hurry after work, but so happy to breathe freely and take your time getting lost. I decide, for once, to not read a book about travelling, not about England, not about Oxfordshire, not about walking. Well you name it, there's a lot you can read if you want to write about a subject like that. 

So I borrow John Le Carré' s last book ever written Silverview, because I know for sure I have not read it (it's difficult with the others, I've read so many but I don't remember which ones) and I'm so happy to escape my studies for a while. But kill me now again. Sebald is there too. What is it with Sebald and the English? The book, the bloody book The Rings of Saturn is stocked in a new bookshop and becomes even a code for one of the many spy games played, and they go to Orford Ness, the antithesis of Oxford it seems as there is nothing there! (I speak here of the army testing place of course, not the village of Orford)

And, latest update, I go to the two pounds bookshop (now three pounds I think and called Book Stop) and who's there, to nag me? Again? Yes, dear Mr Sebald and his Rings of Saturn. Really annoying because of course the book was much cheaper there.

So yes, Sebald seems to be on my arse all the time whatever I do. I cannot fight it. A book inspires another book which inspires another book ad vitam aeternam (so happy here to be using the only Latin I know - before you think I know this language). A real republic there. Books echo other books, a bit like many books on psychogeography by Self, Sinclair and Papadimitriou all smell a bit (a hell of a lot if you really ask me) of testosterone stuck in Gore-Tex.

So here we are. It can be annoying but also wonderful. There's no such think as an orphan book, they all belong to a family, speaking with the dead and the living, continuously. And yes it's a republic, because if it were a kingdom, who would be the king? Shakespeare probably for the Brits, Proust for the French, Mann for the Germans. And then it'd be even more complicated, because I love Proust don't get me wrong, but my King would be a Queen, Queen Colette, or Queen Despentes. And in this country? Queen Winterson? Difficult, difficult.

So no, a republic would do. And why in French you ask. La république des livres. Because a long time ago, in Oxford, I heard an academic give a lecture called like this. Who was it again? Oh yes I remember, it was Robert Darnton. Liked the lecture. Forgot it now, but nevermind. I so liked the term I keep it, though it must be coming from another place, another book, right?