{"id":118,"date":"2018-04-29T22:12:53","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T02:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209\/?p=118"},"modified":"2018-04-29T22:12:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T02:12:53","slug":"the-legitimacy-of-the-photograph-in-w-g-sebalds-the-rings-of-saturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209\/uncategorized\/the-legitimacy-of-the-photograph-in-w-g-sebalds-the-rings-of-saturn\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legitimacy of the Photograph in W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn"},"content":{"rendered":"

W.G. Sebald\u2019s ambulatory, postmodern fiction The Rings of Saturn <\/em>is obsessed with historical representation and the hermeneutics of memory. The novel follows a nameless, foreign narrator (who is a thinly veiled representation of the author himself) as he wanders through Suffolk county in England: observing the landscape, interacting with locals, and remembering historical phenomenon. Quotation marks are noticeably absent from The Rings of Saturn<\/em>: readers oftentimes forget from whose perspective a story is from\u2014the narrator or another character. Monochromatic photographs also riddle the text, moments of historical clairvoyance breaking through the ubiquitous ambiguity of the narrative. The Rings of Saturn <\/em>insubordinately refuses genre, all the while remaining deeply invested in historical accuracy. Despite Sebald\u2019s interest and obsession with history, the novel is a work of fiction. The postmodern narrative structures prevent the text from realizing itself as historically indisputable. The epistemological legitimacy of the photograph in The Rings of Saturn <\/em>will be challenged through the photograph that accompanies the narrator\u2019s interaction with Thomas Abrams, a man reconstructing the Temple of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

At the crux of The Rings of Saturn <\/em>is a queasy temporality: \u201cIn August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk\u201d (Sebald 3). The temporal stability offered at the beginning of the text is immediately compromised: \u201cPerhaps it was because of this that, a year to the day after I began my tour, I was taken into the hospital in Norwich in a state of almost total immobility. It was then that I began in my thoughts to write these pages\u201d (Sebald 4). The Rings of Saturn <\/em>is a retrospective, written about a journey that happened a year earlier. The narrator\u2019s voice is \u201carchaic, that of a specter\u201d (McCulloh 2). The distance from the journey is reflected the narrator\u2019s emotional detachment that resonates in the novel\u2019s prose. The novel is riddled with allusions to other images, authors, artists and works of art. Within the story, the narrator examines Rembrandt\u2019s The Anatomy Lesson<\/em>, deconstructs the legitimacy of maritime battle paintings, reflects upon Sir Thomas Brown\u2019s Urn Burial<\/em>, thoroughly investigates the author Joseph Conrad\u2019s biography, and considers the ethics of mass death from herring fishing and Dutch Elm disease, as well as from colonization. The Rings of Saturn <\/em>is clearly an act of fanatical remembrance, a desperate attempt to describe the almost labyrinthine consciousness of a man walking through the countryside. Sebald has written, as it were, a travel narrative\u2014i.e. <\/em>a modern travel novel. And what do modern people do when they travel? Yes, they take photographs.<\/p>\n

Photography \u201c[developed] in tandem with one of the most characteristic activities of modern activities: tourism\u201d (Sontag 9). The \u201creproduction of photographic images\u201d is the \u201cmost conspicuous surface feature\u201d of the text (Long 46). They are emblematic of the historical tourism and voyeurism within Sebald\u2019s novel. These photographs are mnemonic souvenirs from the narrator\u2019s journey. The images are monuments to the narrator\u2019s travel. There is an \u201cauthenticating function of images\u201d that epistemologically validates the narrative (Long 47). Furthermore, photography \u201cassuages general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel\u201d (Sontag 9-10). The reproductions of photographs are diametrically opposed to the profound instability of the novel\u2019s ambulatory consciousness. The photograph becomes the apex of historical representation in The Rings of Saturn<\/em>; they \u201csuggest a totality\u2014the totality of life\u2019s experiences\u2014that would otherwise have been lost\u201d (McCulloh 7). The image provides the epistemological validity and narrative stability intrinsically absent in the modern activity of travel and the narrator\u2019s spectral non-presence. Whereas the narrator\u2019s account of his travel disobeys traditional forms of dramatic realism, the photograph\u2019s are unequivocally realistic, insofar as they are actual photographs.<\/p>\n

Sebald\u2019s prose is incredibly reverential towards history and the mystical aspects of life. The Rings of Saturn <\/em>could be therefore considered a pilgrimage. Any good pilgrimage typically concludes in a visit to a shrine (or similar location of spiritual significance). The Sebaldian narrator visits Thomas Abrams, a retired farmer who has spent the better part of three decades meticulously reconstructing a model of the Temple of Jerusalem. What was once considered a manic obsession by his peers\u2014he was \u201c[immersing] himself deeper and deeper into a fantasy world\u201d\u2014has gradually evolved into an act of intense scholarship and academic research (Sebald 244). Thomas Abrams is a pseudonym for Alec Garrard, who is obsessed with the idealization of historical representation. He is actively engaged in a religiously utopian project. If The Rings of Saturn<\/em> concluded with Abrams\u2019 model of The Temple of Jerusalem, as it nearly does, the novel would agree with his utopian vision, substantiating The Rings of Saturn <\/em>as a historical pilgrimage. However, Sebald is careful in his subordination, seemingly rejecting the supremacy of any form of historical representation.<\/p>\n

The pilgrimage is therefore darkly comic. Instead of visiting an actual shrine, which the narrator wishes to do (\u201cI wished that the short drive would\u2026 go on and on, all the way to Jerusalem\u201d), the narrator visits a simulacrum (Sebald 249). It is merely an incomplete representation of the Temple of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, there is a spiritual palpability in Abrams\u2019 reverence towards his activity: \u201cAfter all, if the Temple is to create the impression of being true to life, I have to make every one of the tiny coffers on the ceiling, every one of the hundreds of columns\u201d (Sebald 245). Abrams\u2019 devotion towards historical representation can only create an \u201cimpression\u201d. Abrams is not completely sure of his project\u2019s utopian design: \u201cNow as the edges of my field of vision are beginning to darken, I sometimes wonder if I will ever finish the Temple and whether all I have done so far has not been a wretched waste of time\u201d (Sebald 245). However, Abrams\u2019 emotional shift with regards to his utopian project shifts at the exact moment the photograph of his model of the Temple appears in the text.<\/p>\n

At the moment when Abrams\u2019 doubt paradigmatically shifts towards conviction, a photograph of his model appears, covering the entirety of a two-page spread. In the faded photograph, the columns of Abrams\u2019 model are receding into the distance, towards a vanishing point. The image captures Abrams\u2019 sentiment of his project: \u201cas if everything were already completed and as if I were gazing into eternity\u201d (248). The columns are stretching towards eternity, echoing the endlessness of the Abrams\u2019 artistic process. Just as the narrator is assuaged by his mnemonic souvenirs, the photograph of the model reaffirms Abrams faith. His faith is simultaneously challenged and restored by the ongoing-ness, the eternity, of his utopian ideal of historical representation. Although Abrams\u2019 model will always exist as a simulacrum of the actual Temple, in a perpetual state of becoming, the photograph legitimizes Abrams\u2019 utopian vision of representing history.<\/p>\n

If The Rings of Saturn <\/em>was an ideal pilgrimage the novel would\u2019ve ended with this interaction, possibly with the photo of the temple. Yet the novel leaves Abrams behind with his obsession and goes on for another chapter. The departure from Abrams\u2019 utopian exercise forces readers to return to the interaction. The entire interaction with Abrams\u2019 is mediated through the narrator\u2019s consciousness. The narrator is literally putting words into Abrams\u2019 mouth. The narrator\u2019s eloquence would be unexpected, if not incongruous, with the language of a retired farmer. Furthermore, Thomas Abrams is a pseudonym for Alec Garrard. The absence of quotation marks guarantees that Alec Garrard is not given any narratological space in the novel. If nothing is in quotation marks, then everything is mediated through the consciousness of the narrator\u2014including the photographs.<\/p>\n

Aesthetically, this makes sense. The photographs are all monochromatic and faded, as if they were retrieved from a shoebox labeled \u201cMemories\u201d. The images do not possess the aesthetic quality, which we associate with epistemological legitimacy, that would be expected of photographs in a history textbook. They are photographs that belong in a family photo album. While the content of the photograph buttresses Abrams\u2019 utopian form of historical representation, the aesthetics of the photograph problematize his design. The camera is awkwardly close to the model. The edges of the photograph are blurred like Abrams\u2019 vision, questioning the meaningfulness of his venture. The endless columns do not beget eternity. It is tunnel vision. The columns are awe-inspiring and crippling. The reproduction of the photographs, the narrator\u2019s form of documentation, is \u201cused, paradoxically, to evoke that which cannot be documented\u201d (McCulloh 9). The photograph is an irreconcilable form of representation within the postmodern fiction.<\/p>\n

The photograph also provides a dark comedy in The Rings of Saturn<\/em>. At no point does the novel confirm that this is in fact a photograph of Alec Garrard\u2019s Temple of Jerusalem. Maybe this is a photo of the actual Temple of Jerusalem? Or, maybe\u2014just maybe\u2014this is a photo of a random temple with columns that readers in, say, Williamstown, MA would neither be able to confirm or deny. The Rings of Saturn <\/em>investment in historical accuracy beguiles a trust from the reader which is completely unfounded. The postmodern literary techniques should be enough to warrant skepticism from the readers, yet the interpretive diligence the book demands exhausts them. It is quite easy to forget that this narrative is a work of fiction\u2014especially when many people have attempted to recreate Sebald\u2019s walking tour of Suffolk. Readers blindly assume that this is a photograph of a simulacrum, when the photograph itself is only \u201ca semblance of knowledge\u201d (Sontag 24). Is this image merely a representation of a representation? Additionally, there is a small, blurred silhouette of a person within the hall. It is impossible to determine whether this spectral presence is a figurine or an actual individual. Any possible epistemological validity left in the photograph is ultimately annihilated by the tactility of the novel itself.<\/p>\n

The photograph of the columns is spread across two pages. The image is bifurcated by the crease of the novel. The crease functions as an imperfect mirror; the photograph is almost perfectly reflected across the book\u2019s meridian. The vanishing point within the photograph is lost within the crease. The eternity towards which Abrams is looking becomes invisible. The reader knows that the vanishing point must be there, but the undulation of the page destroys the perspective. The book consumes the photograph. The photograph\u2019s epistemological legitimacy in The Rings of Saturn <\/em>is destabilized by the aesthetics of the image and the postmodern narrator\u2019s mediation, yet it is ultimately devoured by the book itself.<\/p>\n

But does any of this matter? Why should readers be concerned with historical representation in a book that need not have any bearing in reality? After all, The Rings of Saturn <\/em>is fiction. Thomas Abrams is not a real person. All of the photographs in the text are aestheticized abstractions. But Alec Garrard is an actual individual who has devoted a significant portion of his life to the reproduction of the Temple of Jerusalem. Even though he is rendered invisible through the violence of artistic representation, The Rings of Saturn <\/em>goes to great lengths to evocatively describe his faith in representation. Sebald might be neurotically skeptical of fiction as a valid form of historical representation, but he is still fanatically obsessed with humanity\u2019s need to organize knowledge and understand history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Long, J.J. W.G. Sebald: Image Archive, Modernity<\/em>. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Print.<\/p>\n

McCulloh, Mark R. Understanding W.G. Sebald<\/em>. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. Print.<\/p>\n

Sebald, W.G. The Rings of Saturn<\/em>. London: The Harvill Press, 1998. Print.<\/p>\n

Sontag, Susan. On Photography<\/em>. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998. Print.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’d like to thank Rob for reading my essay and to apologize for the same reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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