Memory as dreamscape, memory as assemblage, memory as history, memory as identity. Sebald's prose is a seductive and occasionally manic descent into the interior canals of what makes us who we are as we interact with the world around us, whether those are even separable. When a writer slows down his prose, and Sebald slows waaaay down, often the effect is to infuse the object of their focus with emotion. No one but James Agee demonstrates this writing mechanic to such a degree. Like the description of items in a holocaust museum, Sebald paints his emotional through line in the refractions of light bouncing off the ordinary materials of daily life.

This is a powerful and poetic book and like no other I've read. It has the audacity to stay true to its artistic project and the writing mastery to pull it off.