Reading in the emergence of memory, the collection of essays and conversations by and about W. G. Sebald. Besides making me want to go back and reread the novels, I am enjoying these little gems that sparkle on the page and send me off on scouting trips (literally & figuratively) beyond the hardcovers I hold in my hands (much like the novels, actually). A few here in parataxical/paratactical, rather than hypotactical, style (yes, I had to look that up).
‘these lacunae of ignorance’
(referencing how little we know about the life of Matthias Grünewald)
[an aside: just had a conversation over lunch today about Colmar, some friends there in the mountains to the west, and the amazing Madonna of the Roses (by Martin Schongauer) and the Isenheim Altarpiece at the Musée Unterlinden (by, yes, Matthias Grünewald).]
‘there are hypotactical syntax forms in these sentences which have been abandoned by practically all writers now for reasons of convenience.’
(describing some of his writing)
[another aside: all kinds of interesting stuff to find when you go looking after this, including a discussion in a book with a mouthful of a title, Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics.]
‘a product of precise and pellucid [ah, that word again] language’
(from an online entry about Sebald, describing an essay he had written)
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connections
it seems to be a topic of conversation more frequently of late
otomo yoshihide
korekyojinn
haino, kawabata & yoshida