In "The Rings of Saturn," the second prose work by W. G. Sebald, the narrator wanders through the sparsely populated counties of Norfolk and Suffolk on the eastern coast of England.
In August, the month that, according to beliefs, has always been under the influence of Saturn, the narrator crosses the blooming wastelands, visits the ruined mansions of the countryside and the glorified states of a distant past, and constantly stumbles upon paradoxical and marvelous stories, from which the brilliant eras of Victorian mansions, the fierce battles between once European superpowers, Rembrandt's anatomy chart, glimpses into the life of Joseph Conrad, the unfortunate love of Chateaubriand, or the history of silk production from its beginnings in China to its adoption by the Third Reich emerge.
With clarity and precision, he simultaneously documents the salvatory destructions that occurred with man's intervention in this deserted land.
(. . .) [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]
