Winfried Sebald - A Place in the Country

2 Vormärz Refers to the period before the failed March revolutions of 1848 in Germany (particularly Baden), and also to the (German-speaking) writers active then. It tends to signify a more politically engaged writing than that of the preceding Biedermeier era, usually thought of as spanning the years 1815—48.

3 Martin Salander Keller’s second and last novel (1886) has been translated into English by Kenneth Halwas: Martin Salander (London: Calder, 1963).

4 well-known passageRefers to Keller’s story “Kleider machen Leute” (“Clothes Make the Man”) from the collection Die Leute von Seldwyla . For a list of English translations, see the Bibliography.

5 Veilchenberg Keller’s original has Veilchenburg (Violet Castle).

6 Der grüne Heinrich English translation by A. M. Holt, Green Henry (London: Calder, 1960; Oneworld Classics, 2010).

7 The Origin of Private Property Full title: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State .

8 bric-a-brac mountainThe pun on Brockengebirge (literally mountain of junk or bric-a-brac, but no doubt alluding to the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz mountains, and famously the scene of the Walpurgisnacht , e.g. in Goethe’s Faust ) is untranslatable here.

9 FerdinandKürnberger (1821–1879), Austrian writer who for political reasons emigrated to Germany between 1849 and 1856. The novel referred to is probably Der Amerika-Müde: Amerikanisches Kulturbild (The Man Who Tired of America: A Picture of American Culture) of 1855.

10 the Landvogt von GreifenseeRefers to the eponymous story from the collection Zürcher Novellen; English translation by Paul Bernard Thomas, The Governor of Greifensee (New York: Mondial Books, 2008).

11 Hoffmann’s dropsUsed for fainting spells and cramps.

12 a box with musk Marderdreck: formerly used as perfume. There is an old saying in German, “to know one’s musk from one’s marten scat,” perhaps roughly equivalent to knowing one’s onions. While pine martens are rare in the UK, in continental Europe the related beech marten is a household pest, and formerly pet — cf. the (in Keller’s text tame) martens in Heinrich’s dream of homecoming on pp. 108–109 above.

13 plaited from fragrant palm leavesKeller has Halme[n] (“blades of grass, grasses”), Sebald Palmen (“palms”) — the former makes more sense, but cf. the use of palm leaves for (somewhat absurd) decoration in Robert Walser’s story from the Bleistiftgebiet cited above (p. 141).

14 Die drei gerechten Kammacher English translation by Robert M. Browning, “The Three Righteous Combmakers,” in Gottfried Keller, Stories , ed. Frank G. Ryder (New York: Continuum, 1982) (translation adapted).

15 little MeretCf. the eponymous chapter (“Das Meretlein”) in Der grüne Heinrich (vol. I, ch. 5).

16 fall peacefully asleep Entschlafen is more often used as a euphemism for dying, though it can, as here, mean falling asleep. Sebald deliberately plays on this ambiguity here.

17 “brings us closer”Walter Benjamin, “Gottfried Keller,” in Selected Writings , vol. 2, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999) ( Gesammelte Schriften , vol. II.i, pp. 283—95).

18 “Sometimes the river glided”Keller, “A Village Romeo and Juliet” (“Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe”) from the collection Die Leute von Seldwyla . Along with “Clothes Make the Man,” this is possibly the best-known of Keller’s stories, and the one translated the most frequently into English. The passage quoted here is adapted from the version published as A Village Romeo and Juliet: A Tale , intro. Edith Wharton (London: Constable, 1915 [no translator given]), p. 155. Other English translations are listed in the Bibliography.

19 the colossal scrawl“die kolossale Kritzelei.”

LE PROMENEUR SOLITAIRE

1 Martin WalserThe essays by Martin Walser and Elias Canetti, along with an extract from Carl Seelig’s “walks with Robert Walser,” are contained in Katharina Kerr, ed., Über Robert Walser , vol. 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978). English translations (where available) are listed in the Bibliography. The German writer Martin Walser (b. 1927) is no relation to his Swiss namesake Robert.

2 Was it a lady named WandaThe diverse items in this list in the main reflect titles of actual texts by Walser.

3 Bleistiftgebiet Das Bleistiftgebiet is the collective term used to refer to Robert Walser’s “microscripts” or “micrograms,” written in pencil on scraps of paper in a minuscule, almost indecipherable script and long thought to be written in code. See pp. 149—52 above.

4 Der Räuber The Robber , trans. and intro. Susan Bernofsky (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000). See also The Tanners ( Die Geschwister Tanner ), trans. Susan Bernofsky (New York: New Directions, 2009). The present essay first appeared as an introduction to this volume; it has been revised slightly for the present edition. For further English translations of Walser’s works, see the Bibliography.

5 a clairvoyant of the smallSebald’s phrase is “ein Hellseher im Kleinen.” In Walser’s introduction to his first collection, Fritz Kochers Aufsätze ( Fritz Kocher’s Essays ), the narrator explains how he has seen little of the wider world (“die große Welt”), but “dafür ist es ihm vergönnt gewesen, in seiner kleinen hell zu sehen”—he has been granted the gift of farsightedness in his own small world. “Hellsehen” (“seeing clearly”) has in German the additional meaning of clairvoyance.

6 “night-bird shyness”“das Nachtvogelhaftscheue, in der Finsternis die Meere überfliegende, in sich Hinabwimmernde.” English translation by Susan Bernofsky ( The Robber , p. 26).

7 Schützenfest “Shooting fair” or “marksmen’s festival,” a traditional event featuring shooting competitions, food and drink stalls, and often a funfair or circus. The Schützenfest is still an annual feature of (mainly) rural life in Germany and Switzerland today.

8 “from insanity and nowhere else”Walter Benjamin, “Robert Walser,” in Selected Writings , vol. 2: 1927—34 , trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999) ( Gesammelte Schriften , vol. II.i, pp. 324—28).

9 “In the Government of Simbirsk”Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol (New York: New Directions, 1961; London: Penguin Books, 2011).

10 attic cellSebald uses the term Bleikammer , a reference to i piombi , the attic cells under the roof of the Doge’s palace in Venice used to house political and other prisoners. Casanova’s incarceration there is recalled in “All’estero” (in Vertigo ); cf. the comment there: “presumably not a few prisoners slowly perishing beneath the leaden roof of the palace will have been of that irrepressible species whose desire drives them on, time after time, to the very same point” (trans. Michael Hulse), which seems equally to apply to the fate of the writer as set out here.