2.1 The itinerary of the image in The Rings of Saturn: A guide through the obscure detail As pointed out in the previous chapter, Sebald’s work relentlessly makes use of the visual resource – notably, the black-and-white photographs that illustrate almost all of his books89. In The Rings of Saturn, the writer makes use of a set of diverse sources to assure the role of the image in the narrative: either from photography, which origin is unknown90, either from the work of art through illustrations and clippings from the references used by Sebald. There is still the presence of the symbol, an element of strong reverberation in the text. At first glance, the insertion of the photographs seems to indicate a kind of feasible example of the pilgrim’s experience. As already seen, as the pilgrimage progresses, the photographic record follows the itinerary of the displacement – interspersed, in turn, by the images that are recalled to the narrator’s memory. Despite the autobiographical tone, there is no consistent evidence to prove the link between these records and Sebald’s authorship. In practice, what is noticeable throughout the narrative is a constant attempt to promote a certain ambiguity – centered especially on the narrator’s figure and in the inserted photographs91. According to Sebald himself, there are possibly two objectives in the use of the photographs arranged throughout the text: the first is that of verification since the photograph is capable of legitimizing, in principle, the story told by the narrator; the second concerns an effort to apprehend time in the narrative, something that 89
With the exception of the long prose poem After Nature [Nach Der Nature, 1988], mentioned earlier. 90 “The photographs have neither captions nor credits to give a clue to their provenance; the text describes the taking of some of them, while others seem to be more generally illustrative, and still others entirely random.” (FRANKLIN, 2007, page 123) 91 “The conflict between fact and fiction reaches its epitome in the voice that narrates all these stories of loss […]. Yet these details, like the photographs, obscure as much as they reveal.” (Ibid., pages 124 and 125)
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