Introduction

“Ashes derive their symbolism first from the fact that they are preeminently a residue […]. ”1

This work begins with a kind of observation: there is something in the work of art that revolves around disappearance – a certain original dimension that cannot be ignored2 . First, according to Genet: the work of art is for the dead. Then, according to Pasolini, whose poem entitled Poeta de las Cenizas3 reinforces the artist’s esteem for what is forgotten – and which must be rescued. In both notions, the role of the artwork in making this rescue and formalizing it is evident. It is under this motto that the work of W. G. Sebald, a German writer born in 1944 [Wertach, 1944 – Norfolk, 2001], whose work will be the starting point of this dissertation, is also configured.

Centered on the effects of destruction, as evidenced by the reading of his books, Sebald’s writing incorporates a duplicity that simultaneously covers the end and the permanence – or, more precisely, what survives the destruction, identified here as ash. At all times, the author makes a kind of pilgrimage to the vanished and points to the constant crossing between the dimensions of memory and forgetfulness. By using a set of ashes, Sebald effectively seeks to formalize an absence. In this sense, it is possible to introduce a question: how does the recovery of memory as ash happen in the author’s work?

Like the pilgrimage strategy – fundamental in Sebald’s narratives4 – an itinerary will be developed, based on three essential points of convergence: Space, Image

1 CHEVALIER; GHEERBRANT – Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. 2 “No, no, the artwork is not intended for new generations. It is offered to the innumerable people of the dead.” (GENET, 2000, page 15, own translation) 3 Spanish edition [2015] of the autobiographical poem written in 1966 [Poeta delle Ceneri]. In it Pasolini covers the traces of disappearance: in the first part, he revisits the family trajectory intensely, constantly referring to the original landscapes – geographical and affective; in the second, he elaborates a contemplation of his own work and articulates a brief argument about his creative process. 4 Essentially in those that are parto f the so-called prose-fiction, a term referred to by the author about the following narratives: Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz.

and Literature. In this way, it is intended to record the flux of rescue from the ash – again, considered as residue. For the investigation carried out, the analytical detail will be combined with the panoramic view of the author’s work. Under this bias, the narrative of The Rings of Saturn represents the chosen cut, due to the strong tone of compendium and breath of the themes in question.

Still, on the panoramic view, W. G. Sebald’s narratives have a common starting point: the immediate registration of the narrator’s spatial and time record. In the initial contact, it is possible to note the incidence of the author’s writing around the category of space – either by the theme of pilgrimage and the travel diary, like the structure of The Rings of Saturn, or by the set of evoked interests that refer to architecture. It is in this sense that the itinerary proposed here, as an analysis strategy, starts from the rescue of memory as ash under the perspective of space.

Before starting the itinerary properly, it is necessary to keep in mind a certain notion of the art of memory that accompanies Sebald’s work. As the narratives advance, the author’s characteristic spatial mapping process suggests a navigation that is also established through the multiple memory spaces. The meaning found to deal with the recollections is that of an architecture of an interior writing5 .To this end, Sebald seems to resort to a certain classic understanding of an art of memory that constantly requires spaces and images for remembrance6 .

With The Rings of Saturn as a framework, the chapter on Space seeks, at first, to enter the theme of pilgrimage, with the purpose of discovering the extent to

5 “As Frances Yates shows in her seminal study on the subject, the art of memory is an architectonics of inner writing.” (BRUNO, 2018, page 221, own highlights) 6 “Few people know that the Greeks, who invented many arts, invented an art of memory which, like their other arts, was passed on to Rome whence it descended in the European tradition. This art seeks to memorise through a technique of impressing 'places' and 'images' on memory.” (YATES, 1999, page 1, own highlights);

which the mobilization of space is also a mobilization of memory. Then, the focus is on the movement of the pilgrim, under the bias of displacement as a possibility of access to the ash. Finally, the approach contemplates the spatial mapping put into practice in the narrative, from the registration of a moving topography.

Following the proposed itinerary, the second chapter maintains the central framework now with the intention of rescuing memory as ash from the perspective of Image. The first part is composed of Sebald’s interest in the work of art and will be guided by the focus on the obscure detail7 . The second part, in turn, follows the author’s intentions in relation to the use of photography, in a perspective that privileges the condition of the photographic record as residue.

The last chapter examines the recovery of memory as ash through Literature, also in two parts: In the foreground, it investigates the continued use of literary references by Sebald. Later on, it presents the writer’s perspective as a ghost hunter, whose exercise of creation focuses, fundamentally, on his obsessive preoccupation with the past – here, identified from the records of other writer’s memoirs.

It is with this movement that it is intended, as Maria Filomena Molder tells us, “to show the vestige of what exists in the secret”8. Compatible with Sebald’s procedure, the work as a mystery – and, for this, carry out the “recognition of life in ashes”9 . That is the broad meaning of Sebald’s work and the itinerary that follows.

7 The notion presented by Sebald at the beginning of the narrative of The Rings of Saturn and which proves to be an essential reading key for the book’s own understanding: “[Janine Dakyns] had developed a particular science about the 19th -century French novel, […] always guided by the obscure detail, never by what was evident […].” (SEBALD, 2010, own highlights and translation) 8 MOLDER, Maria Filomena – Privilégio e Naturalidade. In Rebuçados Venezianos. 9 Still, according to Maria Filomena Molder’s thought: “Here is the alchemical power that Benjamin attributes to the critic: recognizing in the ashes the flame of life […] corresponds to the constitution of the work, which beauty proceeds from ‘touching the streaks of life.’ […]. Only if we know how to criticize it can we conceive it as a mystery. (This is the recognition of life in the ashes).” (MOLDER, 2016, page 253, own translation)

11