3. Literature 3.1 The mysterious survival of the written word

3. LITERATURE

“Could the desk be the place for ghosts?”123 W. G. Sebald

In principle, the emphasis given to the notion of the art of memory was fundamental to understand Sebald's strategy around space. Now, the reverse side takes priority: it is the study of the art of forgetting that seems to guide the writer's approach. More than resorting to the memory of the dead, as previously mentioned, it is necessary to understand what forgetting is all about - and, from there, guarantee the rescue of memory as ash by the writing.

There is an important notion that must be considered now: forgetting establishes memory124. In its performance, it "defies what is buried because it is unbearable”125 . It is in this sense that retention enters: an operation that handles forgetfulness with the intention of preserving what must be returned. Regarding this process, the writer must have the ability, through language, to retrace the remembrance126 . Or, as the narrative in The Rings of Saturn highlights127:

But the truth is that writing is the only way to deal with my remembrances (...). If they remained locked in my memory, they would become more and more burdensome over the course of time, so that in the end I would succumb to their growing weight. Memories sleep inside us for months and years on end, proliferating in silence, until they are awakened by some trifle and blind us to life in a strange way. (SEBALD, 2010, pages 252 and 253, own highlights and translation)

123 Excerpt from Austerlitz’s narrative (SEBALD, 2012a, page, own translation) 124 According to the French writer Pascal Quignard: “Memory is, in principle, a selection of what to forget and, only afterward, there is a retention of what is intended to be removed from the act of forgetfulness that establishes it.” (QUIGNARD, 2018, page 61, own translation) 125 “Forgetfulness is never confronted with the erasure of something friable: it faces what is buried because it is unbearable.” (Ibid., page 61, own translation) 126 To retrace the memory it is necessary to reconstitute the moment of pain, as mentioned in the previous chapter. About this, Quignard writes: “A memory is, each time, something else and not an inert mnemic trait […]. For this trait to return, it is necessary that the hallucination that denies the loss has suffered such a terrible need […] that it sees again the thing that is not, and retraces it.” (Ibid., page 63, own translation) 127 Fragment of Chateaubriand’s diary incorporated into the narrative.

In effect, Sebald searches the written word for the remnants of oblivion - that which guarantees access to the terrifying night, the unapproachable night128 . What guides his catalog of references is, above all, those who tried to penetrate the indomitable129 , like the medical writings of Thomas Browne and the fantastic tales of Jorge Luis Borges. The diary as a source of access to the ash is also one of Sebald's current strategies – both in relation to the narrator's modus operandi and the writers' records mentioned in the books.

It must be said that forgetting, as the first act, brings together the forgotten and the retained130 . In this perspective, literature is able to contemplate these two points, even if it is not in its total efficiency: it is the possibility of the word that tries to encompass the concrete experience of the unspeakable131 . With this in mind, the following chapter investigates the recovery of memory as ash from the perspective of literature.

128 The night as a metaphor for loss and forgetfulness: “The night is at the source of the words […]. Thus, the terrifying night, the unapproachable night that is at its source is also its destiny.” (QUIGNARD, 2018, page 65, own highlights and translation) 129 According to Maria Filomena Molder: “The night that returns resembles a threat, the night that is an imposition of life, of the dark part of life […]. […] among the Greeks, there were those who discovered that that night that may be an indomitable one, one that does not let us have secrets.” (MOLDER, 2017, pages 75 and 76, own translation) 130 “Forgetfulness is the aggressive and first act that erases and that classifies, digs up and buries – and brings together forever – the forgotten and the retained.” (QUIGNARD, 2018, page 61, own translation) 131 Quignard reflects on the acquisition of language: “It is the helplessness of what was not, what was born, but which is hidden in the abandonment of the acquired word that fails.” Still in relation to this, he adds: “[…] being the concrete experience of the unspeakable in us, the difficulty in talking about language acquisition and death as a destiny (….).” (Ibid., pages 62 and 60, respectively, own translation)