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In that gathering dusk – wonder, horror, and the transitory pedestrianism of Austerlitz
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-03) Bam, Otto Erich; Murray, Sally-Ann; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study I investigate the critical potential inherent in dusk, a motif that functions as the predominant temporal setting of W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. My aim is to explore how this pervasive literary device effects a spatialisation of time, and to explore this as a metaphorical entry point into an investigation of the novel’s stance towards modernity. I proceed to unpack the role of walking, which functions as a means to subvert the jarring severance from the past that marks the modern experience. By means of the digression and the non-linearity inherent in walking, the characters in Austerlitz collect individual stories in ways that affirm the locality and singularity of individual lives while, simultaneously, implicating them, through the blurring of boundaries associated with dusk, in a collective vision of history as calamity.