Reading THE RINGS OF SATURN by WG Sebald

I can't sleep - so I have got up and am reading a little more of WG Sebald's THE RINGS OF SATURN. I'm on the last few pages now, and I have just the same sensations when I read this as I did when I read AUSTERLITZ a couple of years ago. There is a sort of recognition that makes me actually smile. It is there in each paragraph: the walls of the room contracting as they cool; the family that drifts, each member whimsically existing without purpose; even the empty fields and the tendency of certain characters to shut themselves away from the world.

At the end of it I couldn't really tell you what I've read. It's as though I've spread a patchwork quilt over my head and I am reading a story from each square of fabric. Sometimes the squares and the stories are incomplete, but it doesn't matter at all. All that matters is that I read, and the patterns and the stories intertwine, and will make exactly as much sense as my life; as anyone's life.