After Nature
Random House Publishing Group · Paperback · July 1, 2003
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- Who it’s for
- A searching, layered work about art, exploration, and humanity’s unsettled place in the natural world.
- Themes
- Humanity's place in nature, Birth and devastation, Historical lives and landscapes
- Genres
- German Literary Collections, German Poetry, Essay Collections
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Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
On the Natural History of DestructionW.G. Sebald, Anthea Bell63% match
Tractatus Logico-philosophicusLudwig Wittgenstein46% match
IlluminationsWalter Benjamin47% match
Silent CatastrophesW.G. Sebald, Jo Catling66% matchShares Essay Collections
Phenomenology of SpiritG. W. F. Hegel, A. V. Miller45% match
Becoming AnimalDavid Abram52% match
A Line in the WorldDorthe Nors55% match
Reading Rilke Reflections on the Problems of TranslationsWilliam H. Gass48% matchShares German Poetry
For younger readers: Nature's Treasures, How to Say Hello to a Worm, My Antarctica
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Start with this bookAbout this book
After Nature, W. G. Sebald’s first literary work, now translated into English by Michael Hamburger, explores the lives of three men connected by their restless questioning of humankind’s place in the natural world. From the efforts of each, “an order arises, in places beautiful and comforting, though more cruel, too, than the previous state of ignorance.” The first figure is the great German Re-naissance painter Matthias Grünewald.
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The second is the Enlightenment botanist-explorer Georg Steller, who accompanied Bering to the Arctic. The third is the author himself, who describes his wanderings among landscapes scarred by the wrecked certainties of previous ages. After Nature introduces many of the themes that W. G. Sebald explored in his subsequent books. A haunting vision of the waxing and waning tides of birth and devastation that lie behind and before us, it confirms the author’s position as one of the most profound and original writers of our time.
Nature and Ruin
A searching, layered work about art, exploration, and humanity’s unsettled place in the natural world.
Come here for
- Three lives linked by restless questions about nature
- Landscape, history, and the cost of certainty
Expect
- A haunting meditation on birth and devastation
- Sebald’s own wanderings alongside two historical figures
Where it sits
| Essay Collections | 42% |
|---|---|
| German Literary Collections | 42% |
| German Poetry | 38% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- German Poetry
- Poetry - General Themes
- Nature Poetry
- Authors
- W.G. Sebald
- Publisher
- Random House Publishing Group
- Published
- July 1, 2003
- Format
- Paperback
- Theme
- Humanity's place in nature · Birth and devastation · Historical lives and landscapes
- Reading lane
- German Poetry