(I am not ignoring the news that I have announced will appear here soon - I just am not yet allowed to announce it... but very soon!)
I got for Christmas 'Speak, Silence,' a biography of W G Sebald by Carole Angier. It was hugely interesting. Angier is a fan - actually she declares that she loves Sebald's work - 'Vertigo', 'The Emigrants', 'Rings of Saturn' and his masterpiece (judged so by Angier and by many) 'Austerlitz'. I also love Sebald's work, love his voice and his eye for detail and the wide reach of his learning.
But apparently there was some controversy over his last book, 'Austerlitz'. The central story was apparently taken from someone else's book. The writer of this other book was made aware and so she read 'Austerlitz' and was herself angered by what she read. Later she was at best conflicted - in admiration of the book and the writing but still deeply upset that her life-story had been taken from her.
Angier sees that there is a difficulty here and that anyone who loves Sebald's work has to come to their own view on the matter and to balance that with their view of his work.
This use of someone else's writing is not an isolated incident in Sebald. Sometimes he even uses the actual words of the writer he takes from. Yet, undoubtedly his writing is brilliant. So how do we square all this up? Do we reject Sebald and call him a common (or uncommon) thief or do we just forgive him because he wrote so well (a loveable thief)?
Or do we look again at art and acknowledge that all writing is theft of this kind (see Jonathan Lethem)? Sebald did not see that he had done wrong - even after it was pointed out to him how much his borrowing for 'Austerlitz' had hurt the writer he had taken from.
I do not have an answer to this problem. It is not an easy matter to solve this. That's why lawyers get involved, though I do not know if that is a satisfactory solution to the matter.
I know of one writer who has declared that 'Austerlitz' is their favourite book; the same writer calls out the kind of borrowing Sebald does, calls it criminal and their anger verily boils over. Perhaps this writer did not know of Sebald's writing methods when they fell for 'Austerlitz'; perhaps if they found out now they would not hold 'Austerlitz' so high; perhaps this writer might modify their view of this kind of borrowing. I would be interested to know.
Personally, I still think 'Austerlitz' is an amazing read and it has not been shifted from its place on my top ten list by this knowledge. For me Art does not exist in a vacuum and is the product of a writer's experience and that includes their reading. I accept there is a need to protect Intellectual Property at some level... but stories and ideas, once put out there... well, don't they then belong to us all because we cannot afterwards unexperience them? And artists require to be able to respond to their experiences... it is, I think, something to do with freedom in art.
