Like his patron saint, Sebolt, who is credited with making ice burn, W.G. Sebald, in this extraordinary book, has succeeded in achieving a miracle, even if it is just in having penned yet another (see The Emigrants) utterly uncategorizable book. Memoir, Treatise, Breviary, Travelogue, Novel, Elegy, Dance of the Dead...there are elements of all of these in Sebald's work. To attempt to elaborate any further in a brief review would clearly be reductive -- this is an essential work, by an essential writer, and should, at all costs, be read.