History in things : Sebald and Benjamin on transience and detritus

In writing about loss, W.G. Sebald reminds us of the importance of detritus. For him, abandoned things have the power to reveal the reality of vanished lives. Walter Benjamin has a similar fascination with mortifying matter. He sees detritus as the death mask of the commodity. Both writers show how abandoned things can provoke critical reflection. Focusing on The Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz, this essay explores Sebald’s debt to Benjamin, examining how the two writers differently understand the claims wasted things can make on us. While Sebald is concerned with the historical and ethical resonances of abandoned things, Benjamin is committed to understanding their political significance and possibilities. Ultimately, this makes Sebald’s account of transience profoundly melancholic; he is less open to the generative possibilities of decay and change than Benjamin, less able to imagine a new materialism.