w.g.sebald is one of those "wormhole" writers, and he has the habit of promiscuously interspersing his books with photos and sketches, maps and letters, diagrams and charts. not the nick bantock sort of plot-essential visual extravaganza designed to create verrisimilitude, but black and white reproductions, blurred or smudgy specimens for the most part are inserted with casual abitrariness. oh they correspond to details in the text alright, except you occasionally feel as if you were looking at an illustrator who chose half the wrong details to show us, or that someone has gone over a book with a highlighter marking words indiscriminately, and your eye skips and trips on the wrong words, your reading thrown off-kilter. all that isn't to say i don't like sebald, although much as the critics laud him i never quite feel i'm enjoying myself. i always feel - some kind of - slight, no doubt - but persistent - strain. perhaps it's the translation - or perhaps it's the wrong time - but i can't quite find the "now read on!" urge. it's nothing to do with the heaviness or tragedy - in the holocaust books it is more as though - there is glass is between me and the book. and in the "wormhole" books i have a nagging feeling winterson or nooteboom would have made it so much more fun. i think - they are very good books - except that i am not the right reader.