Perfectly titled, Vertigo --W.G. Sebald's marvelous first novel -- is
a work that teeters on the edge: compelling, puzzling, and deeply
unsettling.
An unnamed narrator, beset by nervous ailments, journeys accross Europe
to Vienna, Venice, Verona, Riva, and finally to his childhood home in a
small Bavarian village. He is also journeying into the past. Traveling
in the footsteps of Stendhal, Casanova, and Kafka, the narrator draws
the reader, line by line, into a dizzying web of history, biography,
legends, literature, and -- most perilously -- memories.