The Complexity of Literary Appreciation

Critic and novelist Lauren Oyler discusses her conflicted feelings about the work of W. G. Sebald, an author whose influence and place in the canon is well established. Harper’s Magazine web editor Violet Lucca and Oyler talk through Sebald’s similarities to contemporary novelists, his feather-ruffling academic career, and what Carole Angier missed in her new Sebald biography, Speak, Silence.

Read Oyler’s review: https://harpers.org/archive/2021/12/desperately-seeking-sebald-lauren-oyler-speak-silence-carole-angier/

This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

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