Posts tagged “powell’s”
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The Other Side of Silence: On W.G. Sebald, by Evelyn Toynton
March 26, 2010
Questioned by his interviewers about the Nazi era, [Sebald] describes the “conspiracy of silence” that prevailed while he was growing up after the war; he is convinced that his parents, who had been supporters of Hitler, never spoke about what had happened even when they were alone. “But then pressure eventually saw to it that in schools the subject would be raised,” he tells the writer Joseph Cuomo. “It was usually done in the form of documentary films which were shown to us without comment. So, you know, it was a sunny June afternoon, and you would see one of those liberation of Dachau or Belsen films, and then you would go and play football.”
He talks, too, about his discomfort, later on, as a student at Freiburg University — a sense of some falseness he could not exactly pin down. Eventually, he realized that all his professors had received their doctorates in the 1930s and early ’40s; he even hunted up their dissertations: “If you . . . looked at what their Ph.D.’s were about, your hair stood on end.” When Wachtel asks him about his feelings for Germany, Sebald begins, “Well, I know it’s my country,” and winds up by saying, “in a sense it’s not my country. But because of its peculiar history and the bad dive that history took in this century . . . because of that I feel you can’t simply abdicate and say, well, it’s nothing to do with me. I have inherited that backpack and I have to carry it whether I like it or not.”
— Evelyn Toynton, from her 2008 Harper’s review of The Emergence of MemoryTags: emergence of memory, evelyn toynton, fiction, harper's, interviews, lynne sharon schwarz, powell's, w.g. sebald
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Ralph Nader at Powell’s Books in Portland
October 4, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 7:30pm, Powell’s, 1005 West Burnside, Portland, OR.
Tags: Authors, only the superrich can save us, oregon, portland, powell's, ralph nader, readings, signings, superrich tour
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Jerome Gold at Powell’s Books in Portland
July 1, 2009
July 1, 7:30p, Powell’s Books, 1005 Burnside, Portland OR. Reading and signing in support of Paranoia & Heartbreak.
Tags: book signing, jerome gold, paranoia and heartbreak, portland, powell's, q&a, readings
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What We Leave Behind reviewed at Powell’s
May 5, 2009
What We Leave Behind is an important contribution to the increasing body of literature devoted to effecting actual and lasting change. Loathe to offer mere rhetoric, a diluted portrait of how precarious things actually are, or unrealistic promises of technological salvation, the book is unabashedly vehement. It may unsettle the unwitting reader, but for those with even the faintest hint of the trouble we are facing, it will provide fertile ground from which to grow a greater understanding. Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay have crafted a remarkably well-written, crucial work. Like the peril they so ably convey therein, it is one to be ignored only at great expense. — Powell’s
Tags: aric mcbay, derrick jensen, powell's, reviews, what we leave behind
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All You Can Eat author Joel Berg reading and signing at Powell’s Books
March 24, 2009
Tuesday, March 24 at 7:30 pm, Powell’s Books, 1005 West Burnside, Portland, OR
Tags: All You Can Eat, Authors, Joel Berg, powell's, readings
