W. G. Sebald's Magic Mountains

Summary

Mountains are everywhere in W. G. Sebald's prose, from the very first image of the Grand St. Bernard, which appears even before the opening words of the text of the story “Beyle oder das merckwürdige Faktum der Liebe” (Beyle, or the strange fact of love), to “Die Alpen im Meer” (Alps in the sea). The former image, in “Beyle,” introduces the story of Napoleon's army's march across the Col-St.-Bernard in 1800, and, rather than the obvious image that comes to mind for us in that context — Jacques-Louis David's equestrian portrait of Le Premier Consul pointing the way ahead over the pass, painted that same year — we find in Sebald's story instead a poor reproduction of an unattributed etching that depicts thousands of miniscule soldiers and riders trekking up the pass toward the massive and imposing mountain in the distance.

Fast vierzehn Tage lang bewegte sich ein unabsehbarer Zug von Menschen, Tieren und Material von Martigny aus über Orsières durch das Tal von Entremont und sodann in endlos scheinenden Serpentinen hinauf auf die zweieinhalbtausend Meter über dem Spiegel des Meeres liegende Höhe des Passes (7)

[For almost a fortnight, an interminable column of men, animals and equipment proceeded from Martigny via Orsières through the Entremont valley and from there moved, in a seemingly never-ending serpentine, up to the pass two and a half thousand metres above sea level. (3)]