"The Rings of Saturn" by W.G. Sebald is a collection of stories, digressions that describe and reflect his narrator's meandering walks along the East coast of England and the wanderings of his melancholy.

You have to let yourself drift along Sebald's narrative rings that entangle his characters in meanders from which they cannot extract themselves and which have no clear destination.

As we move through his stories and unravel the articulation of the author's themes, we become a new character, an active participant in the course of the book.

Sebald's obsession with silkworms, which runs throughout the text, evokes the organic germination of ideas and their complex interweaving.

Sebald creates worlds within worlds; he offers us multiple threads to follow and finally forms a giant ring that links together disparate narratives and experiences.

Sebald builds a galaxy of many stars out of many small stories.

In astrology, Saturn is usually associated with periods of transition and maturation. It is also the planet of melancholy and necessary introspection. To the cyclicality of the planet answers that of chance encounters thanks to which we examine our own melancholy through that of others, and remains above all this incessant inner journey.