I suppose it is possible to read all of Sebald's work as the through-a-lens-darkly vision of a man suffering from a medicable mood disorder that he mistakes for a universal entropy, "as if the world were under a bell jar."

At infrequent intervals, the dis- tortion of the jungle provided a glimpse of the southwestern sky; and then all the companions could see the hot, feral shaft of the Banefire burning toward the sun like an im- medicable scald in the green-hued air.