This has the true Sebaldian stink. I got a whiff after 20 pages or so. It's not a novel as far as I'm concerned. "You are Franz Kafka discovering with amusement that the warm liquid you are vomiting is blood." No I'm not. And leave Kafka out of it. There may also be latent delusions of Pessoa. I knew Fernando Pessoa. Fernando Pessoa was a friend of mine. You're no Fernando Pessoa.