Chapter IX Summary

Chapter Nine (IX) sees the author travelling out of Orford to the area known as 'The Saints' a collection of villages near Ditchingham at the end of Suffolk and the end of Sebald's pilgrimage. His first stop is at Chestnut Tree Farm, where he visits his friend Thomas Abrams who, peculiarly, has spent his life building a scale model of the Temple of Jersualem as it was prior to the time of Christ.

Abrams is presented almost as a modern day eccentric, who has gained international respect for his scholarly dedication to his art. What was once a pastime has since become an obsession as he tries to recreate brick by brick, a 1:1000 scale model of the birthplace of the Judaeo-Christian traditions. Now courted by Jewish Elders, Californian Evangelists and even the Rothschild's, Abrams is bemused at this interest and awe...