This article offers a reading of W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn through the lens of his critical reflections on catastrophe, in dialogue with contemporary debates on the Anthropocene. The analysis highlights how Sebald problematizes the limitations of traditional novelistic forms when confronting large-scale destruction, proposing a “natural history of destruction” that blurs the boundaries between human and natural history. Engaging with thinkers such as Amitav Ghosh, Timothy Clark, and Dipesh Chakrabarty, the article explores literature’s potential to mediate between individual and planetary scales. It emphasizes the critical, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions of literary writing in the face of the representational and epistemological challenges posed by contemporary environmental crises.