Go, Went, Gone

Hope is also the cheapest of emotional commodities. So says Jenny Erpenbeck in Go, Went, Gone her timely and beautiful meditation about existence, belonging, and humanity. It is a novel packed with irony and emotion that simmers slowly until it insinuates itself first into the reader’s psyche and then the reader’s heart. It is the story of Richard, newly retired university Classic’s professor and his repeated encounters with a band of African refugees. They hail from a variety of countries but are evacuated from Libya after the overthrow of Qadaffi. Ironically, it is an overthrow instigated by the West that brings the vagabonds to Berlin and his doorstep. Ironically too, Richard is/was a refugee of sorts—from the GDR or the East—who had to be integrated when the Wall falls and the West was triumphant.So begins a meditation on what it is to be German, but more importantly, what it means to be human. The author stirs personal memories of life in the GDR and national memories of the Holocaust--that time when Germany failed so conspicuously to welcome the stranger. Today the clash is not religionist but cultural, the Rationalist v. The Islamist--the sceptic v. the believer. It is a tribute to Erpenbeck’s skill as a storyteller that as the refugees tell their tales, Go, Went, Gone never bogs down in political “reportage”. The protagonists’ immediate plight are all unique in their way--heartrending predicaments. Rufu the loner, away from home and utterly friendless, even among fellow refugees. Arwad from Nigeria, who at home could never stay more than one night. They were too poor—there was never enough room, there was never enough food. The reader realizes this is not an of inventory of the material but a human lamentation—the very best times of in his life were characterized by want, without even space enough to remain together. It is a hardship incomprehensible to Westerners who have trouble tearing themselves away from their smart phones to engage those across a dinner table. And the gut-wrenching journey of Rashid whose two children drown when their boat capsizes, literally with the cliffs of Italy in sight. Travelers trapped in a modern-day Scylla and Charybdis. This is irony careening into tragedy. Literature, like history, repeats itself.From her immediate vantage point, Erpenbeck gazes backward, imagining the historical migration of those from the Caucuses, across the Middle East and Sahara, scores of generations later completing almost a perfect circle. The wars that displace refugees is a modern Illiad. The journey of Africans to Italy, Germany and perhaps beyond is an Odyssee as fantastic and culturally shocking to these men as the journey was to the Greek's wiliest hero. The experiences build becoming more than cultural stories, Richard's engagement and kindnesses become human touchstones. "Never before has the connection between space, time and words revealed itself to him so clearly as at this moment. The backdrop of the desert shows it off in sharp relief, but really it's always been just the same all over the world: without memory, man is nothing more than a bit of flesh on the planet's surface." In an eerie parallel, the government solution is to transport the refugees (with Germans complaining of the cost) to an out-of-sight location. Richard wonders if "this nation of bookkeepers" calculated the cost of transport in the 1940s as well.The author is never scolding, and always generous but also steely-eyed. Erpenbeck sees the refugees impossible quandary: "denying them permission to work while at the same time reproaching them for idleness." She is realistic though in her assertion that Hope may be in great abundance, but it is not enough to sustain us and after years of frustration some dare not even be able to muster its pitiful consolations. When hosting their German friend, Africans pile his plate high with food they deny themselves. Why? "if you eat too much you can become like an infant...too spoiled...you can never know what is coming...and you have to be able to endure that." Go, Went, Gone makes clear this life is a crapshoot with each of us undeserving of our lot whether it is a fortunate or a miserable one. Erpenbeck constantly returns to this and the themes of shared humanity and responsibility. Differences such language, skin color, and religion fall away in shared car rides, meals or piano lessons at Richard's home. Go, Went, Gone is a profoundly affecting and deeply moving story that couldn’t possibly be more timely or more relevant. It needs to be experienced—particularly by our Dear Leader.One of the best books I’ve read in 2017.

I love this book. It's my favorite of the year, and as a retired English professor, I read all the time. Every word is beautifully written (and translated). Each day I couldn't wait to get back to Richard and his heart-breaking, delightful, inspired group of African refugees. This novel is political, poetical, funny, philosophical, and just plain wonderful from beginning to end. Some friends will be receiving this one for Christmas!

This book was written to depict the sad fate of African migrants who make their way to Germany after first landing in Italy - because of German rules their situation is precarious since their port of entry was not in Germany. Their humanity is celebrated, as is that of the recently retired German professor who befriends them and tries to help. The migrants are very much individuals, and the professor’s circle of friends are also important to the story. It takes some pages for the novel to hit its stride and there are some elements which did not contribute much for me: the drowned man in the lake, the professor’s past infidelity.

Each African immigrant has a distinct voice and history, plus a sad future. The central character, Richard, slowly moves into their lives, a witness to the Byzantine chains of the laws that keep the immigrants from making a life. His life and work are interspersed with the stories of the engaging but victimized Africans. Erpenbeck is an excellent writer, who makes this all-too-true story about refugees throb with life. It has special meaning for Americans, although it is set in Germany and plays against the atrocities of WW II.

This is a courageous and imaginative narrative dealing with a current and heartbreaking crisis. Using an ex-professor as the virtual narrator gave depth to the topic, as did his character and his friends situations. The words from the mouths of the refugees were the most powerful part of the narrative.It is hard to imagine that a country with an ex- Nazi and ex-communist history could be held up as standard bearers for compassion for the EU's treatment of the emigrant crisis, and reading this makes me really pessimistic about the fate of others in so many other less tolerant countries.

A Berlin professor begins his new life as a retiree is such a simple premise. Yet, that life provides the leisure for him to confront the reality of European immigration issues as he encounters and attempts to know and understand the lives and plights of African men adrift in the bureaucracy of Germany. The prose is crisp, yet haunting. The characters come alive in their pain and perplexity. As the saying goes, I didn't want this book to end. However, it hasn't. Every citizen who fails to understand the immigration dilemma facing the Western world should read this book in order to recognize our need for compassion and action in this crisis that we have all created. This is a book that needs to be read and needs to be filmed.

This is one of the most heartbreaking, beautiful, timely books I've read in a long time (and my friends know how much I read!). The author tackles the challenge of how a nation, and an individual citizen, might respond to the arrival of victims of war and terror from another part of the world, another culture, another religion. And the host country is Germany, somewhat recently reunited and still scarred by its own dark history. Who steps up? How? The prose is elegant and lovely, the story is devastating and insightfull.

Beautifully written and masterfully translated, the allegorical presence of a nameless drowned man at the bottom of a lake (whose presence is revealed within the first pages of the book) serves to connect the current refugee crisis and the various responses to it to the different layers of modern German history of the last hundred years.

Richard is a retired professor who encounters a protest by refugees in Alexanderplatz. He journeys from curiosity to engagement, helping them with housing and legal matters, language issues and health concerns. He seeks also to understand them – what circumstances brought these men so far and what experiences have shaped them. He also seems to be looking for something more, perhaps a better sense of himself. This is a deep study of a seemingly straightforward but actually rather complex man. The author interviewed many refugees and describes in detail the effect of war and violence and the trauma of their flight. She articulates the bureaucratic nightmare of asylum regulations. She addresses a central issue of our times. The reader should not expect a happy resolution for either party.She has chosen to represent Berliners, Germans, Europeans in the person of Richard. Richard is at least as important in this novel as the refugees, perhaps more so. He finds retirement difficult, having little contact with his old university. Neighbours are mentioned only. He seems to have some friends, but contact is formal. His wife has been dead some years. There are no children. He states from the start that though retired he cannot stop thinking and it is on this level that he engages with the refugees, describing this at first as a project.The refugees are counterposed. Their strength is their community and even in wretched tents they exude warmth and companionship. They want to work but are forbidden. Whatever assistance Richard brings them is perhaps nothing to what they bring him. Certainly we see Richard transformed, he finds links to his wartime childhood and his life in East Germany, layers are stripped off his outward persona before he makes a disturbing revelation. The last may well diminish our liking and admiration for him.Does this novel change the reader? Or does it just make us feel better about ourselves? We can comment in conversations, talk about things that matter, of asylum regulations and how dreadful things are in Africa, but what can we do really? What matters more – what we do (or don’t do), or how we feel about it?

Most of us have read about the immigrant crisis but from the safety of our living rooms, watching our televisions. Jenny Erpenbeck is for people who do this, bringing the people who are immigrants to life and telling us their varied and messy stories. She does so through the medium of a retired professor of ancient literature who is totally unpolitical. On a whim he starts a sort of contact, but of a very uncommitted kind, with a group of African immigrants who were originally occupying a square in Berlin. The immigrants set up a tent city that stayed in Orienaplatz for two year; this is eventually dismantled and the occupants are treated dispassionately but humanely by the authorities although of course, because these are human stories there is inhumanity in how bureaucracy tries to reduce each individual into a deserving case or otherwise. It is a marvellously paced book, with an unresolved end, like the immigrant crisis itself, and is able to view the subject with objectivity because this is a matter where there are no obvious rights and wrongs. Thank you Jenny Erpenbeck for such an insightful introduction to this issue which I think we have only just seen the beginning of.

What I particularly liked about this book is its delicacy and restraint. The story of how a retired professor facing a rather blank future gets involved with a group of African refugees in Berlin is told in a journalistic, slightly detached style. We are never told what to think, we are never really told what the professor thinks, the story unfolds very subtly, and is all the more emotionally powerful for it. I found it at times quite a depressing and challenging read, but it is shot through with such genuine compassion it's almost unputdownable. Very glad I read it.

I thought it was a good read. Interesting subject matter and a very good translation. Funny and poignant throughout. Sometimes a bit worthy and felt like a lecture. Glad I read it (for my book group). Generated a good discussion.

I found this book deeply emotional dealing in an authentic way with a current concern. It is set in Berlin during 2014 tells the story of a number of African refugees from the perspective of a lonely, elderly German widower.