By Jenny Erpenbeck, 2017
A translation from the German, this is the story of a man named Richard, a professor emeritus of classical Greek literature. Until his retirement and the death of his wife a few years earlier, he lived what he thought was a good life in the former East Germany. Access to his Stasi file shows him he was thought to be too fond of women other than his wife to have been a reliable informer. We see his limitations and his loneliness in his grocery lists for ham, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, tinned soup, and bread. As in the rest of his life, there is little colour and little variety in these lists.
After Richard has packed up his office and said a final farewell to his colleagues, who seem much less interested in his departure than they were in his arrival as a younger man, he struggles to find new meaning and new focus. Quite by chance he happens upon a group of refugees from Africa who have occupied a square in Berlin to draw attention to their plight. Slowly he is drawn into their concerns and in the process finds new purpose in life.
As a student of the Odyssey and other classical works, Richard sees in these men echoes of earlier wanderings and dislocations. He imagines the men he comes to know best as characters from Greek literature—a beautiful boy is Apollo, the large angry man is the Thunderbolt Hurler. At the same time these characters seem fully realized human beings. The men are all trapped between the tragic, painful past—the murder by fire of a beloved father, the drowning deaths of their children, the beatings they experienced as slaves—and a future they want to have but which is not taking shape for them.
All originally landed in Italy and there is an agreement between European countries that they can have permanent residency and be allowed to work only in the country where they first landed. There is, however, no work for them in Italy, and no recognition of their right to be there. Several comment that no one wants to sit next to them on a park bench or public transportation. The German bureaucracy barely tolerates them and moves them without warning from one inconvenient location to another while their cases grind through the courts. German lessons begin and then are suspended indefinitely. The fate of most of them will be to return to Italy, where no one wants them either.
There is hope in the relationship Richard develops with the Africans, and also with the way most of his friends and neighbours stretch themselves to enlarge their hearts and their circle. His connection to the Africans expands and refines his connections to people he has known much longer. In his growing concern for living people, Richard thinks less and less of the unknown man who drowned in the lake he looks out on from his study.
The ending of the story is pleasing, although not entirely believable. It feels like the author needed to wrap things up somehow. Of course, one theory of fiction is that it gives a sense of completion lacking in real life. As a reader I am happy that Richard and the refugees have at least a happy interval, even though I find it hard to believe in a happy ending for the Africans. At the end of the novel Richard is surrounded by foreigners who have become family, and one of the refugees cooks a fabulous dinner every night. This is quite a contrast with Richard’s earlier dismal meals of tinned soup.
Erpenbeck is the daughter of a mother who translated Arabic and of a father who was a philosopher and writer who never ran afoul of the system. This means she and her family were privileged citizens of a supposedly classless society. In writing this book Erpenbeck spent a year getting to know refugees, and her commitment and passion show. Her writing itself is understated, never overwrought. The topicality of her subject is reflected in current news. Angela Merkel is barely clinging to power in Germany, her support for refugees having eroded her base of support, and Italians have elected an anti-immigrant, anti-refugee government.
I am unable to comment on the German translation. The English does seem clunky in places, although this is perhaps to some extent an expression of the clunkiness and discomfort of Richard’s situation and that of the refugees.
Reviews of this novel have been glowing in both Britain and the US, although this has not made it wildly popular. Very little literature in translation is published in the US, and it is rare for a novel in translation to make it onto the bestseller lists. The popularity of Elena Ferrante and Karl Ove Knaussgaard in recent years has been a notable exception. The Canadian situation is somewhat better in this regard, although most of the translation that happens here is from French to English or English to French. At least readers here grasp the fact that books can be written in another language.
As I write this, Edmonton Public Library has 11 holds on five copies. I ordered my copy from Audreys Books.
I wrote up my notes on Go Went Gone within days of discussing it in book club more than two months ago. In the interim I have spent nine days in New York City—where I had what I think was food poisoning, baked several cakes for family birthdays, and spent more time than usual with my grandkids after their mother had surgery.
And the unseasonably lovely weather of the past couple of weeks has got me into the garden and out for more walks with my dog. The heat may be proof of global warming, but it is welcome after our long hard winter.