Book Review: Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky

Published: September 7, 2017 (originally published in German in 2015)
Publisher: Portobello Books
Received: purchased
Read from May 28 to June 23, 2022

Synopsis from Goodreads:

One of the great contemporary European writers takes on Europe's biggest issue.

Richard has spent his life as a university professor, immersed in the world of books and ideas, but now he is retired, his books remain in their packing boxes and he steps into the streets of his city, Berlin. Here, on Alexanderplatz, he discovers a new community -- a tent city, established by African asylum seekers. Hesitantly, getting to know the new arrivals, Richard finds his life changing, as he begins to question his own sense of belonging in a city that once divided its citizens into them and us.

At once a passionate contribution to the debate on race, privilege and nationality and a beautifully written examination of an ageing man's quest to find meaning in his life, Go, Went, Gone showcases one of the great contemporary European writers at the height of her powers.

Review:

I read Go, Went, Gone as part of the Branching Out Book Club. The book deals with the recent refugee crisis in Europe and follows an older German man named Richard as he gets to know a group of African refugees who are living in Berlin. While I read the book in English, it was originally written in German.

The book is a stream of consciousness novel, and there are no quotation marks around dialogue, which made it very difficult for me to follow what was happening. This is the first time in my memory that I've read a novel without them, and the experience really helped show me why quotation marks are a thing. It was hard to follow what was happening and who was saying what without the quotation marks, and I do think that affected my enjoyment of the book. The one benefit I can see to it is that it slows you down while reading because you're trying to figure out who said what. On the one hand, that may help you reflect more, but in my opinion, I think I was just spending more time trying to keep things straight.

I also had a hard time keeping track of the characters, particularly Richard's German friends. When it came to the primary refugee characters, I could remember who was who by about the halfway point of the book, but perhaps because Richard's German friends aren't quite as notable during the story, I had a much harder time with them. (Also, it's worth noting that Richard gives the refugees nicknames from Greek mythology at the beginning because he claims that he can't keep their names straight, which is problematic in and of itself, but ironically, those nicknames made it much harder for me to keep track of who was who at first because there were too many names being thrown around.) 

Throughout the novel, we were so in Richard's head that it created distance with every single other character, including the refugees, which felt somewhat counterintuitive considering what the book seemed to be attempting to do.

Unfortunately, I also found Richard a rather annoying character, so the fact that he was the only character that the book seemed to really connect with didn't do any favors for my enjoyment of the book. In some ways, I understand why he is the way he is. He's a product of his time, and there are others around him who are worse. He even distances himself from some of his long-time friends because of their attitudes. Yet there were just a number of things about his behavior that irked me. Was it believable? Yes. Did I enjoy being in his head? No.

There are other obvious drawbacks of having a story about African refugees told from the point of view of an older white man as well. I'm pretty sure it was an attempt to connect readers to the crisis from a familiar viewpoint, but that rests on the assumption that readers are all going to be white Germans (and fairly well off on top of that I think). Even as a white American, there were countless ways in which I didn't connect with Richard at all, so if Richard's character was supposed to be a bridge of sorts, then it didn't work for me anyway. The story would have felt far more personal coming from a refugee, but I also know that the author is white, which is another reason why she likely chose to write from the perspective of a white character.

Overall, I just didn't enjoy this book much. I did like how it showed the hypocrisy of certain people in Richard's circle, but that didn't do much to boost the book in the end. While many of the refugees had powerful stories, they didn't have quite the same impact when filtered though Richard's lens.