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.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x08 "The Elysian Kingdom" Review

This episode sure was something. In many ways, the conflict in it wasn't as large as the conflict in other episodes, yet I have a lot to say about it.

M'Benga is once again reading a story to his daughter. We get a bit more of the story this time and hear about the Elysian Kingdom that the story is about. Rukiya says that she wants to change the ending. My first time watching this episode, their talk about how she could change the ending when she got older seemed to hint at her getting better, and I honestly thought that was what was going to happen in this episode. Boy was that wrong.

The first sign that there's a problem comes when Enterprise suddenly can't warp. When M'Benga goes to the bridge, he suddenly finds that everyone has become characters from the story he was reading to Rukiya.

At first, I thought he was hallucinating because of his experiments, as earlier it had blown up in his face. Turns out, that's not what's happening. Everything around them is real but the minds of the crew have been alterred, and even though the concept of the crew being stuck in the story is kind of funny, there are real life consequences. (Plus, the idea of messing with people's minds that much is also straight up creepy. The entity is ultimately portrayed as a good entity, but if you think too much about what she did, then it gets really creepy really fast.)

The characters each of the crew members becomes have little to do with their actual personality, so it was pretty amusing to see them in character. La'an as Thalia was the most hilarious. It's probably a good thing that none of the crew (except M'Benga) remembers what happened because I'm pretty sure La'an would be mortified about it.

Pike was also hilarious because of how his character contrasted with his real personality, and Spock was another favorite.

It turns out that Hemmer is the only person besides M'Benga who hasn't been affected by the entity, so he and M'Benga work together to figure out what's going on. As far as I can remember, this episode marks the first time we've seen the two of them interact much, and I enjoyed it, especially how sympathetic Hemmer was about Rukiya. As a character, he's a little standoffish at first, and it's nice to see moments like this where he bonds with his crewmates and we can see that he does care.

M'Benga and Hemmer figure out that there's a consciousness who's doing all of this, and it seems like the consciousness is using Rukiya somehow, as the story is following the ending that she wanted. Unfortunately, Spock overhears this and comes to believe that Rukiya is the mercury stone, which is supposed to be a powerful weapon.

When M'Benga and Hemmer do find Rukiya, she says that she's playing with her friend, who turns out to be the entity controlling everything. Honestly, thinking too hard about the entity and how it got there is rather terrifying. I'm not a huge fan of those implications, but at least this one seems to be friendly? But then she's also manipulating the entire crew, so...

The entity ends up speaking through Hemmer and saves Rukiya's consciousness even though her body dies. Except it doesn't really. Her body kind of just disappears, and she's able to reappear as if she's older a few moments later, which kind of implies that her body is living on in someway. After all, the entity couldn't form a body herself and had to speak through Hemmer. If Rukiya doesn't have a body anymore, it's also odd that she would have aged at all even if time had passed. Theoretically, she would probably appear at the same age that she always was if she was going to reappear in a body at all. But I also get that her reappearing was more about assuring M'Benga that she was fine and showing us as an audience that time had passed for her.

Rukiya dying did surprise me a bit because other hints so far had given me hope that she'd survive, but I also wasn't incredibly shocked when she died instead. Still, it was very sad, and I was tearing up at the ending.

Overall, this episode was a fun one despite having a sad ending. I enjoyed seeing everyone out of character.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part VI Review

This finally definitely didn't let me down. I have such a soft spot for endings, and this one hit all the right points for me.

Reva does end up going to Tatooine to look for Owen and Luke. Beru refuses to leave their home when they learn that Reva is coming, so they end up fighting her. We saw very little of Beru in the series, but I absolutely loved her in this episode. I wish we'd gotten more of her and also of Owen and Luke. Leia was such a great character, and it would have been great to spend that much time with little Luke too.

Meanwhile, Darth Vader is still trying to get to Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan offers to give himself up in order to protect the others. This leads to an emotional goodbye with Leia, and Leia ends up giving him Lola after him joking about needing to borrow her, which was absolutely adorable.

Obi-Wan's final fight with Darth Vader was extremely powerful. There are some incredible quotes in this scene, including "Anakin is gone. I am what remains." and "You didn't kill Anakin Skywalker. I did." Those lines along with Darth Vader's mask being partially destroyed, allowing Obi-Wan to see his face, were very powerful.

Reva's attempt to kill Luke is almost as powerful. She comes close, but in the end, she can't do it. The scene where she asks Obi-Wan if this makes her like Vader really got to me. I would love to see more of Reva's story and what happens to her after this.

At the end of the episode, we get to see Darth Vader talking to the Emperor, which I should have expected. It's honestly impressive how many appearances we got in this.

Leia continues to be amazing right through to the end. She wears the holster that Obi-Wan gave her once back home and tells her dad that, "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to want to change a few things." Honestly, I could watch a whole show about little Leia too. Seriously. I want spin offs about little Leia, little Luke, and Reva now.

When Obi-Wan first started trying to talk to Qui-Gon Jinn, I wondered if we were going to see him, and lo and behold, he does make a cameo at the very end. I was pretty much expected that at that point, but it was still cool to see.

I really enjoyed this series. I'm sad it's over, but I also think part of the reason why it was so good was precisely because it's a limited series, so I'm not sure I'd want another season. I'm just thankful for what we got.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x07 "The Serene Squall" Review

I'm getting more and more into Strange New Worlds with each episode. It's interesting because I don't typically like episodic shows that much, but I am enjoying this one.

When T'Pring was first introduced, I never expected that we'd see so much of her. I thought she'd pop up for a couple episodes at most, but she's also in this one. We see her at a rehabilitation center for criminals where she's working. We also find out that she's learning about humans in order to connect with Spock.

Each time we see her, I like T'Pring more. While she seemed very dismissive of Spock's human heritage in past episodes, I like that she's making an effort to learn about it now. She also mentions the onus being on her to learn about humans, and that combined with how much she trusts Spock in this episode really makes me respect her.

We also meet a new character in this episode: Aspen. Or Captain Angel, as he later learn their name actually is. I loved Aspen/Angel! They were such an intriguing character when they were pretending to be Aspen, and they were even more so when it turned out that it had all been a trick. I love how "Aspen" questioning Spock not trusting his emotions led to the reveal that Angel's husband is a Vulcan who rejected rationality.

In an attempt to rescue colonists, Enterprise goes into non-Federation space, but they fall into a Serene Squall trap and lose control of Enterprise.

"Aspen" tells Spock that their husband was a Vulcan and died. It's a very compelling story that ends up being at least partially a lie as "Aspen" is actually Angel and their husband was actually imprisoned by Vulcans because he rejected logic. Angel calls their husband Xaverius, but Spock believes that Xaverius is actually an assumed name of his half brother.

The only information I know about Spock's half brother is stuff I've googled, but I'm curious about where this is going. I get the feeling we'll be seeing him. Considering everything that happened with Michael and Spock in Discovery, seeing Spock's brother in Strange New Worlds will be even more interesting. I'm curious about what he knew about Michael and if she'll come up.

I also wonder if T'Pring, when she was preparing to hand over the prisoner, knew that it was Spock's brother.

At the end of the episode, Spock "pretends" to be having an affair with Chapel to give T'Pring a reason not to release the prisoner. T'Pring doesn't believe it though and trusts Spock, which makes me admire her even more as a character.

I'm enjoying this love triangle because it's one where I genuinely like all of the characters involved, and none of them are doing anything that massively annoy me like often happens with love triangles.

Right now, I think the love triangle is what I'm most curious about in the immediate future.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part V Review

This episode had me on the edge of my seat. It was probably my favorite so far.

We get flashbacks to Obi-Wan and Anakin training in this episode, which means that we do actually get to see Hayden's face beyond previous footage. It's a little funny because they're both obviously older despite when the clips are meant to take place, but that's much preferable to the CGI they've been using to recreate younger versions of characters recently.

Aside from those flashbacks, this episode suffers from the problem that it's so dark that I could hardly see what was happening on the screen, even when I brightened it. That's starting to become my pet peeve in TV shows and movies.

This episode focuses a lot on Reva, who becomes an even more interesting character as we learn about her backstory and motivations. We learn that she was a youngling, which isn't terribly surprising considering the comments about her powers earlier in the series. I suspected there was more to that than just her being Force-sensitive. Still, I enjoyed the depth her story gave her character, and I wasn't really expecting her to be trying to kill Darth Vader. That was a great twist.

Obi-Wan ends up surrendering to her and telling her that he wants to work together to defeat Vader.

The droid from earlier sacrifices itself to save Tala, who then also sacrifices herself by throwing a grenade. I enjoyed how emotionally powerful that scene was.

In happier news, Lola is okay! After me being so worried that she'd have to be destroyed or something last time, Leia fixes her pretty quickly. It almost seemed to be too quick. If it was that easy to pull the thing off, then Reva seemed a little too confident that her plan would work last episode. But, at any rate, I'm glad that Lola seems okay again.

At the end of the episode, Reva attacks Vader once the others have gotten away, but he reveals that he knows who she is. I really loved this whole scene and how it played out. We also see Reva find Bail's message where he mentions Luke, which makes me incredibly curious about what's going to happen in the next episode.

The ship they're trying to escape on also doesn't have a working hyperdrive, yet they're being tailed, so it looks likely that we'll get another confrontation, possibly between Obi-Wan and Anakin, in the next episode.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this series wraps up in the next episode.