There is a pair of old Latin phrases that have been found inscribed on graves that I thought about constantly as I read Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone (translated by Susan Bernofsky). The phrases hodie mihi cras tibi (today me, tomorrow you) and sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes the glory of the world) are strangely appropriate for a book that follows recent classicist retiree Richard as he remembers what his life used to be like. Later, as Richard becomes fascinated by the plight of African refugees in Berlin, we are left to ponder how how Germany resists and is changed by an influx of people from very different cultures and histories.
Richard is in his seventies as the novel begins and has just retired from decades of work at Humboldt University. He spends his time reflecting on how very little of his life in the former East Germany remains in modern Berlin. He no longer has his job to keep his brain occupied and knows that other bright young things in the Classics Department will replace him. After he sees a large camp of refugees in Berlin—some of the refugees are on a hunger strike to force the government to take action on their cases and help them find work—Richard becomes a little obsessed with the situation. He arms himself with a battery of questions and heads off to one of the shelters for the refugees. His questions, presumably part of a research project, help him get to know men from Niger, Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso, and other countries. And, suddenly, Richard’s life has meaning again as he tries to help get the men money, work, and shelter.
The plot speeds up as Richard gets more and more involved, but it retains a mournful tone. The novel is nostalgic for the past and Richard misses some of his old life and haunts, but there was—to me at least—a sense of acceptance to the fact that nothing stays the same forever. Richard hears from friends and reads about how the government deals with the refugees that make it clear that not every one is as accepting of the fact that times change and we must change with them. (More Latin: tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.)
Go, Went, Gone is a very levelheaded look at what I think of as the manufactured dilemma of the refugee crisis. Many of the countries taking in refugees create miles of red tape to trip up people who are fleeing for their homes to, presumably, make sure the people coming in are safe to enter. The laws, as Richard finds, make it a lot easier for a country to deport someone that it is for that someone to make a new home in a new country. The red tape smacks of racism and Go, Went, Gone is full of examples of what people say about refugees: Why don’t they solve their own problems? Why doesn’t someone else take them in? Richard’s investigations put unignorably human faces on the refugees so that, while it might be easy to deport almost 500 refugees from various countries, it’s a lot harder to send Rashid, Osarobo, Yaya, Khalil, and the others back to places where they might be killed.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 15 September 2017.
Notes for bibliotherapeutic use: Recommend to readers who need to be more empathetic to the plight of others.