Jenny Erpenbeck's Go, Went, Gone: A Novel of Life-Changing Discovery

RP: Captivating and memorable. The characters are so real it hurts. Although it is set in a time a while ago, the story of refugees who have made it to a foreign land that does not accept them, is relevant to what we see today throughout the world.

United States on Sep 09, 2023

Rosemary Vargas-Lundius: Very interesting migration story. Recommended for all readers, particularly those interested on human migration issues. I believe it may be a great book but something may have been lost in translation. While reading it I always though it may have been better to read it in German.

Italy on Dec 01, 2020

Max: This was my first Erpenbeck read and I'll be reading more of her work because of it. The brilliance of this novel is the way it constructs the main character's perspective, which is never naive but more one of rising horror to a problem that has been around for centuries. Her style is restrained but not "economical" in the conventional sense, because of its periodic use of intense intrusions by the narrative voice from observer to near-personhood in its outrage and compassion. The story itself eschews the standard devices of a saviour narrative and cliches about the encounters between different cultures, making its compassion all the more genuine.

Canada on Feb 07, 2020

Merlyn: It deals with contemporary African immigration in Germany in a most unusual manner.

Canada on Apr 07, 2019

Lynne G: Beautifully written and translated book. The author is troubled by what is happening to refugees in Europe and their harrowing ordeals . Written with great sensitivity and thoughtfulness.

Canada on Nov 14, 2018

algo41: 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.

United States on Aug 17, 2018

Deborah Leavitt: This book is well written and tells an excellent story. A professor who retires actually finds his life's calling by helping refugees. He creates a family that he never expected and finds new life.

Canada on May 21, 2018

Kay K.: As I was reading the true story of the refugees and about Richard, who was a newly retired professor and widow, I began to get really annoyed with him. He became interested in the refugees, who originally landed in Italy but wound up in Berlin. His main idea was to get their stories and as he found out more and more about them, I wanted him to help them. Not just find out about them Many of the refugees were skilled laborers and very intelligent and talented. It is a story of mans inhumanity to man, especially of a different color. Richard did become deeply involved with the men and also became friends with them. They trusted him. This is a true story still, no doubt, going on in parts of different countries as people try to escape the chaos in their own country. Many would like to eventually return to their own country if it ever becomes possible.

United States on Mar 17, 2018

Laurence R. Bachmann: 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...

United States on Dec 30, 2017

Roger Brunyate: I hope Jenny Erpenbeck returns soon to writing novels; this one seems something else. Her VISITATION is a poetic masterpiece; THE END OF DAYS tells one woman's life over the span of the twentieth century in terms of the many ways it might have ended, but didn't; the earlier BOOK OF WORDS looks at a totalitarian regime through the eyes of a torturer's child. All are politically engaged. All tackle major issues of our times. But all are also novels. Admittedly, they occupy the fringes of conventional form. They look at their subjects either from a great distance or uncomfortably close up. They are neither character-based nor action-driven, but are held together by poetic concept; VISITATION, for instance, has only one named character, but is anchored by the continued presence of the almost spectral gardener who tends the lakeside house that witnesses so many changing regimes. But above all, one reads Erpenbeck for the inventive richness of her language, whether in the German or the consistently brilliant translations by Susan Bernofsky.

So I preordered this latest book for the day of its release, and opened it eagerly. And was at first nonplussed, then disappointed, and only...

United States on Oct 04, 2017