Time does something to a person, because a human being isn’t a machine that can be switched on and off. The time during which a person doesn’t know how his life can become a life fills a person condemned to idleness from his head down to his toes.
Go, Went, Gone is a carefully crafted, meticulously researched novel that feels as natural as walking down the street. Protagonist Richard is a newly retired professor of Classics and a childless widower. As a former East Berliner and citizen of the DDR, he has seen his share of upheaval in his life. In his tidy lake house, he now has time, time, so much time, to tend to the things that need tending.
On a daytime excursion, Richard notices that Oranienburger Platz has been occupied by protestors. These African men, these somber refugees, will not give their names. They ask to be seen. They ask to be treated as human beings. They ask for some shelter so they don’t freeze to death in their tents. Something must be done, yes. Someone must do something. But no one quite knows that that something is.
Richard finds himself drawn to this new and curious puzzle. He keeps up with the news stories. He finds a way to gain admittance to the refugee shelter. I’m a professor, he says. I want to interview these men. And he does. Sometimes in broken German, sometimes in Italian, because that’s where these men first landed in the EU. In his mind Richard assigns them lovely mythological names like “Apollo,” because their real names are not known or are too foreign to remember. Answers and details are not immediately forthcoming. But slowly, slowly, these men earn the words they need to tell their stories—while Richard earns the privilege of listening.
Must living in peace—so fervently wished for throughout human history and yet enjoyed in only a few parts of the world—inevitably result in refusing to share it with those seeking refuge, defending it instead so aggressively that it almost looks like war?
It is a tribute to the translator that the distinct German-ness of this novel is woven into every page. I briefly studied die deutsche Sprache and consider it to be a confounding language. Reliable spelling and pronunciation are offset by relentless precision and spiteful irregularity. Action is always ordered by time, manner, place: I traveled at 2pm by train to Berlin. The second word in a sentence is nearly always a verb, or at least part of the verb: Why have you today on foot to my house come? And with verb conjugation like gehen, ging, gegangen (present, simple past, past perfect of “to go”) you must formulate the entire idea before you open your mouth.
Imagine learning German, in addition to three languages you already know, so that you can understand what your immigration lawyer is saying. So that you can understand what your chances are of being deported. So that you can explain exactly why you fled your country. Why you are desperate to do some sort of labor, no matter how little the pay. Why the arbitrary system should not separate you from the few friends you’ve made by sending you to different detention centers.
The heartbreaking meaning of the title’s progression—go, went, gone—takes on its full meaning at the end. While I couldn’t cry then, I find tears are coming now.
Highly recommended for anyone who loves beautiful prose and highly intelligent and thoughtful protagonists. If you are intrigued by the refugee “crisis” in Europe (and elsewhere) and by all things German, this makes for rewarding reading.
New York Times Notable Book 2018; Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2018; MLA LOIS ROTH AWARD WINNER