“We become visible.”
page 14
“The things you’ve experienced become baggage you can’t get rid of.”
“People with the freedom to choose get to decide which stories to hold on to”
Page 67
“Where can a person go when he doesn’t know where to go?”
Pps. 226-67
Written in 2015, the story of Go Went Gone is a contemporary story of African refugees in Germany. Richard, the protagonist, is a professor emeritus of philology. So, he is an expert on languages and has a keen understanding of literature. His wife has died, and his unrecognized loneliness during his retirement is conveyed to the reader by his actions. He lives a typical and routine lifestyle marked by the commonplace and banal until he becomes curious about a group of African refugees who have been camping in Oranienplatz, a square in Berlin.
He recognizes that the Africans are different from himself in many ways, and he accidentally begins to discover how they may have traits similar to his own. At first, he acts in his career-oriented research mode, and he decides to interview them and record their stories. He recognizes his ignorance about Africa, African countries, and of course, African people. Through the details and themes of the refugees’ stories, recognizes the refugees as human beings. He acknowledges their powerlessness and then the powerlessness in himself until he truly embarks on some transition. It seems that he has had a change of heart—growing from academic curiosity to friend and activist. However, his inner thoughts and emotions are never explicitly discussed in the novel. Richard realizes that he does have the power to do some things to help these refugees’ plight. Richard can relate to some of the refugees’ barriers since he had been an East German and now part of the “West,” a different culture from his upbringing.
Richard is highly educated. He continually attempts to apply his knowledge of the classics to his study of the refugees. His deep knowledge of civilizations almost works against him since he knows he wants to do something and doesn’t know what or how. Finally, a German teacher, a young Ethiopian, invites him to teach German to some more advanced African refugees. Teaching verb conjugations such as go, went gone, gives the reader a partial clue to the title significance since through this rudimentary teaching, Richard learns how to be helpful. Eventually, Richard provides some practical assistance to some of the African men through his language lessons. He transitions from mindless interviewing the men to actually communicating and befriending them in his own detached manner. He invites Osarobo, who has traveled to Germany from Niger via Libya, to his house to learn piano. He arranges for Ali from Chad to work as home health care aid for a friend’s mother.
Eventually, he brings Rufu to a psychiatrist and a dentist and buys land in Ghana for Karon’s family. At the end of the book, Richard asks the government to declare his house a shelter for some of the men who are not granted asylum. So, his involvement changes from indifferent curiosity to immersive involvement. Some
Some of the themes and questions developed by Erpenbeck in this novel include:
What does it mean to be a stranger? Is Richard’s unfamiliarity with the united Berlin akin to the cultural differences between the African refugees and the Germans?
Are the provisions of the Dublin II designed to keep refugees out?
What is ordinary life? How culturally dependent is the definition of ordinary? Loneliness
What does it mean to feel foreign?
Comfort/Routine—how far out of one’s comfort zone is acceptable?
What is friendship? Are emotional attachments required for friendship?
Transitions—from marriage to widowhood, work to retirement, East Berlin to Berlin and Africa to Europe
IMMIGRATION
