The Intimacy of Listening: A New Politics of Flânerie in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues that the activity of walking in Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2015 novel Go, Went, Gone (translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky in 2017) is crucial in establishing a singular intimacy between its protagonist, the retired professor Richard, and the refugee-subjects of colour who live in precarious circumstances when they arrive in Berlin. It suggests that walking, as an action as well as an activity, triggers a transformation in his negotiations with radical alterity. This can be traced through a gradual shift in Richard’s perception of walking from an aesthetic pleasure to its utilisation in matters of ethical urgency. In this manner, it studies the new ethics of flânerie premised on affective and ethical engagements with various others in Erpenbeck’s novel.