Go Went Gone

Symbols

Underground / Underwater

As Richard walks past the scene in the plaza with the refugees he is thinking about a place in Poland, Rzeszow, a town where a system of tunnels ran under the city and where residents would live in hiding or poverty. The idea of subcultures or groups of people who are unseen and sought after to be terminated, reflects the hardships faced by some in the novel. It also resonates with the ongoing sub-world that includes multiple references to things unseen in water or underground. Filling in time, Richard turns to the eleventh chapter of the Odyssey by Homer, his favourite. The section includes a recount of Odysseus’ trip to the underworld. It is a strong theme for Richard who marvels at the things that lay under the city when an archaeologist friend informs him that a demolition crew had uncovered Nazi art while working. Although his friend Peter thinks the ground is full of treasure, Richard considers ‘that the earth is more like a garbage heap containing all the ages of history…’ A further example of the underground is seen as Karon’s business acquaintance drops the cash between floorboards into the underground and it magically ends up in Ghana, via the illegal money transfer operation.

The idea of water holding its own dark secrets is seen from the onset as Richard considers the man who has drowned in the lake near his house and has not been recovered. He, like the corpses Rashid saw when he went underwater as the boat he was travelling on capsized, and the ghosts Karon believes are trapped in the Mediterranean, haunt the water’s depths. In this way, the underwater and underground are presented as having secrets to share, both haunting and beautiful. This notion is symbolic of the lives and stories of the refugees; you may see the men, but you may not necessarily see the stories, traumas, love and lives they hold under the surface. Even Richard himself, the calm professor, has a haunting secret regarding his wife that lurks beneath the surface.

Underground/Underwater Quotes

Or maybe they were afraid the man would pull them down with him, who knows. (Richard’s thoughts about the strong men who row away from a drowning man) Chapter 1

What stories lay behind all the random images placed before us? Chapter 3

…that the earth is more like a garbage heap containing all the ages of history… Chapter 4

Just at this moment the lights suddenly go out and for a few seconds all the people in the room are black. Chapter 6

And beyond that she has no name, she remains trapped in this lower stratum and silently sinks back down again. (About trying to remember Awad’s grandmother) Chapter 14

All summer long, the boat lay moored beside the dock, but because of the dead man in the lake, Richard didn’t use it even once. Chapter 30

The subway runs underground, you don’t see where you are. Chapter 31

Where are they buried? Who knows their names? Chapter 34

What other things might be lurking in the dark reaches of his memory that will never again be dragged out of storage, before closing time arrives and the lights go out for good. Chapter 40

The line dividing ghosts and people have always seemed thin to him … (Richard) Chapter 47

… and with outstretched arms drops it, just as it is without counting the money, into the crevice in the floor. Chapter 47

What if the drowned man tried calling out to them from beneath the ice, and they saw him beneath their feet … but in the time it would take to fetch an axe … he would have sunk back down. Chapter 49

Lists

Lists are speckled throughout Go, Went, Gone. Richard constructs shopping lists that sit in stark juxtaposition with the refugee hunger strikes and the food insecurity of those who go without regular meals. Richard constructs a list of questions he aims to ask the refugees. However, he soon finds this list is inadequate in helping to truly find out about the man. Ultimately, lists are drawn of those who will no longer be supported by the government and be sent to their country of origin. The lists are reminiscent of those compiled by the Germans when they added the names of Jews and Roma to be sent to concentration camps and, ultimately, annihilated.

Lists Quotes

January 8, lists arrive in Spandau … with the names of the first 108 men. Chapter 44

Only when a name is known can there be a list like this. Chapter 44

… this country of bookkeepers will be aghast and blame the objects of the transport for the expense, as used to happen in other periods of German history. Chapter 44

So a border, Richard thinks, can suddenly become visible. Chapter 44

Literature

A keen scholar, Richard is immersed in literature and this emerges as he encounters the refugees. He renames some of the refugees after characters (Hermes, Apollo, Tristan) from Homer’s Odyssey and other literary works, and introduces others to works of fiction by Dante. Richard draws on his understanding of Homer to help as he compares the men’s strategy of hiding their identity while making themselves visible in the public domain to Odysseus’s ruse of calling himself Nobody to escape from the Cyclops’s cave. The episode shows that his learning is not useless junk at all but can assist in understanding the men and this inspires Richard. Likewise, when he considers the Odyssey and The Iliad as stories that were passed on orally, long before Homer or whoever it was wrote them down, and considers their descriptions against the backdrop of the desert, it helps him understand the men as part of a global setting that extends back in time.

Literature Quotes

The best cure for love – as Ovid knew years ago – was work. Chapter 1

Odysseus had called himself Nobody to escape from the Cyclops’s cave. Chapter 4

‘Negro’ is a word no one would say now but back then people printed it on book jackets. Chapter 5

.. kindly remember that he whom you call our slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives and dies (Seneca). Chapter 50

Richard’s House

Although a part of the setting, Richard’s house is also quite symbolic. At first, when we encounter Richard he is fussing in his home, ‘he mows the lawn, then opens a can of pea soup for lunch’. He has belongings and memories of his wife there and adds to them leftovers from his days at the university. He considers the temporary nature of these and admits one day they will all go to different places. Eventually, Osarobo is welcomed to play his piano, Rufu reads his copy of Dante and Apollo helps with the yard work. In this way, the house slowly welcomes refugees as Richard also opens his heart to the men. Ultimately, the men will be sleeping there on beds, mattresses and chairs as he finally surrenders to what it means to help them. The loneliness of the house seen at the outset of the novel is replaced by a party and men sharing intimate stories at the end. The house also represents Richard’s privilege, passed on generationally and revealing stability and security. The gates themselves may have been made by someone like Rashid who crafted similar ones when he was working as a metalworker.

Richard’s House Quotes

Or maybe they were afraid the man would pull them down with him, who knows. (Richard’s thoughts about the strong men who row away from a drowning man) Chapter 1

All these objects surrounding him form a system and have meaning only as long as he makes his way among them … (about Richard’s ‘stuff’ from the office) Chapter 1

He and his friends still aren’t done exploring all the blessings of this other world that has become more and more tightly entwined with theirs over the past twenty-five years. Chapter 15

The reason they were doing so much better than, say, these three African men Richard was talking about? The ones sitting on this sofa were post-war children … (Richard, Detlef and Sylvia) Chapter 19

.. if this prosperity couldn’t be attributed to their own personal merit, then by the same token the refugees were not to blame for their reduced circumstances. Things might have turned out the other way around. For a moment, this thought opens its jaws wide, displaying its frightening teeth. Chapter 19