The initial enjoyment of this quickly waned and I felt very much like the characters in the novel; going through the motions wondering why I continue this unhealthy relationship with something that brings no joy.

The translation is good, Erpenbeck can clearly write but I just became bored to tears by this. A novel that basically functions as an extended metaphor for the GDR isn't necessarily going to be enjoyable but man, I just did not have fun. The book gets into this repetitive tedious loop of commiserating misery to parallel the failings of the government structure, but it narratively ceases to be compelling. There are some interesting insights to the pre and post war generations, but they are few and far between. I wanted a little more going on.

Incredibly funny quote from the comments section of this German Historian's Review Artikel von Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk - taz.de:

"The beautiful thing and the practical and irrefutable proof that we live in a good world of almost unlimited freedom is this: A former privileged GDR citizen is allowed to spread her dullness further, no one cares and she also receives US literary prizes for it."

I enjoyed its touches on the magnetic nature of western culture and commodification, and the overall generational disinterest/disillusionment of youth in the political scene. This is contrasted with the aging ruling class controlling them under the guise of knowing what is best, or what the past has held. This is an oversimplification as I do feel her overall tone is almost that communism was bound to lose to the hedonism and corruption of capitalism, rather than the states own failings. With Erpenbeck's privileged background, I don't trust Kairos as accurate historical fiction, or at a minimum, I don't believe it faithfully captures the average citizen experience of the time. Whether that matters is up to you.

There are compelling moments in the middle where they are reapproaching and revisiting their initial landmarks of the relationship and how these places along with time affect our cognitive biases towards people and government and can emotionally "trap" us. But all these ideas are buried in such miserable repetition and retreading that I cannot really say that I liked this overall. The experience of a character being basically psychologically tortured isn't for me, at least when it feels to serve very little payoff.

Kairos won the Booker Prize mid-read, and it makes me wonder if that had something to do with my book club's overall praise of this.

Kairos

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