Kairos

By: Jenny Erpenbeck

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Jenny Erpenbeck’s much anticipated new novel Kairos is a complicated love story set amidst swirling, cataclysmic events as the GDR collapses and an old world evaporates.

Jenny Erpenbeck (the author of Go, Went, Gone and Visitation) is an epic storyteller and arguably the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature. Erpenbeck’s new novel Kairos—an unforgettably compelling masterpiece—tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when 19-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his 50s named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes place against the background of the declining GDR, through the upheavals wrought by its dissolution in 1989, and then what comes after.

In her unmistakable style and with enormous sweep, Erpenbeck describes the path of two lovers as Katharina grows up and tries to come to terms with a not always ideal romance, even as a whole world with its own ideology disappears.

©2021, 2023 Penguin Verlag, Munchen; Michael Hofmann (P)2023 New Directions Publishing Corp.

The story goes on and on and on.

I did not like the story and it seemed to be one that was monotonous and repetitive to hear. This was a surprise to me since I usually like Erpenbeck’s writing.

Depressing and hard to follow

Although this book has interesting historical parts it is very hard to follow. I often had to back track to try to figure out who, what, or when things were taking place. The story is very sad the reading is very heavy. I'm sure there are those who will love it but I am not one of them.

A struggle to finish this

As an abused woman, this was cringe worthy to listen. I didn’t get any sense of lessons learned though. The thread between East Germany falling and the relationship failing was just not appealing. Hans was a prick, pure and simple.

Not much plot -- disappointing

The time period and events around the ending of the DDR is interesting, but there wasn't much of a plot -- just an abusive old guy and a young woman. I almost gave it up half way through, but stuck with it thinking the plot would unfold. Nein.

Unbelievable

Well written but so repetitive that it was boring. Please don’t waste your time find another book written by Erpenbeck perhaps “Go, Went, Gone”.

proud of myself for finishing this one

because I could not wait for it to end. I kept thinking, hoping, there would be more - something, anything, a point - but it never came.

Overrated

I have no idea how this book received the International Booker Prize. The protagonists are both weak, unlikeable, and lack credibility. Trying to tie the crumbling of the Berlin Wall in with the deterioration of the relationship between the protagonists does not work. I wanted to like this book, but there was never any traction for me with the plot or the characters.

Empty

Listening to this audiobook reminded me of the time I had to finish a book because it was a school assignment. No character in this book is real and therefore impossible to engage with.

A sick man

This was hard to listen to, though I stuck with it for the portrait of East Germany in its transition years. But I could not stand Hans, a man in his fifties who obsessively torments his barely post-teenage lover for her failure of fidelity—even though he is married to someone else throughout! A sick relationship.

Sick! Waste of time!

I tried to keep listening to figure out the whole point of the story but it was just dark and sick!