Jenny Erpenbeck - Kairos (Granta, 2024) **

A 19-year old woman starts a relationship with a 53-year old married man. They are like soulmates from a cultural perspective, loving the same music, accepting the open relationship, the age difference with style. Yet it somehow does not work out. He is like a father or a teacher, suffocating the relationship instead of liberating both partners. 

The narrative takes place against the backdrop of the reunification of Germany after the Berlin Wall collapses. There are parallels between their personal relationship and the broader political picture: the contradictions, the constrained walled in meeting places, the lack of liberating freedom to handle, the feeling of being unfulfilled, control versus chaos. 

Despite the good reviews the novel received, it did not suck me in. The situation of both lovers was too unnatural to me, too manipulated by the author as two puppets in a grander theatre of geopolitics. 

The writing is good.