Jenny Erpenbeck 의 소설 "Go, Went, Gone' 에서

Jenny Erpenbeck, "Go, Went, Gone" (영역본 2017, 독일어 원본 2015)

How many times, he wonders, must a person relearn

everything he knows, rediscovering it over and over, and

how many coverings must be torn away before he's finally

able to truly grasp things, to understand them to the

bone? (p 142)

Or have the people living here under untroubled

circumstances and at so great a distance from the war of

others bee afflicted with a poverty of experience, a sort

of emotional anemia? Must living in peace - so fervently

wished for throughout human history and yet enjoyed in

only a few parts of the world -- inevitably result in

refusing to share it with those seeking refuge, defending

it instead so aggressively that it almost looks like war?

(p 241)

Two thousand years ago, no one was more hospitable

than the Teutons. Surely you are acquainted with the

lovely section in Tacitus's Germania devoted to our

ancestor's hospitality? Yes, Richard says, nodding. May I

recall the passage in question for you? You may. The

lawyer gets up, goes over to the bookshelf, ... pulls his

Tacitus off the self, and opens the small book at a page

marked by a slip of paper. ... Richard nod to him, and now

the lawyer begins his recital: It is accounted a sin to turn

any man away from your door. The host welcomes his

guest with the best meal that his means allow. When he

has finished entertaining him, the host undertakes a fresh

role: he accompanies the guest to the nearest house

where further hospitality can be had. It makes no

difference that they come uninvited; they are welcomed

just as warmly. No distinction is ever made between

acquaintance and stranger as far as the right to

hospitality is concerned. ... The lawyer claps the book

shut and asks Richard: And nowadays? (p 250-1)

A life in which an empty present is occupied by a memory

that one cannot endure, in which the future refuses to

show itself, must be extremely taxing, Richard thinks,

since this is a life without a shoreline, as it were. (p 277)

역시 독후감 쓸 엄두는 안 난다.

책을 읽으면서 어느 부분에서 문득, 그 며칠 전 온라인 신문에서

읽은 한 기사를 떠올렸었다. 신실한 개신교 신자로 알려진 어느

유명 정치인이 한국의 외국인 노동자와 한국인 노동자의 임금

수준이 같아서는 정당하지 않다고 말했다는 기사였다.