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أشياء تختفي
"كنت في الصف الثالث عندما افتتح قصر الجمهورية في ألمانيا الديمقراطية. رفعت معلمة صفي (الآنسة كيز) في يدها مظروفاً أنيقاً يحمل صورة للقصر الجديد، وشرحت لنا المقصود بطوابع البريد التذكارية التي كانت تصدر في اليوم الأول بمناسبة افتتاح هيئة ما. لم ألتفت آنذاك إلى أن مصطلح إصدار اليوم الأول يحتوي على نفس عدد مقاطع مصطلح ذبابة اليوم الواحد المعروفة بذبابة مايو، حتى أن كلمة يوم موجودة في الحالتين. وقالت لنا (الآنسة كيز) أن كل منا سوف يحصل علي مظروف مشابه وأنه يجب علينا أن نحافظ عليه جيداً لأنه يوما ما فيما بعد سنشعر بالفخر لأننا كنا هناك عندما افتتح القصر الجديد.بعد حصولنا علي الأظرف من الآنسة كيز قام فصلنا برحلة الي قصر الشعب الذي افتتح حديثا.
في ذلك الوقت كنت لا أزال أرغب في دراسة علم الآثار للعمل بمجال التنقيب عن القصور القديمة، لذا أعجبتني أنواع المرمر المختلفة الكائنة بالطابق السفلي للقصر بجانب خزانة تعليق المعاطف، أما في الأعلي، في معرض الصور فكان كل شئ مفروشا بالسجاد، كما تدلت من السقف مصابيح تشبه فقاعات الهواء مما يوحي للمرء بأنه تحت الماء. تلك المصابيح من إنتاج المصنع الذي كانت عمتي زيجريد تعمل فيه. كان ذلك المصنع ينتج أيضا أدوات المائدة الموجودة في مقهى القصر والملاعق التي كنت بعد ذلك في حياتي أقلب بها مشروب الكاكاو ثم بعد ذلك القهوة والسكاكين والشوك التي كنت أقطع بها اللحم في الحانة التي كان يصطحبني إليها أول صديق لي. في قصر الجمهورية انحشرإصبعي ذات مرة بين كرتين أثناء لعب البولينج. ومرة قررت أن أصبح عازفة بيانو وذلك في المسرح الكائن في الدور الرابع عقب حفل بيانو لإحدي العازفات المشهورات، وكم أسندت ظهري إلى الكراسي الحديدية الثقيلة الموجودة في حانة القصر كي أستريح وأرقب المشهد المطل علي نهر الشبريه.
وبعد سنوات كثيرة وعندما أخذت علامات التدهور تظهر على القصر شيئاً فشيء أخفيت إحدى الملاعق المصنوعة في المصنع التي تعمل به عمتي في جيبي علي سبيل الاحتياط لتذكّرني بقصر الجمهورية. قبل ثلاثة أيام عندما كنت أمر بالقصر استطعت أن أنظر عبر جدرانه، وقد تم هدم أجزاء منها. لأسباب فنية بدأت عملية الهدم من المنتصف حتي أن الأجزاء التي كانت لاتزال قائمة أضحت تحيط بالمنتصف الذي صار الآن خواءا تاماً. جالت الآنسة كيز بخاطري وتسائلت هل أصبحت تطلق على نفسها سيدة حتي وإن لم تكن في عصمة رجل حتى الآن؟"
في ذلك الوقت كنت لا أزال أرغب في دراسة علم الآثار للعمل بمجال التنقيب عن القصور القديمة، لذا أعجبتني أنواع المرمر المختلفة الكائنة بالطابق السفلي للقصر بجانب خزانة تعليق المعاطف، أما في الأعلي، في معرض الصور فكان كل شئ مفروشا بالسجاد، كما تدلت من السقف مصابيح تشبه فقاعات الهواء مما يوحي للمرء بأنه تحت الماء. تلك المصابيح من إنتاج المصنع الذي كانت عمتي زيجريد تعمل فيه. كان ذلك المصنع ينتج أيضا أدوات المائدة الموجودة في مقهى القصر والملاعق التي كنت بعد ذلك في حياتي أقلب بها مشروب الكاكاو ثم بعد ذلك القهوة والسكاكين والشوك التي كنت أقطع بها اللحم في الحانة التي كان يصطحبني إليها أول صديق لي. في قصر الجمهورية انحشرإصبعي ذات مرة بين كرتين أثناء لعب البولينج. ومرة قررت أن أصبح عازفة بيانو وذلك في المسرح الكائن في الدور الرابع عقب حفل بيانو لإحدي العازفات المشهورات، وكم أسندت ظهري إلى الكراسي الحديدية الثقيلة الموجودة في حانة القصر كي أستريح وأرقب المشهد المطل علي نهر الشبريه.
وبعد سنوات كثيرة وعندما أخذت علامات التدهور تظهر على القصر شيئاً فشيء أخفيت إحدى الملاعق المصنوعة في المصنع التي تعمل به عمتي في جيبي علي سبيل الاحتياط لتذكّرني بقصر الجمهورية. قبل ثلاثة أيام عندما كنت أمر بالقصر استطعت أن أنظر عبر جدرانه، وقد تم هدم أجزاء منها. لأسباب فنية بدأت عملية الهدم من المنتصف حتي أن الأجزاء التي كانت لاتزال قائمة أضحت تحيط بالمنتصف الذي صار الآن خواءا تاماً. جالت الآنسة كيز بخاطري وتسائلت هل أصبحت تطلق على نفسها سيدة حتي وإن لم تكن في عصمة رجل حتى الآن؟"
158 pages, Paperback
First published September 21, 2009
72 people are currently reading
2032 people want to read
About the author
Jenny Erpenbeck
31 books1,179 followersJenny Erpenbeck (born 12 March 1967 in East Berlin) is a German director and writer.
Jenny Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. Her grandparents are the authors Fritz Erpenbeck and Hedda Zinner. In Berlin she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985. She then completed a two-year apprenticeship as a bookbinder before working at several theaters as props and wardrobe supervisor.
From 1988 to 1990 Erpenbeck studied theatre at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1990 she changed her studies to Music Theater Director (studying with, among others, Ruth Berghaus, Heiner Müller and Peter Konwitschny) at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory. After the successful completion of her studies in 1994 (with a production of Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle in her parish church and in the Kunsthaus Tacheles, she spent some time at first as an assistant director at the opera house in Graz, where in 1997 she did her own productions of Schoenberg's Erwartung, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and a world premiere of her own piece Cats Have Seven Lives. As a freelance director, she directed in 1998 different opera houses in Germany and Austria, including Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Aachen, Acis and Galatea at the Berlin State Opera and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Zaide in Nuremberg/Erlangen.
In the 1990s Erpenbeck started a writing career in addition to her directing. She is author of narrative prose and plays: in 1999, History of the Old Child, her debut; in 2001, her collection of stories Trinkets; in 2004, the novella Dictionary; and in February 2008, the novel Visitation. In March 2007, Erpenbeck took over a biweekly column by Nicole Krauss in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Erpenbeck lives in Berlin with her son, born 2002.
Jenny Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. Her grandparents are the authors Fritz Erpenbeck and Hedda Zinner. In Berlin she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985. She then completed a two-year apprenticeship as a bookbinder before working at several theaters as props and wardrobe supervisor.
From 1988 to 1990 Erpenbeck studied theatre at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1990 she changed her studies to Music Theater Director (studying with, among others, Ruth Berghaus, Heiner Müller and Peter Konwitschny) at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory. After the successful completion of her studies in 1994 (with a production of Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle in her parish church and in the Kunsthaus Tacheles, she spent some time at first as an assistant director at the opera house in Graz, where in 1997 she did her own productions of Schoenberg's Erwartung, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and a world premiere of her own piece Cats Have Seven Lives. As a freelance director, she directed in 1998 different opera houses in Germany and Austria, including Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Aachen, Acis and Galatea at the Berlin State Opera and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Zaide in Nuremberg/Erlangen.
In the 1990s Erpenbeck started a writing career in addition to her directing. She is author of narrative prose and plays: in 1999, History of the Old Child, her debut; in 2001, her collection of stories Trinkets; in 2004, the novella Dictionary; and in February 2008, the novel Visitation. In March 2007, Erpenbeck took over a biweekly column by Nicole Krauss in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Erpenbeck lives in Berlin with her son, born 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
November 3, 2025
Things disappear when they are deprived of their means of existence, as if they, too, have a hunger that must be satisfied.
This meditative memoir is a collection of moments, feelings and memories. It is a personal history about the past and the things which disappear as time goes by.
This meditative memoir is a collection of moments, feelings and memories. It is a personal history about the past and the things which disappear as time goes by.
January 9, 2013
I never cease to be astonished at people's ability to stare into space for hours and hours. How do they do it? Do they have greater inner resources than I do? Because rather than fidget and sigh, mutter and moan, or stoically sit, I take out my bag book. I have a perfectly normal shoulder bag, nothing capacious, just big enough to hold the essentials: wallet, paper hankies, pen, iPod, keys - and a paperback. Something not too fat and heavy, something that won't take umbrage if you pick it up here and there and then put away again for a month or so. This fits that bill perfectly. Thirty one miniatures of Things That Disappear. Buildings in Berlin; gaps between buildings in Berlin; words; memories; the simple life; the Warsaw Ghetto; socks (and cheese); courtesy; coal and coal-fired stoves; your youth; the auth....
It would have been perfect for those times when you arrive at the Post Office to find the queue winding back through the doors. For the times when you're stuck in tailback traffic at roadworks. Waiting for that friend in a café. Not quite so perfect, though, when you go for an x-ray on the day that the newbie has just started her job. Because although the pieces here are delightful, and funny, and moving, and diverse, and entertaining, although Erpenbeck can ring all the changes, it's only 94 pages and they don't last as long as it takes for said newbie to take pictures of the ten people who were already there when you arrived and the four who actually arrived AFTER you - it's OK, she was trying to get people processed as fast as possible, and she could tick off the chest x-rays more easily, she could do them herself. But she'd obviously never had to do a coccyx before, so I had to wait until the lady doing the CT had time to pop over to the x-ray room. I was there for two and a half hours. That's fine, I did a crossword and had a couple of games of Capitals and read a bit of Chekhov and did some practice with Italian irregular verb forms until the battery on my iPod ran down.
And then I looked at my fellow sufferers in the waiting room. And wondered how they managed. To just sit there for two and a half hours.
It would have been perfect for those times when you arrive at the Post Office to find the queue winding back through the doors. For the times when you're stuck in tailback traffic at roadworks. Waiting for that friend in a café. Not quite so perfect, though, when you go for an x-ray on the day that the newbie has just started her job. Because although the pieces here are delightful, and funny, and moving, and diverse, and entertaining, although Erpenbeck can ring all the changes, it's only 94 pages and they don't last as long as it takes for said newbie to take pictures of the ten people who were already there when you arrived and the four who actually arrived AFTER you - it's OK, she was trying to get people processed as fast as possible, and she could tick off the chest x-rays more easily, she could do them herself. But she'd obviously never had to do a coccyx before, so I had to wait until the lady doing the CT had time to pop over to the x-ray room. I was there for two and a half hours. That's fine, I did a crossword and had a couple of games of Capitals and read a bit of Chekhov and did some practice with Italian irregular verb forms until the battery on my iPod ran down.
And then I looked at my fellow sufferers in the waiting room. And wondered how they managed. To just sit there for two and a half hours.
January 17, 2026
A sympathetic little book full of things that disappear: buildings, parents, memories, your favorite pastry, years, empty spaces in the city, how you used to live... All presented in vivid vignettes of 2-3 small pages.
Berlin is probably the perfect setting for a story about disappearance, or perhaps it even was Erpenbeck's inspiration. I found it beautifully done and it made me reflect on things I used to love that have now gone - something I normally avoid.
Berlin is probably the perfect setting for a story about disappearance, or perhaps it even was Erpenbeck's inspiration. I found it beautifully done and it made me reflect on things I used to love that have now gone - something I normally avoid.
February 2, 2026
Bite-sized meditations on disappearance, the passage of time, aging, airheadedness, place, pastry. There is a lightness and playfulness that leavens the subject matter, death and what have you. Each chapter is three pages or less. Truly brilliant little book. I’m very glad to be introduced to Erpenbeck and now will search out more of her work. Got this at Riffraff in Providence, RI which has the most perfectly curated collection of books. You can’t buy anything bad there.
July 26, 2023
ثلاثون قصة قصيرة في 90 صفحة، تناولتها اليوم أثناء مشوار خفيف وعاجل وقرأت معظمها في الطريق، لا تحتاج معها إلى كثير من التركيز، تدور القصص في فلك الأشياء القديمة وعلاقتها باليوم وكيف تغيرت أحوالنا وتغير علاقتنا بالأشياء. هناك بعض المشاكل بالترجمة وهي غير مؤثرة وبعض الأخطاء المطبعية السخيفة ولكن ستتدبر حالك كقارئ ولن تعيقك.
January 29, 2017
الكثير من الأخطاء اللغوية والإملائية والكتابية، إذا تجنبنا الطباعة السيئة الباهتة في صفحات، والتي لم أستطع فك طلاسمها في صفحات أخرى في كتاب لم يتجاوز الـ 100 صفحة!
تجربة سيئة مع دار صفصافة! على كلٍ لنتحدث عن "ترجمة الرواية القصيرة" وهي رواية شارك في ترجمتها عدد من طلاب كلية الألسن، فجاءت غريبة قليلًا، وفقدت روحها، رُبما سأعود لقراءة الرواية بالإنجليزية فإنها تستحق رُغم كل ما ذكرته.
جاءت الرواية ثقيلة، كتجربة أولى مع كاتبة ألمانية "جيني إيربينبيك"، في 95 صفحة سردت الكاتبة قصتها مع "الاختفاء" من هدم حضانة طفلها وتوديعه لشجرته المفضلة، للتأثيرات الروسية على الفتيات الألمانيات، تراجع كل شيء وانسحابه كالأخطبوط يسحب جميع أذرعه خلفه.
كل الأشياء كانت اختفت من عالم البطلة، قطعة الجبن الغالية التي اشترتها، جواربها، اختفاء الأشياء داخل حاويات إعادة التدوير، اختفاء الأشياء الثمينة "كخزانة أثرية"، تتساءل الكاتبة حول ماهية الجمال، وأين يذهب التاريخ والجمال عندما يتم إعادة تدوير تلك الأشياء الجميلة الأثرية، هل يصبح ذلك الجمال خفيفًا يتصاعد إلى السماء كالأرواح أم أين يذهب؟
إنها رواية عن معادلة الجمال والقبح، تحول الأشياء القيمة إلى أخرى لا معنى لها "الإحلال القبيح".
صراع الشخصية الألمانية، اختفاء اللطف، ميل البشر للانعزال رغم انتهاء حالة الحرب، ففي حالة الحرب كل شخص كان يهتم بنفسه فقط، محاولة توفير احتياجاته الأساسية، الجميع كان يتفهم هذا في وقت الحرب، نستطيع أن نتزاحم على الخبز في حالة الحرب وهذا منطقي، لكن حالة الحرب انتهت ليس هناك أي داعٍ للتزاحم على الخبز، معاملة الآخرين بجفاء، عدم الاعتذار عندما نخطئ، كل هذا عانت منه الكاتبة.
اقتباس: تختفي الأشياء عندما تُسلب منها وظيفتها.
اقتباس آخر: باختفاء الشيء يختفي التفكير فيه، والأفكار المتعلقة به، تختفي الفكرة إذا ما كان ذلك الشيء معبرًا عن ثراء أم فقر.
لقد توقفت الراوية أو البطلة عن تبادل هدايا الميلاد، حتى أغاني الميلاد المميزة تبدلت لأخرى جديدة غير مميزة.
اقتباس: اكتشفت لأول مرة أن كلمة اختفاء جوهر فعال، فهناك من يجلس بداخل هذه الكلمة، يعمل على إخفاء الأشياء التي أعرفها وأقدرها، يقضي عليها، يُخربها، يلعنها، يختلسها، يطردها، يفسدها.
كانت البطلة تنتقل بين الأماكن، تجمع جميع أشيائها، لا تترك أثرًا ورائها، لكن رُغم حرصها الدائم على حزم كل شيء إلا أن الأشياء لم تتوقف عن الاختفاء!
اختفاء الشباب، ظهور بقع تقدم السن، الوهن، المرض، الشيخوخة، اختفاء الأصدقاء وموتهم واحدًا تلو الآخر.
اقتباس: حياتنا تطول على نحو يفوق طاقتنا على تحمل الشيخوخة.
إن اختفاء المؤلف يعني موته أيضًا، المؤلفة رُبما تنعني نفسها، تنعي كل الأشياء التي أفسدها الذوق الحديث، اختفاء الفوازير القديمة وإتاحة كل المعلومات على الإنترنت، تلك البهجة اختفت مع التطور.
كنت أرجو أن تقدم الرواية بشكل مختلف يليق حقًا بها وبفكرتها، لكن على كل حال أنا ممتنة لقراءتها حتى مع كل تلك العيوب.
تجربة سيئة مع دار صفصافة! على كلٍ لنتحدث عن "ترجمة الرواية القصيرة" وهي رواية شارك في ترجمتها عدد من طلاب كلية الألسن، فجاءت غريبة قليلًا، وفقدت روحها، رُبما سأعود لقراءة الرواية بالإنجليزية فإنها تستحق رُغم كل ما ذكرته.
جاءت الرواية ثقيلة، كتجربة أولى مع كاتبة ألمانية "جيني إيربينبيك"، في 95 صفحة سردت الكاتبة قصتها مع "الاختفاء" من هدم حضانة طفلها وتوديعه لشجرته المفضلة، للتأثيرات الروسية على الفتيات الألمانيات، تراجع كل شيء وانسحابه كالأخطبوط يسحب جميع أذرعه خلفه.
كل الأشياء كانت اختفت من عالم البطلة، قطعة الجبن الغالية التي اشترتها، جواربها، اختفاء الأشياء داخل حاويات إعادة التدوير، اختفاء الأشياء الثمينة "كخزانة أثرية"، تتساءل الكاتبة حول ماهية الجمال، وأين يذهب التاريخ والجمال عندما يتم إعادة تدوير تلك الأشياء الجميلة الأثرية، هل يصبح ذلك الجمال خفيفًا يتصاعد إلى السماء كالأرواح أم أين يذهب؟
إنها رواية عن معادلة الجمال والقبح، تحول الأشياء القيمة إلى أخرى لا معنى لها "الإحلال القبيح".
صراع الشخصية الألمانية، اختفاء اللطف، ميل البشر للانعزال رغم انتهاء حالة الحرب، ففي حالة الحرب كل شخص كان يهتم بنفسه فقط، محاولة توفير احتياجاته الأساسية، الجميع كان يتفهم هذا في وقت الحرب، نستطيع أن نتزاحم على الخبز في حالة الحرب وهذا منطقي، لكن حالة الحرب انتهت ليس هناك أي داعٍ للتزاحم على الخبز، معاملة الآخرين بجفاء، عدم الاعتذار عندما نخطئ، كل هذا عانت منه الكاتبة.
اقتباس: تختفي الأشياء عندما تُسلب منها وظيفتها.
اقتباس آخر: باختفاء الشيء يختفي التفكير فيه، والأفكار المتعلقة به، تختفي الفكرة إذا ما كان ذلك الشيء معبرًا عن ثراء أم فقر.
لقد توقفت الراوية أو البطلة عن تبادل هدايا الميلاد، حتى أغاني الميلاد المميزة تبدلت لأخرى جديدة غير مميزة.
اقتباس: اكتشفت لأول مرة أن كلمة اختفاء جوهر فعال، فهناك من يجلس بداخل هذه الكلمة، يعمل على إخفاء الأشياء التي أعرفها وأقدرها، يقضي عليها، يُخربها، يلعنها، يختلسها، يطردها، يفسدها.
كانت البطلة تنتقل بين الأماكن، تجمع جميع أشيائها، لا تترك أثرًا ورائها، لكن رُغم حرصها الدائم على حزم كل شيء إلا أن الأشياء لم تتوقف عن الاختفاء!
اختفاء الشباب، ظهور بقع تقدم السن، الوهن، المرض، الشيخوخة، اختفاء الأصدقاء وموتهم واحدًا تلو الآخر.
اقتباس: حياتنا تطول على نحو يفوق طاقتنا على تحمل الشيخوخة.
إن اختفاء المؤلف يعني موته أيضًا، المؤلفة رُبما تنعني نفسها، تنعي كل الأشياء التي أفسدها الذوق الحديث، اختفاء الفوازير القديمة وإتاحة كل المعلومات على الإنترنت، تلك البهجة اختفت مع التطور.
كنت أرجو أن تقدم الرواية بشكل مختلف يليق حقًا بها وبفكرتها، لكن على كل حال أنا ممتنة لقراءتها حتى مع كل تلك العيوب.
November 25, 2025
strong 3.5 - really well written and translated but fewer sticky, “stays with you” passages than i had hoped for going in
October 18, 2025
That although the disappearance has entered my body against my will, in retrospect it can be seen as nourishment, at least until I have had my fill. (24)
*
In any case, disappearance is surely no less powerful than love, but it remains astonishing that thin air can sometimes have just as much weight as something that is really there. (32)
*
For the first time, it strikes me that the word disappear has something active at its core, that there is a perpetrator in the word who makes things that I know and cherish disappear: Dismantle, discard, disband, disparage, discredit, disembowel, disuse. And the one who has all this on his conscience has also made my Splitterbrötchen disappear, he has disappeared it, he has taken something that I knew well, something that I loved to eat, and locked it out of all the bakeries (except two in Berlin-Mitte), he has driven it out, and now he's waiting until my memory of what a Splitterbrötchen should actually taste and look like has DISsipated and DISsolved. (58)
*
at first I was a bit wary about what I had gotten myself into, but then couldn’t get enough. my only criticism is that there needs to be MORE (or does there‽ since focused on disappearing things‽)
maybe more of a 4 star read for me, but bumping up as it hit hard in personal (& collective) ways… & might revisit this slim book, when ready (or not)…
*
In any case, disappearance is surely no less powerful than love, but it remains astonishing that thin air can sometimes have just as much weight as something that is really there. (32)
*
For the first time, it strikes me that the word disappear has something active at its core, that there is a perpetrator in the word who makes things that I know and cherish disappear: Dismantle, discard, disband, disparage, discredit, disembowel, disuse. And the one who has all this on his conscience has also made my Splitterbrötchen disappear, he has disappeared it, he has taken something that I knew well, something that I loved to eat, and locked it out of all the bakeries (except two in Berlin-Mitte), he has driven it out, and now he's waiting until my memory of what a Splitterbrötchen should actually taste and look like has DISsipated and DISsolved. (58)
*
at first I was a bit wary about what I had gotten myself into, but then couldn’t get enough. my only criticism is that there needs to be MORE (or does there‽ since focused on disappearing things‽)
maybe more of a 4 star read for me, but bumping up as it hit hard in personal (& collective) ways… & might revisit this slim book, when ready (or not)…
November 17, 2025
I read this tiny collection around the same time that I read Gospodinov’s Death and the Gardener and Tripier’s Our Precious Wars, both books that deal with loss and reflect, in their own way, on the memories of days gone by, the hazy remnants of which haunt the minds of the living, the gatekeepers who feel responsible for ensuring these glory days survive the relentless passing of time. All of that to say that Things That Disappear came to me at the right time, a time where I was able to read it in conversation with these other works and thus its message was made all the more impactful.
Erpenbeck’s short series of essays document a series of losses, personal, cultural, and societal. Of buildings erected in her youth and demolished decades later, of a favorite pastry turned unrecognizable in the hands of modern bakers looking to be creative, of household gadgets whose functions are rendered obsolete in the face of new inventions.
Its power is in its simplicity, its ability to evoke in the reader a universal sense of loss, even if it’s a loss they may never have personally experienced. It’s the kind of loss that you may not notice right away, that takes several years before you look around and realize just how much is changed.
A perfect book to spend the afternoon with.
Erpenbeck’s short series of essays document a series of losses, personal, cultural, and societal. Of buildings erected in her youth and demolished decades later, of a favorite pastry turned unrecognizable in the hands of modern bakers looking to be creative, of household gadgets whose functions are rendered obsolete in the face of new inventions.
Its power is in its simplicity, its ability to evoke in the reader a universal sense of loss, even if it’s a loss they may never have personally experienced. It’s the kind of loss that you may not notice right away, that takes several years before you look around and realize just how much is changed.
A perfect book to spend the afternoon with.
Read
October 14, 2025How does one go about demolishing a house? Where have our missing second socks ended up? . . . What about entire nations that have ceased to exist—where are they? Or, our family’s traditions when we no longer celebrate them? On youth, Erpenbeck writes, “. . . we’re taken by surprise when the years have slipped over us like a dress, and we think that actually, if we wanted to, we could take them off again. . .” We disappear from the places we’ve inhabited; the people we love disappear from us. In Kurt Beals’s delicate translation, Erpenbeck’s prose is compellingly earnest and solemn, and quite playful in moments, without ever straying toward over-sentimentality.
Full review on the Asymptote blog: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
Full review on the Asymptote blog: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
November 24, 2025
In all the novels I've read by Erpenbeck, her stories are laced with themes of time and time's effect on people, on places, on reality and expectation.
This slim volume in which she ponders the concepts of loss and removal, disappearance and appearance, time and it's concepts still underscore each vignette.
" but it remains astonishing that thin air can sometimes have just as much weight as something that is really there" speaks of absence
"We are only guests on earth" speaks of transcience
Chapter XVIII Houses speaks of the impermanence of lives and property versus the permanence of place
Of flying with the sun: "you could just as well say that we're hovering in the air at a speed of 905 kph, just letting the earth spin down below us until the city we're heading for eventually arrives"
Of obsolete objects: "Things disappear when they are deprived of their means of existence"
"whenever a thing disappears from everyday life, much more has disappeared than the thing itself"
She writes of the "floating landscape of time" as one well versed in the sudden all-change of life when her eastern Berlin world bring immediate and all encompassing change, as convincingly as she muses the slow, incremental loses and changes of our world moving on.
The tone changes from chapter to chapter from frustration to nostalgia, from bewilderment to pining, but there's a nugget of poignancy in each one.
I usually recommend leaving time between each chapter in collections such as these, but there's a through line here that might be too delicate to break. Less than 2 hours in total, it's easily a one sitting read.
This slim volume in which she ponders the concepts of loss and removal, disappearance and appearance, time and it's concepts still underscore each vignette.
" but it remains astonishing that thin air can sometimes have just as much weight as something that is really there" speaks of absence
"We are only guests on earth" speaks of transcience
Chapter XVIII Houses speaks of the impermanence of lives and property versus the permanence of place
Of flying with the sun: "you could just as well say that we're hovering in the air at a speed of 905 kph, just letting the earth spin down below us until the city we're heading for eventually arrives"
Of obsolete objects: "Things disappear when they are deprived of their means of existence"
"whenever a thing disappears from everyday life, much more has disappeared than the thing itself"
She writes of the "floating landscape of time" as one well versed in the sudden all-change of life when her eastern Berlin world bring immediate and all encompassing change, as convincingly as she muses the slow, incremental loses and changes of our world moving on.
The tone changes from chapter to chapter from frustration to nostalgia, from bewilderment to pining, but there's a nugget of poignancy in each one.
I usually recommend leaving time between each chapter in collections such as these, but there's a through line here that might be too delicate to break. Less than 2 hours in total, it's easily a one sitting read.
September 7, 2024
Die Autorin Jenny Erpenbeck nimmt uns mit auf eine Reise durch ihre Erinnerungen. Erinnerungen an Dinge, die es nicht mehr gibt. Ob es der Palast der Republik ist, bei dem sie sich an die Eröffnung und an den Abriss erinnern kann, an den Kindergarten, der aus finanziellen Gründen nicht mehr renoviert wurde und die Kinder aus der gewohnten und geliebten Umgebung gerissen wurden oder an ganz banale Dinge wie die Socken, die auf unerklärliche Weise immer wieder in ihrer Wohnung verschwinden... diese Dinge bringen sie zum Nachdenken. An jedem von ihnen hängt eine kleine oder größere Anekdote aus ihrem Leben. Sie stellt fest, dass zwar Dinge verschwinden können, aber nicht die Erinnerung daran.
Aber was passiert mit den Erinnerungen an Menschen? Bleiben sie immer gleich oder verändern sie sich über die Jahre, gerade weil diese Erinnerungen auch immer mit den Gefühlen der jeweiligen Person gegenüber verbunden sind. Wie erinnern wir uns an jemand im Lauf der Zeit?
Die Geschichten sind je nachdem, was verschwunden ist humorvoll oder nachdenklich, ironisch oder auch ein bisschen spitzzüngig. Was sie aber auch sind: sie sind sehr persönlich und erzählen mir auch viel über die Erzählerin. Das Buch ist sicherlich keine Biografie, aber ein interessanter Ausschnitt.
Aber was passiert mit den Erinnerungen an Menschen? Bleiben sie immer gleich oder verändern sie sich über die Jahre, gerade weil diese Erinnerungen auch immer mit den Gefühlen der jeweiligen Person gegenüber verbunden sind. Wie erinnern wir uns an jemand im Lauf der Zeit?
Die Geschichten sind je nachdem, was verschwunden ist humorvoll oder nachdenklich, ironisch oder auch ein bisschen spitzzüngig. Was sie aber auch sind: sie sind sehr persönlich und erzählen mir auch viel über die Erzählerin. Das Buch ist sicherlich keine Biografie, aber ein interessanter Ausschnitt.
November 11, 2025
buildings, friends, socks
Read
December 27, 2025review upcoming!!! love ms erpenbeck but i think this format does not serve her as well as her novellas or novels, which give her ideas space to breathe - in this fragmentary form she ends up didactic rather than elusive in that way i love.
“There's very little that I can touch, see, and hear with my memory anymore. The thoughts of someone who no longer exists can be translated into my thoughts, and the actions of that person into my actions, but the tangible part of those memories will probably fall to pieces sooner or later. When reality no longer grows back, it will become a skeleton, individual bones with a great deal of soil in between. Recently, it's often happened that I find myself sitting across from someone who's still perfectly alive, yet looking at him as if he had already disappeared.
At those moments, half hopeful, half ashamed, I pick out single frames of the film while it's still running, as if I could select my memories in advance and learn them by heart, so that I could be sure to recall them later. As for myself, I've already considered whether anyone will remember the way I blow my nose, or the way I watch a boxing match on TV, or my knees.”
“There's very little that I can touch, see, and hear with my memory anymore. The thoughts of someone who no longer exists can be translated into my thoughts, and the actions of that person into my actions, but the tangible part of those memories will probably fall to pieces sooner or later. When reality no longer grows back, it will become a skeleton, individual bones with a great deal of soil in between. Recently, it's often happened that I find myself sitting across from someone who's still perfectly alive, yet looking at him as if he had already disappeared.
At those moments, half hopeful, half ashamed, I pick out single frames of the film while it's still running, as if I could select my memories in advance and learn them by heart, so that I could be sure to recall them later. As for myself, I've already considered whether anyone will remember the way I blow my nose, or the way I watch a boxing match on TV, or my knees.”
February 1, 2026
Things That Disappear is a collection of essays about time, memory, and impermanence. Some of these pieces really hit and were beautiful, thoughtful, and memorable. Others felt a bit less fleshed out and didn’t quite land for me. Overall, it’s uneven but still a thought-provoking and enjoyable read, especially if you like reflective, quiet nonfiction.
October 31, 2025
“There’s so much to inherit these days, so many memories, it’s just too much to bear. We’ve been at peace for so long here that everything we have is cheap, but emptiness will soon be priceless.”
August 28, 2025
This slender collection of biographical vignettes is imbued with a melancholy sensibility that comes with living in a post-industrial state, worsened in tone from also being a former Soviet republic—East Germany—the promises of whose ideologies were incapable of providing its citizens with a decent standard of living, however one wants to define the term. Politics aside, there is the life once lived in a community, a community as prone to the vicissitudes of historical forces as any other, and the things, places, people, and events that shaped a social and personal life: nursery school, knickknacks from a former regime, cheese and socks, “drip catchers,” friends, and more.
Terse not elliptic, the narrative temperament of Erpenbeck’s nonfiction prose (beautifully rendered into English by Kurt Beals) has, like her fiction, a wry sense of loss not quite convinced of the improved state of being that was to come with progressive change.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
Terse not elliptic, the narrative temperament of Erpenbeck’s nonfiction prose (beautifully rendered into English by Kurt Beals) has, like her fiction, a wry sense of loss not quite convinced of the improved state of being that was to come with progressive change.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
Read
February 15, 2026A tiny little collection of exquisite autobiographical vignettes that really packs a punch. I'm glad this book wasn't longer, because I found it so emotionally powerful I'm not sure I could have taken much more.
Things that disappear, yes, things. But also people and places, meanings, and an entire world.
This is my third book by Erpenbeck and by far my favorite (although I also admired Visitation). It is "new" in that the translation into English was first published in 2025; the German book appeared in 2009.
Erpenbeck was born in 1967 and grew up in East Berlin; that means she was a young adult in 1989. This book combines a sort of "universal" (in scare quotes because much of what she and I share across continents and countries and languages feels universal to me, but of course nothing is) experience of loss with a very specific one tied to that East German personal history.
As a historian who spends her time trying to recreate the past and remember the forgotten (or remember the remembered somehow better or differently), I am all too familiar with the sensation of looking at my present and wondering what, if anything, will last. What will I be able to remember as I age? What of my life, my values, my self, will outlive me? Strangely narcissistic thoughts, but also I think quite common. I've often wishes I could trade in some of my memories for moments I can no longer recall but that I know were more important. Erpenbeck: "At those moments, half hopeful, half ashamed, I pick out single frames of the film while it's still running, as if I could select my memories in advance and learn them by heart, so that I could be sure to recall them later. As for myself, I've already considered whether anyone will remember the way I blow my nose, or the way I watch a boxing match on TV, or my knees" (8).
Both of my parents have died, twenty years apart, and for a long time I have held on to everything that they cherished, everything that they saved, because by virtue of it having survived their entire lives, it collected value and meaning. But recently I have started discarding things, discarding them en masse. The bill from my mother's hospital stay when I was born. A leaflet from my father's childhood summer camp in Canada. A stupid little story I wrote when I was about 7, and illustrated myself, but honestly it's not really that cute. Everything I throw out, I think, is a thing my poor children won't be forced to feel guilty about throwing out. Erpenbeck: "At they grew up, they slowly raised their heads above the legacies of their own families, grandmother's scraps of wool and fabric slipped off of them and into the donation pile, stacks of plates and cups from the postwar period were pushed aside and smashed, they crumpled the mountain of paper – father's letters, mother's rental contracts, their own notes from their school days - under their feet, flailing for air with both arms as if they were drowning. ... There's so much to inherit these days, so many memories, it's just too much to bear" (17).
I didn't grow up in East Germany, but you don't have to have had that experience to have a sense of it as the quintessential modern lost world. Especially East Berlin. Many of these little vignettes involve small items -- like a drip catcher bound to the spout of a coffee pot to protect tablecloths in a world in which things were not as immediately disposable and replaceable as they are in many places today. Perhaps someone reading this of my generation will share with me the experience of trying to explain the empty husk of an old phone booth to a child. This used to have a payphone. A payphone was a thing you could use to make a phone call when you weren't home. And then you can get into the whole story of planning to meet someone in a place, at a time, with no way of calling if someone missed a bus or a train, or entire ways of organizing your life so you could be home for an important phone call, so you could find someone in a foreign city. Whole strategies of existence, entire skillsets, shared by millions of people, now entirely irrelevant. Erpenbeck:
"Just as each thing, no matter how simple, contains within it all the knowledge of its time, just as everything you can't touch is contained in a spool of darning thread, for example; in the same way, whenever a thing disappears from everyday life, much more has disappeared than the thing itself – the way of thinking that goes with it has disappeared, and the way of feeling, the sense of what's appropriate and what's not, what you can afford and what's beyond your means" (46).
She seems particularly torn up about the way a pastry that used to be made one specific way in the old Berlin no longer is in the new Berlin. I have never had this pastry. She imagines a man, a pastry chef, whose new version of this old favorite has taken over the city: "now he's waiting until my memory of what a Splitterbrötchen shoudl actually taste and look like has DISsipated and DISsolved" (58).
And finally, an entire chapter (so to speak, it's 2 pages long, number XXVII, "A Better World") on being and writing, on being and not writing, on being while you could be should be writing: "Buy potting soil. Plant flowers. It's his birthday, it's her birthday, please pay the bill within 7 days, and a parking ticket, you can contest it, where's the school trip going, pick up a book, pick up photos, buy water. YOU'LL HAVE SOMETHING NEW FOR US TO READ SOON, RIGHT? Trash, laundry, dishes" (64).
But of course she still does write. 7 books and an International Booker Prize (among others).
Things that disappear, yes, things. But also people and places, meanings, and an entire world.
This is my third book by Erpenbeck and by far my favorite (although I also admired Visitation). It is "new" in that the translation into English was first published in 2025; the German book appeared in 2009.
Erpenbeck was born in 1967 and grew up in East Berlin; that means she was a young adult in 1989. This book combines a sort of "universal" (in scare quotes because much of what she and I share across continents and countries and languages feels universal to me, but of course nothing is) experience of loss with a very specific one tied to that East German personal history.
As a historian who spends her time trying to recreate the past and remember the forgotten (or remember the remembered somehow better or differently), I am all too familiar with the sensation of looking at my present and wondering what, if anything, will last. What will I be able to remember as I age? What of my life, my values, my self, will outlive me? Strangely narcissistic thoughts, but also I think quite common. I've often wishes I could trade in some of my memories for moments I can no longer recall but that I know were more important. Erpenbeck: "At those moments, half hopeful, half ashamed, I pick out single frames of the film while it's still running, as if I could select my memories in advance and learn them by heart, so that I could be sure to recall them later. As for myself, I've already considered whether anyone will remember the way I blow my nose, or the way I watch a boxing match on TV, or my knees" (8).
Both of my parents have died, twenty years apart, and for a long time I have held on to everything that they cherished, everything that they saved, because by virtue of it having survived their entire lives, it collected value and meaning. But recently I have started discarding things, discarding them en masse. The bill from my mother's hospital stay when I was born. A leaflet from my father's childhood summer camp in Canada. A stupid little story I wrote when I was about 7, and illustrated myself, but honestly it's not really that cute. Everything I throw out, I think, is a thing my poor children won't be forced to feel guilty about throwing out. Erpenbeck: "At they grew up, they slowly raised their heads above the legacies of their own families, grandmother's scraps of wool and fabric slipped off of them and into the donation pile, stacks of plates and cups from the postwar period were pushed aside and smashed, they crumpled the mountain of paper – father's letters, mother's rental contracts, their own notes from their school days - under their feet, flailing for air with both arms as if they were drowning. ... There's so much to inherit these days, so many memories, it's just too much to bear" (17).
I didn't grow up in East Germany, but you don't have to have had that experience to have a sense of it as the quintessential modern lost world. Especially East Berlin. Many of these little vignettes involve small items -- like a drip catcher bound to the spout of a coffee pot to protect tablecloths in a world in which things were not as immediately disposable and replaceable as they are in many places today. Perhaps someone reading this of my generation will share with me the experience of trying to explain the empty husk of an old phone booth to a child. This used to have a payphone. A payphone was a thing you could use to make a phone call when you weren't home. And then you can get into the whole story of planning to meet someone in a place, at a time, with no way of calling if someone missed a bus or a train, or entire ways of organizing your life so you could be home for an important phone call, so you could find someone in a foreign city. Whole strategies of existence, entire skillsets, shared by millions of people, now entirely irrelevant. Erpenbeck:
"Just as each thing, no matter how simple, contains within it all the knowledge of its time, just as everything you can't touch is contained in a spool of darning thread, for example; in the same way, whenever a thing disappears from everyday life, much more has disappeared than the thing itself – the way of thinking that goes with it has disappeared, and the way of feeling, the sense of what's appropriate and what's not, what you can afford and what's beyond your means" (46).
She seems particularly torn up about the way a pastry that used to be made one specific way in the old Berlin no longer is in the new Berlin. I have never had this pastry. She imagines a man, a pastry chef, whose new version of this old favorite has taken over the city: "now he's waiting until my memory of what a Splitterbrötchen shoudl actually taste and look like has DISsipated and DISsolved" (58).
And finally, an entire chapter (so to speak, it's 2 pages long, number XXVII, "A Better World") on being and writing, on being and not writing, on being while you could be should be writing: "Buy potting soil. Plant flowers. It's his birthday, it's her birthday, please pay the bill within 7 days, and a parking ticket, you can contest it, where's the school trip going, pick up a book, pick up photos, buy water. YOU'LL HAVE SOMETHING NEW FOR US TO READ SOON, RIGHT? Trash, laundry, dishes" (64).
But of course she still does write. 7 books and an International Booker Prize (among others).
May 27, 2013
Typisch Erpenbecker Stil! Ich mag ihn einfach!! Alles vergeht...Man soll sich damit abfinden...Jeder auf seine eigene Weise!
December 29, 2025
Intriguing. I was referred to this book by prolific Booktuber and writer, Jack Edwards. The essays were esoteric, layered, short and plentiful. It felt very Nordic and it had that Nordic je ne sais quoi. It was enjoyable tho.
Some of my favourite quotes:
Some of my favourite quotes:
”Just as each thing, no matter how simple, contains within it all the knowledge of its time, just as everything you can’t touch is contained in a spool of darning thread, for example; in the same way, whenever a thing disappears from everyday life, much more has disappeared than the thing itself—the way of thinking that goes with it has disappeared, and the way of feeling, the sense of what’s appropriate and what’s not, what you can afford and what’s beyond your means.” - 65%, from the essay: Drip Catchers, Jenny Erpenbeck
“At a certain point in the course of time, there is a sudden bang, and the year that has been called the present for an entire year disappears from the present and turns into the past, from one second to the next. In that second, I think of the second a year ago when the year before that year turned into the past, and I wonder what will happen in another year’s time, when the span of time that has just slipped into the window of the present, the time we refer to by the number 2008, for example, falls out of that window again and into the hole in time that we call New Year’s Eve.” - 76%, from the essay: Years, Jenny Erpenbeck
“The other question that inevitably occurs to me each time something disappears is whether anything was there to begin with—and if so, what. In the case of a friendship, for example, which is invisible from the start, it may be that the bond whose disappearance I mourn was only an appearance anyway, that in essence there were just two lonely sets of the most eclectic odds and ends that intersected for a while and are now drifting apart again.” - 35%, from the essay: Friend, Jenny Erpenbeck
February 1, 2026
“The other day I bought some cheese, a particularly expensive piece of cheese, I cut myself a slice while I was standing in front of the refrigerator, and it tasted very good.”
I read each essay in this slim, uncategorizable book with a vigor that’s difficult to describe. It’s tender, disorienting, quietly hilarious—yet it reaches a self-argumentative, philosophically sharp significance that far transcends its wryly straightforward surface. Incidentally, Erpenbeck reminded me how much I love buchteln, and “Words” was a standout entry for me. Simply cheeky.
I read each essay in this slim, uncategorizable book with a vigor that’s difficult to describe. It’s tender, disorienting, quietly hilarious—yet it reaches a self-argumentative, philosophically sharp significance that far transcends its wryly straightforward surface. Incidentally, Erpenbeck reminded me how much I love buchteln, and “Words” was a standout entry for me. Simply cheeky.
February 11, 2026
forgot to log this woops. overall i liked the read! i thought more moments/lines would stick with me but maybe it's a translation thing. suppose i'll have to endeavor to read it in German one day. it's certainly an intriguing perspective on life in pre and post unification Berlin and I enjoyed the various ways Erpenbeck chose to present her musings. made me think about things in my life that perhaps only exist in my memory which bugged me so much i had to write a journal entry about it (a rare occurrence for me!). wanna give it like a 3.75 but i'll round her up to a 4.
February 1, 2026
3.5 ⭐️
I had hoped for something a little deeper, while some of the chapters spoke straight to the heart others where more shallow.
The gift of connecting within a few short pages was definitely there but I had hoped it would be with the entire book.
The reflections in each chapter were very short and I wonder if it may have been better to sit and take in each one more slowly rather than read one after another as I feel some of it was forgettable (oh the irony!)
I had hoped for something a little deeper, while some of the chapters spoke straight to the heart others where more shallow.
The gift of connecting within a few short pages was definitely there but I had hoped it would be with the entire book.
The reflections in each chapter were very short and I wonder if it may have been better to sit and take in each one more slowly rather than read one after another as I feel some of it was forgettable (oh the irony!)
April 6, 2025
Großartiges Büchlein mit einer sprachlich abwechslungsreichen und virtuosen Sammlung an kurzen Texten zu einer Vielzahl von zum Titel passenden Phänomenen!
Es ist geistreich und witzig und manchmal auch bittersüß wie das Leben, gleichzeitig überzeitlich und doch historisch konkret durch die Lebenserfahrung der Autorin, als 1967 in Ost-Berlin geborene.
S.64: „Die Dinge verschwinden, wenn ihnen die Existenzgrundlage entzogen wird, so als hätten auch sie einen Hunger, der gestillt werden muss.“
Es ist geistreich und witzig und manchmal auch bittersüß wie das Leben, gleichzeitig überzeitlich und doch historisch konkret durch die Lebenserfahrung der Autorin, als 1967 in Ost-Berlin geborene.
S.64: „Die Dinge verschwinden, wenn ihnen die Existenzgrundlage entzogen wird, so als hätten auch sie einen Hunger, der gestillt werden muss.“
October 25, 2025
Ein kurzes Brainstorming mit kleinen Gedanken-Portionen zu Dingen, die verschwinden. Blicke auf Berlin, philosophische Annäherungen zum Verschwinden und humorvolle Anekdoten. Dem Thema geschuldet rutscht es aber oft sehr ins Nostalgische.
December 26, 2025
This is my first read of Jenny Erpenbeck.
The book is a crucial ranting on disappearance, be it people, materialistic or realistic things, which streams to small chapters emphasizing the reflections of the writer on a personal note.
Three ways to define this book :
Great writing, poignant and thoughts to ponder upon.
The book is a crucial ranting on disappearance, be it people, materialistic or realistic things, which streams to small chapters emphasizing the reflections of the writer on a personal note.
Three ways to define this book :
Great writing, poignant and thoughts to ponder upon.
December 31, 2025
Liked the essays about socks and graveyards did not like the essays abt memory of nazism
Read
February 9, 2026A slim book that quietly captures the sense of loss, even for things you may not have lost yourself
January 10, 2026
This is exactly my jam. It's meditative, emotional, and zooms in on the minutiae of life. Following Kairos, this solidifies Erpenbeck as an auto-read author for me.
February 4, 2026
Memory works in a very unfamiliar yet familiar way and this exact phenomenon is discussed in this novel with beauty. Whenever I am reading and end up coming across a thought or a feeling that I have felt before, that book becomes instantly close to my heart and this book is filled with such endearing yet scary moments.
Endearing cause it makes me feel connected to the author and scary cause it feels like we are all connected with this bond of emotions which are the same yet so different.
Endearing cause it makes me feel connected to the author and scary cause it feels like we are all connected with this bond of emotions which are the same yet so different.
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