Greek Lessons A Novel
Reviews
I would have given up after a few chapters but I read so many high praises I kept going. To understand. I wasn’t moved by what the characters are put through, I just felt emotionally manipulated. Like in a soap opera, except the style is restrained.
one of the things i enjoy most about Han Kang's writing is the philosophical lens that she brings to each story. in this book, we examine language and the variety of ways in which people communicate through these two main characters - one of who is mute and the other who is losing their sight. while the writing was stunning and the topic compelling, i felt a bit detached from the characters themselves. there's a bit of a haze that prevented me from fully understanding what was happening each chapter, i had to re-read paragraphs to grasp what was going on or who's POV we were in.
the unbearable weight of language.
one of those books that makes me incredibly sad i can only read a translation of. made me think of language and semiotics in a way I probably hadn't done since college.
This book feels like winter–like how I wished I had the patience to endure everything.
quite confusing, i thought i'd like it more
initially found it hard to follow the physical text so switching to the audiobook version really helped and made it more enjoyable for me.
each ordinary word is so packed with sorrow :”) language — in whatever form — is so important
Disclaimer: this is not a review.
Stuffed air and wrong time wrong place for this one.
This is so good. Writing that is so breath taking, supple and full, you can taste the despair. Beautiful.
i have never read anything more mutely intimate. not even close. this book transcends all my previous understanding on language beyonds my comprehension. a very tender whisper on the human connection and body language. kang's ethereal way with words and proses, knotted beautifully with a thorough and clear (yet so outworldly) translation, i found beauty and serenity in between each of its words.
I’m a sucker for linguistics and it was fun to read and the writing style is incredible however it leaves you with the feeling of incompleteness. Maybe that’s how it was supposed to be
han kang's ability to weave intimacy without words but memory. the work to remember past tragedy and future dread is painful at every waking moment.
A last minute contender for my favourite read this year (Angela Carter's grip on me is just too strong).
Originally, I did not have any intention to read "Greek Lessons" - frankly, Han Kang's work is severly underpromoted in the UK. But a friend on Tumblr posted excerpts from the book as they were reading it and the prose was so captivating, it immediately went on my Kindle (even if I would not pick it up from the library for some time after).
And that first impression holds. The novel is incredibly beautiful, lyrical - and poignant. It is a meditation on loss and separation with language as an expression of the idea of connection and disconnect. It is an idea that is both at the forefront of the novel and that is tenderly woven into its fabric; it is a great mastery of the craft to achieve this.
Somehow, this book outsold “The Vegetarian” for me - if that is even possible. It is so full of yearning and sorrow and unlikely connection and unspeakable feelings. I found it to be more accessible than Kang’s other works, but it still pushed the boundaries of my mind and make me work to understand. Such gorgeously written prose in a structure that feels entirely singular to Kang. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much time studying semiotics & language, but this story hit me full force and will likely live at the bottom of my stomach, full of all it’s yearning & imagery, for weeks to come.
Highlights
Why had I been such a fool when it came to loving you? My love for you wasn't foolish, but I was; had my own innate foolishness made love itself foolish?
To her, there was no touch as instantaneous and intuitive as the gaze. It was close to being the only way of touching without touch.
If snow is the silence that falls from the sky, perhaps rain is an endless sentence.
That when the most frail, tender, forlon parts of us, that is to say our life-breaths, are at some point returned to the world of matter, we will receive nothing in recompense. [...] And that there is no complete thing, ever. At least in this world.
Scribbled directly below a sentence by Borges, The world is an illusion, and living is dreaming, it read: How is that dream so vivid? How does blood flow and hot tears gush forth?
She no longer thought in language. She moved without language and understood without language — as it had been before she learned to speak, no, before she obtained life, silence, absorbing the flow of time like balls of cotton, enveloped her body both outside and in.
She'd chosen this place many years ago, on the ground floor so her son could play freely. But he had shown no desire to stamp his feet or run about. When she told him it was okay to use the skipping rope in the living room, he asked, 'But won't it be noisy for the worms and snails?'
To put it simply, there are no Forms in the sub zero world. There has to be light, no matter however faint.
Why, then, isn’t the human soul, which is analogous to such things, ruined by its foolish, bad attributes?
It was around then that I realized for the first time that falling in love is like being haunted. Even before I opened my eyes in the morning, you would slip in under my eyelids.
“The world is an illusion, and living is dreaming,” I muttered. Yet blood runs and tears gush forth.
If only she’d made a map of the route her tears used to take.
If only she’d used a needle to engrave pinpricks, or even just traces of blood, over the route where the words used to flow.
But, she mutters, from a place deeper than tongue and throat, that was too terrible a route.