We do not part
[Goodreads Review] (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8270355575)
Han Kang is a nobel prize winner for literature and so I thought this would be a good place to start to see what the fuss is about. I have to say, this book really did not do it for me in terms of how the main theme was about war, and female friendship, and abuse and the line between reality and non-reality.
There’s quite a bit to grapple, and the author’s writing style is quite gripping. The descriptions were all incredibly vivid and I can see exactly why she would win the nobel prize for literature. The main thrust of the story however, is reliving a massacre that was relevant in Korea’s history, that of the Jeju island Uprising, where 10 percent of the island’s population was massacred and a similar amount escaped to Japan. As with a lot of unhappy events that happened during this time, the event was censored for many years and only in the early 2000s was brought to greater light.
The story is then told in the protagonist having to go to Jeju island to help out an old coworker, who has almost amputated her arm in a work accident. You slowly find out the history between the protagonist and the old coworker who were collaborating on an art/documentary piece about the Jeju massacre and you slowly piece together bits and parts from a flashback.
There are some weirdness that happens as its the heart of winter and there’s no power, and you have to wonder how much of what you’re reading is real, or is the protagonist having lucid dreams while in the throes of dying.
At the end of the book, you don’t get a lot of clarity about whats real and whats not real, but you WILL know a lot about the Jeju island massacre.
I treat it as a sort of historical fiction and that’s really not my thing. I’ll try another of Han Kang’s book in a year or so to see if the other books are as gorgeously vivid, but maybe on a topic that I’ll have more interest in.
mild recommend.