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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
So beautifully written, capturing a painful time in South Korean history and its lingering effects spanning generations.
I did sometimes struggle to keep track of the different characters and interwoven timelines.
I did sometimes struggle to keep track of the different characters and interwoven timelines.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
sad
medium-paced
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
it surprises me that i knew nothing about this
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
This is my third Han Kang book and even though each one has been rather different, they’ve all shown her prowess in such a unique way. This one is a dark account of a true massacre that happened in Gwangju, South Korea, and both the Introduction by the translator and the Epilogue really helped get a good understanding of the true events. However, the second chapter titled “The Boy’s Friend, 1980” was so spectacularly written and emotionally impactful that I will be continually thinking about it for a long time.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
This book was phenomenal. It took an extended break to finish this novel, but I'm glad I finished it. It feels incredibly relevant in current times with the rise of fascism and anti-intellectualism. It gives a lot of insight into different ways that people deal with the trauma of having their government raise its weapons at them. This book made me cry like a mf, but I also feel empowered by the many young students who risked and lost their lives in the name of true democracy. All freedoms have been fought for by people who were willing to die for our future. I hope this text emboldens people to defend our communities and resist the overthrow of our nations. Die on our feet than live on our knees.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Violence, Police brutality, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Suicide
In Gwangju, I visited the 5.18 자유공원 “Freedom Park,” the site of the army barracks where political prisoners - many of them college and high school students - of the Gwangju Uprisings were held and tortured. The buildings still stand today, converted into a shoddy museum filled with haunting art and images from the revolutionary movement. The site is filled with life-sized depictions of the torture, statues of boys being stripped naked and beaten and humiliated in ways I could never have imagined.
Human Acts is incredibly raw and personal and well-researched, and reading it with the knowledge of having stood in these halls just days earlier and with the visuals of the torture and killings Han Kang evokes so fresh in my mind made this an especially haunting experience.
In her epilogue, Han Kang recalls witnessing the 2009 Yongsan Tragedy on the news, in which five tenants protesting their eviction were killed in a police raid, and thinking, “But this is Gwangju.” While I was in Gwangju I found myself thinking over and over again, “But this is Palestine.” Scenes of political prisoners being tortured and starved and children shot senselessly in the streets felt hauntingly familiar to the images from Palestine we’ve all bore witness to over the past several years. They say Gwangju was like an island, isolated so severely so that no domestic reporters could spread news of the massacre and incite further protests. I can’t stop thinking of the youth and children who martyred themselves with the small comfort that this story would be told and that history would remember them. What does it mean to bear witness to massacre after massacre? There is so much hope, too in this story of unimaginable horror. Every act of imperialist violence is Gwangju. Every act of resistance is Gaza.
I feel forever changed after reading this book and visiting Gwangju. This moment has reached into my sense of humanity and twisted and challenged it in ways I never knew possible. This book is a bullet and a monument.
Human Acts is incredibly raw and personal and well-researched, and reading it with the knowledge of having stood in these halls just days earlier and with the visuals of the torture and killings Han Kang evokes so fresh in my mind made this an especially haunting experience.
In her epilogue, Han Kang recalls witnessing the 2009 Yongsan Tragedy on the news, in which five tenants protesting their eviction were killed in a police raid, and thinking, “But this is Gwangju.” While I was in Gwangju I found myself thinking over and over again, “But this is Palestine.” Scenes of political prisoners being tortured and starved and children shot senselessly in the streets felt hauntingly familiar to the images from Palestine we’ve all bore witness to over the past several years. They say Gwangju was like an island, isolated so severely so that no domestic reporters could spread news of the massacre and incite further protests. I can’t stop thinking of the youth and children who martyred themselves with the small comfort that this story would be told and that history would remember them. What does it mean to bear witness to massacre after massacre? There is so much hope, too in this story of unimaginable horror. Every act of imperialist violence is Gwangju. Every act of resistance is Gaza.
I feel forever changed after reading this book and visiting Gwangju. This moment has reached into my sense of humanity and twisted and challenged it in ways I never knew possible. This book is a bullet and a monument.