Scan barcode
A review by sebby_reads
Human Acts by Han Kang
4.0
“Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves the single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, slaughtered - is this the essential of humankind, one which history has confirmed as inevitable?”
A story based on Gwangju Massacre, the horrendous event in a South Korean city where a group of student protesters were gunned down and beaten by the government forces in the 80s. Many were left dead in the streets and a pile of corpses were left unburied. The bodies were stowed in the hall of a provincial office and when the bodies grew too many, they were moved to the school gymnasium, and there, a boy named Dong-ho looked for the corpse of his best friend. His story—The Boy—is the first section and the book covered six more stories of the victims of Gwangju including the heartbreaking story from the point of view of the boy’s friend, the mother of a dead boy, an editor trapped under censorship, a prisoner, and the story of the writer.
It took me weeks to finish the first section as it was impossible for me to continue reading it after some violent scenes. They were written in abhorrent detail and the translation is so vivid, too. Deborah Smith’s translation work on this heart shattering story was totally brilliant. (I obviously couldn’t not use the word ‘beautiful’ for its incredibly sad story.) Han Kang immersed herself so much in these stories and events. (She was only 9 years old when Gwangju Uprising occurred.) She immaculately portrayed how human can sometimes be so cruel that you disgust yourself for being one of that same loathsome species.
A story based on Gwangju Massacre, the horrendous event in a South Korean city where a group of student protesters were gunned down and beaten by the government forces in the 80s. Many were left dead in the streets and a pile of corpses were left unburied. The bodies were stowed in the hall of a provincial office and when the bodies grew too many, they were moved to the school gymnasium, and there, a boy named Dong-ho looked for the corpse of his best friend. His story—The Boy—is the first section and the book covered six more stories of the victims of Gwangju including the heartbreaking story from the point of view of the boy’s friend, the mother of a dead boy, an editor trapped under censorship, a prisoner, and the story of the writer.
It took me weeks to finish the first section as it was impossible for me to continue reading it after some violent scenes. They were written in abhorrent detail and the translation is so vivid, too. Deborah Smith’s translation work on this heart shattering story was totally brilliant. (I obviously couldn’t not use the word ‘beautiful’ for its incredibly sad story.) Han Kang immersed herself so much in these stories and events. (She was only 9 years old when Gwangju Uprising occurred.) She immaculately portrayed how human can sometimes be so cruel that you disgust yourself for being one of that same loathsome species.