A review by rara2018
Human Acts by Han Kang

5.0

There’s bad historical fiction, there’s good historical fiction, and then there’s this book. I’ve had this sitting on my shelf for months ever since I saw the spine at the library and liked the title and ginkgo leaves, but for some reason I was convinced I wasn’t going to enjoy it and have been avoiding reading it since I first checked it out. Despite my initial misgivings, I was hooked from the introduction itself. From looking at other reviews, it seems like people really did not enjoy the first full chapter being told from the second person, but, in my opinion, there was no better way to immediately connect the reader to this story about a boy and the people who knew him. The story was gruesome and disgusting and honestly quite difficult to read at times, but it also felt so important and moving. Nothing here was told for shock value, and it very much felt like real people coming to terms with their stories. The second chapter, told from the boy’s friend’s soul was beautiful and unexpected. It was immediately followed up with Eun-Sook’s frustration with the world returning to normal when nothing will ever be normal again and her continued abuse from the same system that killed hundreds, though this time using a different arm. The Prisoner chapter continued the theme of a struggle to return to normalcy after such horrific trauma and struggling with moving forward again as a person. One of my favorite chapters was The Factory Girl, which explored the connections between class and gender and the power of protesting, which connected so intricately with the mother’s chapter, grieving her son’s death by continuing to be loud and keeping the memory of those who were lost alive. It was the final chapter, however, that really drove the story home. I had never heard of the Gwangju Uprising before opening this book, and you can tell Han Kang’s personal connection with the story was what really made it such an impactful book. The book made me physically sick to my stomach, but I couldn’t have read it at a more poignant time. The translation was also really excellent (in my non-Korean speaking opinion). My thoughts here are definitely scattered since I’m still processing what I just read, but this will be something worth revisiting in the future, and I’m looking forward to exploring more of Han Kang’s bibliography.