Reviews with content warning for Murder - Human Acts

Damn, this book!

I didn't necessarily enjoy reading this, but I'm seriously impressed. This is the type of book that is so depressing and brutal that it was difficult for me to make myself pick it up and continue. I'm not a huge mood reader normally, but I felt like I had to read a more lighthearted book at the same time to get through this! However, while I was reading, I was completely absorbed.

Han Kang took a historical event where the government brutalized its own people, and showed us its lasting impacts on both the murdered and the survivors. This book is so important to read just for that alone. But Kang (along with the translator, Deborah Smith) also created a hauntingly beautiful story that's hard to look away from.

My favorite chapters were "The Boy's Friend" and "The Boy's Mother".

Seeing Jeong-dae narrate the experience of his body after death, and how he so badly wanted to connect with the other souls nearby him while the soldiers still alive threw around their bodies like trash, was so heartbreaking. I suppose this would be considered magical realism, and I think it was utilized to a truly strong effect! And I could really feel for Dong-ho's mother in her chapter, and her eternal guilt and hopelessness. Her holding the banner and screaming on top of the hospital made me cry. Chun Doo-hwan, you murdered my son. Let's tear that bloodthirsty butcher to pieces.

And then seeing all the chapters come together with "The Writer" was fantastic. The true scale of the devastation of the Gwanju Uprising is hard to comprehend, but this book showed us a tiny piece.

I'm finding it difficult to express the strengths of this book, so I'll end with the fact that I'm really glad I read this. I just need to detox with happier books now.

DOWN WITH THE BUTCHER CHUN DOO-HWAN.
Those words feel seared onto her chest as she gazes up now at the photograph of the president hung on the plaster wall. How is it, she wonders, that a face can so effectively conceal what lies behind it? How is it not indelibly marked by such callousness, brutality, murderousness?

It was also strange to see the Taegukgi, the national flag, being spread over each coffin and tied tightly in place. Why would you sing the national anthem for people who'd been killed by soldiers? Why cover the coffin with the Taegukgi? As though it wasn't the nation itself that had murdered them.

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rockin_robyn's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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rarasreads's review against another edition

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4.0

This was a gut wrenching, visceral collection of interlinked short stories about different individuals who are connected to a young boy and their harrowing experiences in 1980s South Korea. By far, “The Boy’s Mother” was my favorite chapter with its emotive description and sorrow that one can feel emanating from the pages.

Prior to reading this book, I had little to no knowledge on the Gwangju Uprising so I appreciated learning more about this historically tragic event. I felt that the epilogue was also a nice addition to the story as it appears to be a nonfiction account of the author’s own motivation, thought process, and efforts undertaken to research Dong-Ho’s life to thus share it with the world.

This was not an easy read and contains some graphic descriptions of violence, although it serves the purpose of Kang’s writing here - to showcase the pain and suffering that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other.

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sugarloaded's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This was my third Han Kang book (I had read The Vegetarian last year and Greek Lessons a couple of months ago). Han Kang writes magnificently. This is definitely a book that will stay with me. Really heavy on a lot of triggering topics. Please tread carefully.

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