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A review by danielles_reads
Human Acts by Han Kang
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
After you died I could not hold a funeral,
And so my life became a funeral.
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".
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.
Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, and Murder