Tag: #southkorea

We Do Not Part

📍South Korea 🇰🇷

When Han Kang writes you dissolve and absolve; you assimilate and disintegrate; you discombobulate, yet transcend and transform. She writes so that we can feel the pain; she writes so that we can be bruised; she writes so that we can be healed. Her literature is enigmatic; brimming with incomprehensible and incongruent complexities which when mulled over reverberates, retaliates and reveals its naïveté and nuance. We Do Not Part is a summation of Kang’s ingenuity and humility in harnessing language to create a story that is literally haunting and sublime in equal measure.

Kyungha is having a miserable time bracing the sweltering heat of Seoul. She is simultaneously questioning her life’s choices and purpose, whilst being a recluse and starving herself. She reminisces and contemplates the changing dynamics of her relationship with her friend Inseon, a former documentarian, who now resides in Jeju island working as a carpenter and having her own studio. As the blistering summer gives way to chilly winter, Kyungha receives a frantic call from Inseon who is now hospitalised in Seoul following an accident. When Kyungha goes to visit her, learns about her medical predicament and observes the gruesome treatment being carried out; Inseon requests her to go to her home in Jeju island to feed her bird who has now been without any food or water since Inseon’s admission, hence could die anytime. Kyungha reluctantly proceeds on this arduous journey to Jeju in the midst of a severe blizzard probably thinking that saving the bird is her purpose. The blizzard is so extreme and violent that travel and communication become a nightmare. As Kyungha trudges through snow covered lonesome and terrifying terrain, enveloped in biting cold and formidable darkness, she falls, gets hurt, loses consciousness, wonders about an impending frostbite, and finally reaches Inseon’s house, only to find the bird dead.

With the relentless snowstorm and an ominous tenebrosity, Kyungha tries to make sense of her onerous journey while feeling marooned and helpless. Suddenly she finds Inseon in the house and it appears to her as if Inseon had been here all the while. As she is examining the impossibility of the current moment, and the possibility of her death, and all this being a subconscious spectacle or an apparition trick being played by her dying mind; Inseon starts narrating her story, why Jeju is so close to her heart and why has she chosen to be here despite it being far away from the mainland. She then recounts the horrendous Jeju massacre of 1948 through newspaper articles and old photographs wherein 30000 islanders were killed. Inseon highlights her mother, Jeongsim’s fight for justice who pressurises the authorities for an investigation, mobilises the aggrieved communities together to start a movement for identifying the victims that were killed and buried. Through this exercise, her mother hoped to heal her own loss that she and her family endured during the massacre and expected closure to an ambivalent grief. 

The three protagonists are the most unassuming, ordinary women who are weak and apathetic in many mundane scenarios but assuming stoicism and steely grit in extraordinary circumstances. Kyungha’s unwavering determination to reach Inseon’s house as she wades through knee deep snow in a no mans land, is of epic proportions. Inseon through her craft and values wants people to know the anguish her family and the islanders at large suffered in the massacre. Inseon’s mother, who becomes a postmemory in the narrative, embodies vulnerability in all its glory. She shows how vulnerability is a strength to reckon with. She demonstrates perseverance in the most punitive of circumstances. But the beauty of Han Kang’s three women, is their willingness and ability to confront cataclysm and catastrophe singularly, hence bringing plurality to the multidimensional multiverse that is womanhood. There are two other unlikely characters in the book; snow and flame. For the greater part of the book, the sinister snow keeps the characters and the readers almost in a chokehold. It’s merciless, icy, unyielding that is meant to suffocate. Then there’s flame, who is trying to provide a respite from the foreboding, yet the shadows that it brings in its wake intermingle with the prevailing doom. 

We Do Not Part is a shapeshifter. Scorching, sultry Seoul shifts into arctic Jeju. The narrative voice keeps shifting from Kyungha and Inseon; the women themselves shift from torpidity to vitality, from aggression to acquiescence. The story shifts between life and death effortlessly. Han Kang begins the story languidly, suddenly making it breathless and claustrophobic and decelerates just for a moment before introducing us to the historical carnage that ripped apart people and a peninsula. She wants us to gasp, squirm, question and feel uncomfortable. This is literature that is porous to humanity’s evils, disregards pragmatism and polity, and intends to induce a paralysis of hope. 

The Jeju massacre started as an uprising on Jeju island in April 1948 till May 1949. In the aftermath of World War Two, the newly liberated Korean Peninsula was emerging from Japanese colonisation (1910-1945), and Koreans were determined to develop a unified nation. Three months after the Japanese were ousted, a new occupying force, the USA, arrived on Jeju. On Jeju, opposition to a divided Korea was strong. At the heart of the incident was widespread opposition to US supported election that would create a separate Korean government in the south, dividing it from the north. The US was concerned about Jeju becoming a “red island”.  The left wing groups were crushed, police brutality increased leading to a thirst of vengeance among police, military and people’s committees on both the left and the right. What followed was violence, deaths, displacement and destruction of some 300 villages. Some of Jeju’s most popular tourist attractions today were the site of civilian massacres. Ultimately, a south only government was formed, the Republic of Korea, headed by US backed President. The fallout of this was the Korean War from 1950-53 between North Korea and South Korea that ended up having 3 million civilian deaths and 2 million civilian casualties.

We Do Not Part is a necessity as it exposes a forgotten, rather undisclosed part of history. e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris have done the herculean task of translating Kang’s intricate and devastating prose from Korean to English. History has always been written by people in power. Majority of the history that we have been made to know is essentially a history that is whitewashed, with little to no reference of the colonised people and the atrocities committed to them, and it’s a history that forever exonerates the colonisers. Han Kang has taken the reigns to enlighten us about her Korean history as it happened and is demanding answers. Her prose shows us how memory outlasts violence. Sometimes, literature is supposed to trigger, to shame and to call out the so called powerful for their inherent perfidiousness. Kang’s literature does that. 

~ JUST A GAY BOY. ✨

Whale

đź“Ť South Korea 🇰🇷 

Geumbok is an extraordinarily fierce and courageous woman who is set out to expand her life, to bring enormity in all its glory and forms into her life, so that she can regale in its obscenity. As a child, she sees a whale and gets enamoured by it. The whale becomes an inspiration for her to dream big, to pursue and achieve impossible things, especially things that are deemed undoable by a woman. She runs away from her small village, comes to the Wharf, meets the fishmonger with whom she starts a fish drying business. There she encounters Geokjeong, falls in love with him, marries him and later realises his stupidity and inherent violent tendencies. Catastrophes befall her in continuum that leads her to a nondescript village, Pyeongdae. Here, she becomes the talk of the town, builds a cafe, starts a brick making business and opens a movie theatre designed as a whale. She becomes rich, arrogant and doesn’t predict the unfortunate destiny that is awaiting her, which true be told, had always been encircling her.

Chunhui, is Geumbok’s mute daughter, forgotten by the mother and the people around her. It’s her enormous size that gets people’s attention but soon their interest wades away because of her inability to communicate and comprehend. But she does possess a magical ability to talk to elephants and Jumbo becomes her only confidante. She learns to make bricks, adores daisy fleabanes and forever wonders why the world is the way it is. She becomes a suspect in a disaster that destroys Pyeongdae, gets incarcerated, undergoes unimaginable torture in the prison and is released after many years. She goes back to the ramshackle city only to find it in ruins. She then goes on to lead an absolutely lonely, marooned life making bricks.

There are hoards of interesting characters in the book like the one eyed woman, the old crone, the twins, Mun, Ladybug etc who bring their own whimsy, quirks and terror to the narrative. Pathos and grief await at every turn for all of these characters. Despondency and mayhem form the hallmarks of the plot. However, despite the grotesque events that make you squirm and your skin crawl, the ingenuity of the writing is such that it succeeds in keeping you hooked. 

Whale, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, is a story like no other. Even if I try my best, I wouldn’t be able to classify its genre or its style. To say it is unique would be a literary disservice. It’s a story that has history, folklore, magical realism, dark humour and feminism. The narrative for two thirds of the book is fast paced while the remaining third assumes a relaxed tone. The words are full of vivid imagery. They convey innocence, violence, hatred, longing, iniquity and doom. At the same time they also bring about revulsion by depicting bodily fluids, diseases and putrefaction. Sex finds liberal mention through the pages and the author doesn’t shy away from being graphic, problematic and harsh about it.

Geumbok’s character is one that is going to stay with me for a long time. She is multilayered, multifaceted and multitalented. She’s sexual and owns her sexuality. She resists every patriarchal norm and challenges everyone’s, including the readers, innate prejudices and chauvinism through her beguilingly subtle and brutally grandiose ways. She represents liberality and makes us question stereotypes. She’s selfish in her wants, selfless about her prowess. She’s flawed, witty, promiscuous, odious,mysterious and extremely narcissistic. There’s no one like Geumbok.

Though Geumbok grabs our attention, Chunhui asserts her presence with her silence. In silence, she finds her strength too. She epitomises resilience and perseverance. Often times, characters like Chunhui dont find mention in books and media, let alone be the protagonist, but in this book, the author has projected the boredom and mundanity of Chunhui to be purposeful leading to an awe inspiring but lugubrious climax. 

The author, Cheon Myeong-kwan, is a South Korean author, screenwriter and film director. This book has been translated into English by Chi-Young Kim who has done an incredible job in translating this phenomenal piece of Korean literature. Whale comes across as an astonishing feminist literature where women drive the story and men play second fiddle to them. Feminism, in this book doesn’t make men hapless and victimised, rather it asserts itself as being deliberately provocative and intentional. There’s three more things that enrapture the narrative; fishes and their fishy smell, bricks and daisy fleabanes.

Read Whale. Today!

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🤓

Greek Lessons

đź“Ť South Korea 🇰🇷 

A woman is losing her ability to speak, for the second time in her life. A man is losing his vision. He is a teacher taking evening classes of Ancient Greek in Seoul. She is his student, wanting to learn a new language, hoping that, it would somehow help her speak. 

The woman, whose story is narrated in the third person, is bereaving her mother and is simultaneously fighting for the custody of her son. She feels devastated and defeated by death and separation. She overflows with rage and rancour that consume her. She is subsumed with an overwhelming sense of love which at the moment seems uncertain and unwanted even. The man, who is narrating his own story, is trying his best to acclimatise himself to Seoul after having moved from Germany. His anguish over his past strained relationships, strains his ability to adjust to his present situation. His loneliness, his longing for a city and people that are no longer present become the fodder for his lamentations on the pathological darkness that is enveloping him slowly and steadily. Through the class, the man and the woman, come together, to provide respite to their troubled yet kindred souls by being that requisite restrained sense to each other’s losing sensibilities.

Han Kang, is a South Korean writer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024, a first for an Asian woman and for a Korean. Her other book, The Vegetarian, became the first Korean language novel to win the International Booker Prize in 2016. This book, has been translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won.

Greek Lessons, is a master storytelling on grief and its flagrant consequences. The book is seeped in all kinds of grief and loss, portrayed at various levels of intensity, conscientiously. This subtextual presence makes it ominous and omnipresent. This book also meanders on the characters’ existentialism, romanticising the desperation and the futility of it. The author has depicted Seoul to be this unwanted and cold third character, that is failing to provide warmth to its people. Han Kang’s words are measured, meticulous and mundane. Language drives the pathos, at times its dissolution drives the sentiment. Words are metaphorical, full of palpable melancholy. This is a piece of literature that is deliberate and visceral, but beautiful nonetheless.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🌺