We have compiled a list of three of South Korean author Han Kang’s works for you to read in honor of her winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Regarding Han Kang’s works, I do not believe they were intended to be taken literally. Despite the fact that some may find her books odd, they ultimately serve as a commentary on society as a whole. From The Vegan’s dim interpretation of mankind to The White Book’s investigation of pain, her books are lovely and somewhat upsetting yet certainly provocative.
The White Book appears to be a collection of seemingly unrelated short essays or writings at first glance. Yet, when you get into it, the book is an assortment of distress stricken compositions from an anonymous storyteller, all intertwining white.
The parts have subsections, all named with white things — sugar solid shapes, rice crude and cooked, grieving robes, smoke, a white canine. Although they appear to be random, as you continue reading, you realize that these sections are all connected to one another and focus on the grief of the anonymous narrator as she deals with the tragedy of her older sister’s death as a baby in her family.
Instead of her own memories, the narrator recalls her sister through stories from other family members; in fact, she may not have ever met her sister.
Despite this, whenever she sees her sister, she can’t help but think about what might have been her life. Her writings reflect the unavoidable scenarios that arise when a loved one passes away, as well as her reflections on how life would be different if they were still alive.
The book is available for purchase here if you live in Pakistan.
Greek Examples
A lady has lost her voice and wrestles with attempting to find it once more. A man is having trouble seeing and is dealing with a gloomy future. They meet in a homeroom where he shows her Greek and start a relationship. However, the book is more about their personal lives and how they’ve dealt with their issues than it is about their relationship.
Greek Illustrations intertwines the present and the past — the two his and hers — as the pair meet and gradually interface. The woman is desperate to speak again after losing custody of her nine-year-old son. The man considers his own cowardice in leaving her and the loss of a love. This is not a romance novel; It is about two people who meet at random and fall in love.
The book is available for purchase here if you live in Pakistan.
The Vegetarian Of the three books on this list, The Vegetarian is my favorite. It tells the story of a woman who suddenly decides to stop eating meat. Even though this decision is her own, it causes her family a lot of trouble, and they try to get her to change her mind in both good and bad ways. We observe the significant shifts in her life brought about by this inexplicable choice brought on by a single nightmare.
She slowly goes insane as a result of her family’s efforts to “help.”
In some ways, The Vegetarian is like Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, a story about a person trapped in their head. In the event that I needed to pick a solitary word to depict this it would be unusual — however positively. This book has something unsettling about it, but not in the way you might expect.
The book is available for purchase here if you live in Pakistan.
