Human Acts by Han Kang

I’m terribly behind already – but better late than never? I read this book back in January, the first book of 2020. I’ll keep this one brief, in part because I rambled for way too long last time, and in part because I need to catch up!

Title: Human Acts

Author: Han Kang

Translator: Deborah Smith

Published: 2014

Type: Fiction

Pages: 212

“Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves the single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, slaughtered - is this the essential of humankind, one which history has confirmed as inevitable?”

In Brief:

This book had horrifyingly powerful writing. I appreciated the impact and message behind it, but really can’t stand second-person perspective and never felt invested in the characters.

Rating: 3.7

Synopsis:

Like I’ll Be Right There, Human Acts is a novel about the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea and its aftermath. Some context is required this time: student protests erupted in the city Gwangju, protesting martial law since a coup that had killed the dictator Park Chung-he. Government forces moved in and ultimately obliterated them, gunned the protestors down, beat them, raped them, took survivors captive and tortured them. The government reported that 144 civilians were killed in the massacre; census records show that closer to 2,000 disappeared during this period. *

Each chapter is told from a different perspective, victims and survivors of the rebellion, all linked around the death of Dong-ho, a young boy and the first narrator. His story is immediately followed by that of his friend, told as a spirit locked to its dead body. The book proceeds to jump forward 5, 10, 20, 30 years, showing how the effects of the uprising linger. It tells the story of an editor struggling under censorship; a tortured prisoner trying to tell their story; an activist turned factory worker haunted by her past; and Dong-ho’s mother, mourning the loss of her son. Each narrator struggles with the trauma they faced, a broken part of their spirit.

The author brings herself into the story in the last chapter to really drive this point home. She reveals that as a child she lived in the same house as Dong-Ho, just before his family did. Her family escaped by chance to Seoul, but she too is indirectly affected. She finds a secret book of pictures from the uprising, sees the mutilated body of a young woman. She says “Soundlessly, and without fuss, some tender thing deep inside me broke. Something that, until then, I hadn’t even realized was there.” She endeavors to research the massacre, pay homage and memorialize the victims – eventually writing this book.

Where I’m At:

This was the first book I finished in 2020, right after I’ll Be Right There. My book club chose these two books to read together during the holidays, mainly due to their shared themes/time period/location. It was jarring, to go from a mostly emotional, almost ethereal book, to one so seriously focused on the earth, political events, literal human bodies. 

I read it during a time of celebration – my good friend Rose’s birthday, a New Years Eve party featuring 2,020 pizza rolls. I had been out of San Francisco for nearly three weeks, and was thrilled to be back, dazzled by the feeling this is my home. It’s possible that my personal happiness meant I didn’t appreciate the darkness in Human Acts.  

I read it as I went back into the office, also for the first time in about three weeks. This was less thrilling – my first few days were hopelessly unproductive, as my attention wandered restlessly and I wished myself back in Mexico, where I ran a grantee retreat earlier in December. Eventually, I got back into the flow of things – I do love my job – and found myself pretty occupied on bringing last year’s projects up-to-date.   

Getting into it:

I didn’t like this book very much – I would have put it down after a few chapters if I wasn’t reading it for book club. Admittedly, a big part of my opinion is driven by an automatic distaste for second-person, which is utilized on and off throughout the book. It just grates at me – “You’re alone in a second floor office.” No I’m not. “Your hair is cropped short.” No it’s not. “You’ve just deleted two spam emails.” No I haven’t.

I know I’m being obtuse, and I get that it’s supposed to bring the reader closer to the character – but it doesn’t work. I’ve never read a book where it works, it just feels awkward. I don’t need to be the character to empathize with them. Suspension of disbelief doesn’t work that far, at least not for me. I do wonder if its a translation issue – if something about reading it in Korean would make it more impactful, because otherwise the author is amazingly impressive with her ability to draw that out.

Which brings me to her descriptions. Kang’s word choice is absolutely brutal, devastating, as she describes the carnage humans do to each other. Small boys gaze a dead bodies, putrid and bloated, mottled with blood. I won’t even copy the description of torture told by the prisoner, rape told by the activist, they’re so excruciating – reading them again makes my stomach twist. Though doubtlessly effective, these passages made reading the book feel like being bludgeoned in the head with a hammer – Okay, I get it, I get it already! Except of course I don’t. Of course I can’t. I’ve led a very lucky life.

But Kang allows for no respite. She throws the dissonance of humanity at you with every sentence – an innocent child amid gut-wrenching violence. Selfless heroism and frozen terror. Loving someone so deeply but failing them when it counts. A government that’s supposed to provide stability and support, instead unleashing abject horror. The past and present intermingling, never letting go. Kang demands that you see it – that this is what it means to be human. This is what we’re capable of, on both sides. So how to cope with that?

I believe the English title provides the answer. It implies that in the end, it’s our actions that matter. Kang wrote this book. In doing so, she issues a challenge: What will you do?

* I’m not an expert on this history. I only learned about it from reading these two books, and some basic Googling. Do let me know if I’m wrong; I encourage you to do some research yourself, because it’s really alarming that this piece of history is so unknown.