Welcome to Litsy!

I meant to read this for #FoodandLit #SouthKorea but never did! I was slightly apprehensive about keeping people & events straight (it is a 17th-c. novel with stories inside stories). It's still early days, but it's been fine so far. Even fun! The end-notes are quite helpful...

#JuneSpecials Day 12: #RedRose paired with my book club title last year that I abandoned. Maybe I will get around to reading it again.

Yeong-hye stops eating meat and her story is told through the eyes of her husband, brother in law and sister (no spoiler). I can‘t say more yet digesting but I was surprised shocked moved…

I can‘t lie - I didn‘t get it. I started in print and ended in audio. Both formats were a miss for me, but the audio was slightly better.

A strange little novel about resisting dominant social structures through a female protagonist who decides to stop eating meat and gradually
"devolves" further until she eventually wastes away, wishing to return to the earth as a tree. Graphic, violent descriptions, visually evocative. But overall didn‘t land as powerfully for me, perhaps something to do with the translation or because it leans toward fantastical which I typically don‘t enjoy.

Interesting book of living a life vicariously after a sibling‘s death. This exploration of feelings & reflections is taken even further when adding thoughts/ideas only related to the color white. Loved it‘s uniqueness.

This is a very tender, but also very sad book. In different very short texts, Han Kang talks about white things. White being the color of mourning in Korea. We learn about her older sister, who died shortly after birth. We learn how that still hunts Kang, how it affects her life. I was deeply moved by this work, by its calmness, by its insights.

I finally picked up a Han Kang book. She sure punches a lot into such a short novel. I think this is the first book I‘ve read about anorexia. Yeong-hye begins having dreams and becomes vegetarian. Mental health and trauma plays a big part. The story is told by multiple POV‘s, all infuriated with Yeong-hye‘s decision to go against the grain of society.

Starting my Han Kang journey…

A woman has become mute. She has lost her husband, teaching job, and custody of her 8-yr-old son. Lost herself, she takes a course in Ancient Greek taught by an instructor about her age who is losing his sight. Somehow a gentle warm story comes out of this, layered onto of darker histories and life pains, and terrific interesting prose. This completes my two week run through Han‘s four English-translated novels. (Another is due out in January)