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fiction_fever's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
5.0
“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 this 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, damaged, slaughtered—is this the essential fate of humankind, one that history has confirmed as inevitable?”
megglaser's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
marakaram's review against another edition
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
brisingr's review against another edition
5.0
Oh I am in shambles, I cried for the entirety of the last ~50 pages. A story about humanity's dignity and disgrace and despair and will. What can I say besides: please read it.
starloving's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
lay_kone's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture
lixcix's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
5.0
“I still remember the moment when my gaze fell upon the mutilated face of a young woman, her features slashed through with a bayonet. Soundlessly, and without fuss, some tender thing deep inside me broke. Something that, until then, I hadn't realised was there.”
A semi-fictional account of unnecessarily violent supression of a student uprising in Han Kang's home town, Gwangju, South Korea in 1980 through point of view of inter-related characters. I guess it would have been brutal to expect another 'The Vegetarian' from her but this is beautiful in its own way - showing what it means having to live through such incidences - how it changes the way one sees the world:
“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?”
what it means to lose someone dear to illogical brutalities of psychopaths that seem to be getting hold of power everywhere - that is, to lose them so entirely both body and soul taken away from you (there must be something soothing for a grieving person in the acts of last rites, something that helps them to come to terms with their loss - and several mothers were deprived of that 'something'):
“After you died I could not hold a funeral,
And so my life became a funeral.”
“After you were lost to us, all our hours declined into evening.
Evening are our streets and our houses.
In this half-light that no longer darkens nor lightens, we eat, and walk, and sleep.”
and how survival in such cases is just a relative term - how you come out of such things different, broken irreparably (remember Headth Ledger's 'Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stranger.")
“I'm fighting alone, every day. I fight with the hell that I survived. I fight with the fact of my own humanity. I fight with the idea that death is the only way of escaping this fact.”
“Some memories never heal. Rather than fading with the passage of time, those memories become the only things that are left behind when all else is abraded. The world darkens, like electric bulbs going out one by one. I am aware that I am not a safe person.”
*****
“Glass is transparent, right? And fragile. That's the fundamental nature of glass. And that's why objects that are made of glass have to be handled with care. After all, if they end up smashed or cracked or chipped, then they're good for nothing, right, you just have to chuck them away.
Before, we used to have a kind of glass that couldn't be broken. A truth so hard and clear it might as well have been made of glass. So when you think about it, it was only when we were shattered that we proved we had souls. That what we really were was humans made of glass.”