WE DO NOT PART
Han Kang
“Can I tell you a story?”
She asked.
“It is a story I have been telling my whole life. It is the only one I know. I don’t need you to change the story, I don’t need you to change the characters, or change the ending…I just need you to listen.”
Poetic and devastating haunting and unforgettable. For me to say less, is to leave you with more. So please pardon the brief summary.
A friend has an obscene request. To which the only answer is yes. She sets off on her way not knowing what the journey may hold. Not knowing what it would require of her. Only knowing she must walk the road.
There is a subtle shift in reality. One that might go unnoticed if not for the light changing. The sun set at a different point in the sky. The novel is given just as you are at the point of surrendering to the plot. To what it might have been.
Like an offering, the story is given at the cost of the giver.
The plot points from this novel are ripped from your nightmare, which the body remembers but your tongue is unable to articulate. A loss so big it encompasses not only you but every person who has come before you and every person who shall come after. It takes you, the dreams you haven’t dreamed yet, and all the dreams you have for your children. It is a black hole and everyone you know is falling in.
It is nothing but death and destruction and they are denying its existence.
“Pull me out from inside.”
Colorblind
The Counting Crows
I am always a different person at the end than at the beginning of a Kang novel. They take a little bit of the reader in the reading. They consume in the consuming. This one swallowed me whole.
I have often slept through history class. Bored with the dates, uninspired by royalty, and rulers of faraway lands. Unassuaged by its very cyclical nature. Not knowing how precious the idea of history was.
The very idea of things already being done, lives already lived. Lives already lost. Experiences already had. Hard times trodden through presumably so that there is no necessity of them being endured again.
But the only way to tell a new story is to know the one that came before. The only way to ensure a lesson is learned is to learn it. If not, history will repeat itself. It is in its nature to do so.
WE DO NOT PART is not a breezeway, or a flyover. It is solid and immovable. It is a hard story. A battleground where blood was shed and lives were lost. It is important and I am so thankful that out of the many, this is one.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group – Random House | Hogarth for the advanced copy! It was truly a pleasure.
WE DO NOT PART…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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