“To her, there was no touch as instantaneous and intuitive as the gaze. It was close to being the only way of touching without touch.
Language, by comparison, is an infinitely more physical way to touch. It moves lungs and throat and tongue and lips, it vibrates the air as it flies to the listener.”

Although The Vegetarian and Human Acts have been on my list to read, Greek Lessons is my first introduction to Han Kang’s writing. I was blown away by the poetic prose and romantic language. It read as a story on love and grief.

In Seoul, a woman is taking Greek lessons. She has no voice. Not only has she lost her mother and the custody of her son, she has now lost her ability to speak. Her language teacher notices the woman with no voice in his classroom and finds himself drawn to her. He is losing his sight.

Her loss of voice and his fading sight is what draws them together and through their anguish, they find connection, language, silence, expression, comfort.

I particularly liked the use of third person narrative for the woman - it highlighted her lack of voice and her inability to tell her own story, whilst still detailing all of her observations and thoughts. The man in first person, still with his voice but reflecting on his differing views of the world, detailing how he sees the people and objects around him.

Han Kang is one of my favourite South Korean authors, and after loving The Vegetarian I was beyond excited to pick up Greek Lessons. In this slim novel we follow two characters, both never named – one is a Greek language student in Seoul who has lost her ability to speak, and the other is her professor who is slowly losing his sight.

As you can probably already guess, this book is about language, empathy, isolation and the limits of human connection. We jump perspectives constantly, and the book felt deliberately, even playfully disorientating as a reading experience – but it’s also deeply sad and frustrating.

Greek Lessons really wears its themes on its sleeve, and reads much more like prose poetry than Han’s other novels. I think readers will either love or hate this – sadly, rather than helping me engage with the characters more, my eyes started to glaze over in the poetic sections. It just didn’t quite work for me, but this is something so subjective that I can definitely see it working for others.

For me, this novel was at its most powerful in its sparsest, most banal moments of vulnerability – in its devastating little glimpses into its characters’ psyches – rather than when it kept hammering home over-poeticised musings about language and expression.

Having said that, Han is a gorgeous writer and there were some truly beautiful passages in here (as someone who has lived in Seoul, her descriptions of nighttime walks through the sweltering city in the summer were some of my favourite parts of the novel).

The Vegetarian haunted me, and while I think Greek Lessons is a readable character study full of heart, I just don’t think it will have the same effect. 3 ⭐️! I’d like to thank Penguin very much for the ARC.

To read Han Kang is to come into contact with the divine. Her prose is spellbinding, and her meditations on life, loss and love ache with the fervour of being alive. All I can say is that I would read anything this woman writes, and I mean anything.

I finished this book a few days ago and I’ve been back and forth on how I feel about it. See, I adore Han Kang – The Vegetarian is a masterpiece, and Human Acts was seismic. Greek Lessons is very different. It is a very quiet story about two lonely people on the fringes of life in South Korea finding a connection when orthodox language for them is impossible.

There’s something very Remains of the Day about this Greek professor at an adult college, afflicted with a condition that means he is rapidly losing his eyesight, falling in love with one of his students, a divorcee who has been selectively mute for years. It is a path to love defined by awkwardness and uncomfortable, stumbling steps forward.

Where Han Kang’s other books were revolutionary in subject, craft and viewpoint, Greek Lessons feels quite orthodox. We have a close crop study on two unhappy characters told very straightforwardly. Why? I suspect Han Kang herself is trying to examine language, how we have reverted to a lazy reliance on verbal conversation and words when, in truth, communication and connection has so little to do with this and so much more to do with touches, sights, sounds and scents that cannot be captured by language.

Greek Lessons is a tender intimate story but I felt at times it was more intellectual than heartfelt. An extraordinary piece of writing as always with Han Kang (and the translation from Deborah Smith is as perfect as always) but not my favourite by her.

I'm sorry, this wasn't the same author who wrote The Vegetarian, one of my favourite books ever.

This is jumpy, disappointed, has constant changes in narration and the characters who are completely different and indistinguishable.

Themes of language, communication, connection and family; these were nice, but they fell flat without the rest of the novel to bounce off them.

Sorry for the negative review, but it's honest at least.

This was a very tender piece of writing. From my experience with the author I was expecting something a little bit supernatural or otherworldly so i think I was a little bit disappointed by that, but that is complete personal preference taking effect. What I did get was a wonderful exploration of connection and humanity in the form of a bristling bond between two unlikely souls. It did feel a little stilted at time but overall the concept came over quite well.

The writing is at once intense and sparse. It deconstructs familiar scenes into unfamiliar. It is a tribute to language it shows how much we internalize language and how it affects our relationships. The translation is fluid and very much on point.

Kang is so attuned to the sensitivities of human suffering and pain and it comes across in poetic expressions throughout the book. We are taken on a journey of the protagonists' suffering as seen through the prism of language, both spoken and unspoken. What do you gain when you lose a sense? Do you gain anything? Do you carve out an alternate universe for yourself? Or do you unconsciously look for similarly suffering souls? These are the questions Kang explores in this book. The invisible connection between two people's pain and them finding their way to each other.

It's not a plot-heavy book or follow a straightforward novelisic structure. It's more introspective and fluid in its narration. There were some parts where I got a bit confused about who's talking about who and the ending I think is open to interpretation. Personally I wasn't sure what to make of the ending. Perhaps it needs a re-read.

The translation is almost too good in the sense that there are very few Korean words retained. I would have liked the book to retain a few more of the original words to keep that authentic flavour.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for supplying me with an ARC.

Beautiful meditative writing you need to be in the right mood for. Feels more like a companion to The White Book than the Vegetarian.

First, be aware that to enjoy this book, you need to get into the zone. It's not a difficult book to read and it has a fairly simple storyline, but the form and narrative style pushes it to the limit. A woman who for some reason loses her capacity to speak, is traumatised by her mother's death and about losing custody of her son decides to got for Greek lessons and then forms a relationship with the teacher. He's losing his sight. OK: think of how we might perceive the world differently if we lose one of our senses. Interesting. But... it is a narrative that tries very hard to get clever, twirling overt philosophy and poetry into the story. There are some rinky-dink changes of perspective from she to I that not only mess about with the flow, but are also, from a reader's point of view, annoying and confusing. Maybe that's what we're supposed to feel, confused and annoyed, because that would mirror the feelings of the protagonist. Our sight is blurred by lack of detail in the story, and our voices - well... we don't have one as a reader, so perhaps that's what this novel is all about. Who knows? In parts, I felt like I was getting it, in others, I was hurled out into some kind of existential wasteland. So, prepare yourself if you're going to read this. That's what I'd say.

My grateful thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the early copy.

First of all, my thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of the book in return for an honest review.

This short book is a slowly evolving story of intimacy, love, and affection between a mute woman (never named), and an Ancient Greek teacher going gradually blind (also never named, by the way). The story is structured as a set of glimpses at various scenes in the lives of the two protagonists, at various points in their lives (jumping back and forth through time), interwoven in a way that helps the story evolve.

The story is very poetic and reads more like a poem written in prose, with a lot of allegory, philosophy, and psychology, driving the simple narrative. There are striking sentences that make you think twice (or more), and the overall function of the writing is more artistic than meant to convey information and facts.

I personally did not like this book. While there is certainly beauty and effort in it, I struggled with following the narrative and the flow. The fact that none of the characters were named, together with the jumps between the various points of view in the story, made it very difficult (nigh impossible) to easily understand who was the "he" and the "she" in each fragment. Sometimes I thought we were talking about the female protagonist, only to later realise this was the male protagonist's sister, for example. It just felt like too much of an effort to really understand what was going on, and to care enough about the story. This was, for me, a way too poetic effort at prose, or a way too long poem. I completely appreciate the effort that went into writing it, but I don't read books to appreciate the effort - I read them to enjoy a new world, to learn something new, and to look at reality from a new perspective. None of these were made easy by the author in this book (unlike, by the way, the Vegetarian, which was, for me, far more accessible).

In a nutshell - this was too much form over function.

I found this beautiful but impenetrable. The sentences are gorgeous but I couldn’t connect with the character or the plot.

Highly poetic and evocative, this translation of Han Kang's Greek Lessons makes for a delicate read that does rely on some knowledge of both Greek and Korean myths and stories as the two are woven together in much the same way as the protagonists of this short novel are. More enjoyable for the command of language than the plot itself, but as a decade old work, there is a clear distance between Han Kang's work of today and Greek Lessons.
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for access to this ARC.

This book is by the author of the award winning book, The Vegetarian which I really liked. Greek Lessons, is actually an earlier novel ( published 10 years ago in Korea) but is only now available in translation. The book must have been a huge challenge for a translator as there are a lot of details about and comparisons of ancient Greek characters and equivalent Korean charcters. The story is about a woman who is a multi lingist but has never studied Greek and signs up to attend Greek Lessons. In her childhood she had lost the ability to speak for a while after a traumatic incident and finds she is once again losing her voice. Coincidentally, her lecturer is losing his sight and through ancient Greek philosophy, language, random jumps to their back stories and contemporary experiences of their new realities told through both first and second person views they come to know one another

I found the narrative rather cold and distant. The language precise and mannered. I didn't really connect with it.It is the sort of novel that I find I admire rather than like.

Thanks ever so much to @penguinhamishhamilton for sharing this title with me on @netgalley!

Greek Lessons by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won, published by @penguinhamishhamilton

Of Han Kang's translated output thus far, I have read The Vegetarian and Human Acts, both of which I very much enjoyed. Sadly, I would have to place Greek Lessons as my least favourite for now, but that is only reflective of my own tastes as a reader, not of the author's ability. Han's prose verges on poetry for most of the novel and the story is definitely unique, with my favourite parts being those that dwelled on the differences between languages, language learning, and growing up away from 'home.' I think it says something that the parts I enjoyed the most were also the most grounded in reality, as I guessed pretty early on that there wouldn't be much of a plot to keep the story ticking.

The relationship between the two main characters, a welcome point of continuity in the novel, was tender and well executed, but I felt little connection to them. In fact, I'm still unsure about whether they knew each other in childhood and what the relationship between their two families was, such was the obscure nature of the flashbacks throughout.

At times, it reminded me of Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah which really wasn't for me. So much of the narrative was almost dream-like and there were a lot of the aforementioned vague flashbacks, with thinly-defined characters, which constantly had me questioning who they were and what was real and what wasn't. It's pretty clear that sparse, abstract narratives such as this aren’t my thing, but my goodness, that won't stop me from reading them. More Korean literature in translation, please!

3/5
42 s

I loved Han Kang's earlier works, both the Vegetarian but have found her last couple, this and the White Book, lacked the finely-honed, visceral imagery and writing that so engaged me. The writing has become rather ethereal; pleasant and beautiful, but not something that lingers long in the memory like her earlier work. Her characters, one a young woman experiencing a period of mutism and her Ancient Greek tutor who has a degenerative eye condition are beautifully rendered but never feel like living, breathing people and the whole thing felt a little wan and bloodless and while it was a quiet exploration of the quality and pitfalls of the ways we can communicate I didn't feel that it had anything very substantial to say.

A woman who has lost her voice connects with her Greek language teacher who is losing his sight.
I had high hopes for this one, having enjoyed The Vegetarian when I read it a few years ago, but there was just a disconnect between myself and the book. There were moments where I started thinking I was getting into it, but they were fleeting and I was quickly taken away again.
I can't quite put my finger on why this is, perhaps it was because the characters felt a little distant and two-dimensional. I'm not sure if something has been lost in the translation.
Something I did enjoy was the choice to use 1st and 2nd person for the teacher's section and 3rd for the young woman's, reflecting her lack of voice. It reminded me of The Vegetarian where the main character equally didn't have her own voice in the book and was spoken for.
Some of the passages we're quite beautiful:
•"The mumbled sound came from a place deeper than tongue and throat."
•"The roar of engines from a motorway half a block away makes incisions in her eardrums like countless skate blades in ice."
•"If only she'd made a map of the route her tears used to take."

Ultimately though, this one just wasn't for me.

I loved this quietly beautiful novel about human connection, intimacy and the effects trauma can have on the body. The translation was absolutely stunning. I love Han Kang's writing & this did not disappoint.

Thank you for letting me read & review!

A short but glorious book that is beautifully written and wonderfully translated. Kang borrowing from an ancient Greek text writes that "everything has within it that which harms it". This manifests in her two central characters in the form of, a paternal-origin degenerative eye condition causing increasing blindness in one, and an extreme sensitivity to language to the extent of muteness in the other. "Greek Lessons" explores how each navigates the world as they are drawn inevitably to one another. The language throughout is highly evocative, intensely introspective and achingly poetic. Kang is a genius of a writer who creates the most sensory representations of the world through language alone: "Language, by comparison, is an infinitely more physical way to touch"; "To her, there was no touch as instantaneous and intuitive as the gaze".
Special thank you to Penguin General UK (Viking) and NetGalley for an no obligation advance copy.

Imagine loving the language but cannot speak because your body failed you. For our FMC, her basic skill to talk ceased to exist one day, in Greek Class no less, leaving her gaping in stream of words in her head. Her thoughts soon becomes in figment of pictures; no more word, and the most beloved thing in her life failed her. The Professor got her on his sight not for long, and soon they're bonded over tragic and traumas. The book progresses and shuffles between both characters POV and their descent into bodily loss.

There's no gross or weird value here; except for beautifully written journey of making use of time left and things we could do for the ones we love. Han Kang writing on the MCs POV felt so intimate, we can feel the love and connection, and how we're rooting and wishing the best for both of them. The plot was written as both MCs spiraling into dark places with no words (I can't spoil but leaving the hint here) only to intersect towards the end.

The touch on mental health is heavily implied; making you think that pain is really relative for people. The writing are in solid proses, laced with knowledge on Greek and languaves history, as well as some old text for references, making my Google search a philologist for a few days.

This book, undoubtedly a solid 5 star from me. The deep dive into trauma, heartbreaks and loneliness tears me apart. The proses are poignant and solid, with a hint of detachment, making us feels pity, sad, and strangely lonely.

She leans forwards.
Tightens her grip on the pencil.
Lowers her head further
The words evade her grasp
Words that have lost lips,
words that have lost throat and breath remain out of reach. Like unbodied apparations, their forms evade touch.

description

A person lies prone in the snow.
Snow in their throat.
Earth in their eyes.
Seeing nothing.

A person stands next to them.
Hearing nothing.

한 사람이 눈 속에 엎드려 있다.
목구멍에 눈雪.
눈두덩에는 흙.
아무것도 보이지 않는다.

한 사람이 그 앞에 멈춰 서 있다.
아무것도 들리지 않는다.

Greek Lessons is Deborah Smith's translation of 한강 (Han Kang)'s novel 희랍어 시간 (2011), originally serialised in the 문학동네 webzine, and the fourth of her novels to be published in English (each translated by Smith).

This is a moving story told in finely-crafted, crystalline prose, infused with a blue light inspired by the Chagallian windows in Stephan zu Mainz. I initially found the novel hard to connect with, rather like the Ancient Greek, a language as cold and hard as a pillar of ice, around which the novel is centred, but it opened up on an immediate re-read. At first, with it's German-Korean setting and relative opacity, I almost felt I was reading 배수아, but it is ultimately unmistakably 한강, infused with compassion and beauty.

Overall, impressive and although not my favourite by the author/translator, still a strong contender for the International Booker.