Greek Lessons by Han Kang
From the YouTube video of Han Kang’s speech at the ceremony awarding her the Nobel Peace Prize of Literature 2024.
Greek Lessons - 4* ~~ by Han Kang
As I searched on the internet for good links to use on my heading in my list of books — one for the book and one for the author —, I discovered Han Kang had won a Nobel Prize. I linked to her speech. I think it may be one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. I thought about putting the transcript in this write-up, but listening to her soft voice speaking while reading the subtitles is an experience I hope all of you will have. It is a little over half an hour. Your life will be blessed by that half hour. Here is a link, though, to the translation in English, in case you wish to read it. Even if you don’t read the rest of what I wrote, I hope you will listen to the speech.
I gave Greek Lessons a 4-star rating, taking off one star because I felt a little befuddled by it. Reading it felt to me a little like floating through the story, hearing the words, finding them lovely, and not quite grasping what everything meant. Several times I went back to earlier pages to try to figure out whose story I was reading. The review in The Guardian that I linked to had a good summary.
Two characters – one male, one female – take turns to narrate scenes from their lives (the man in first person and the woman in third person). The woman is bereaved of her mother and processing the loss of her son to the custody of her ex-husband and is also experiencing the loss of her ability to speak; the man, similarly, is processing losing his connection to place and family, as well as the loss of his eyesight (an hereditary condition that will eventually blind him). The woman begins to attend lessons in ancient Greek taught at a private academy by the man (neither of them is named) and their meandering relationship begins to evolve.[1]
After listening to Han Kang’s speech, I thought about changing my rating to 5-stars but it seemed like I should stay with my initial sentiment. In her speech, Han Kang goes through her journey from question to question with each of her novels. She says delving into the questions is what drives her work.
Each time I work on a novel, I endure the questions, I live inside them. When I reach the end of these questions – which is not the same as when I find answers to them – is when I reach the end of the writing process. By then, I am no longer as I was when I began, and from that changed state, I start again. The next questions follow, like links in a chain, or like dominoes, overlapping and joining and continuing, and I am moved to write something new.[2]
I started to make a list of the questions she talks about here, but I have taken them out. A list cannot do them justice. Please listen, or at least read, the speech. I discovered that Greek Lessons is part of the continuum of Han Kang’s profound, abiding questions. The two she gives for this book are:
~ If we must live on in this world, which moments make it possible?
~ Could it be that by regarding the tenderest aspects of humanity, by caressing the irrefutable warmth that resides there, we can go on living after all in this brief, violent world?[2]
The woman character (she doesn’t name them) loses her ability to speak and the man is losing his sight. A tender moment they share is when the woman traces her words on his hand. That is the only way they exchange words. The book is full of beautiful words. It is a translation; I can only imagine how beautiful it must be in the language Kang wrote it. One gem is: "…falling in love is like being haunted” (page 39).[3] Once when I was deeply hurt by someone I loved, I thought I would immediately stop feeling any loving feelings toward that person. They had hurt me so badly and I had not yet forgiven them, and I thought during this transitional, unforgiving time I would only feel negatively toward the person. But, unbidden, my usual loving thoughts still came — wondering what that person might think, considering kindhearted words to use in conversation, all my usual concerns and considerations. I was surprised. I remember thinking, “Love is like a habit.”
I liked another passage about talking, or voice:
Even when she could talk, she’d always been soft-spoken.
It wasn’t an issue of vocal cords or lung capacity. She just didn’t like taking up space. Everyone occupies a certain amount of physical space according to their body mass, but voice travels far beyond that. She had no wish to disseminate her self. (page 45)[3]
After listening to her speech, I thought she could have been describing herself. I had never thought of our voices taking up space. It is true, though, isn’t it?
And another:
You know how they say that, to the Ancient Greeks, virtue wasn’t goodness or nobility, but the ability to do a certain thing in the very best way—arete was their word, the capacity for excellence. (page 104)[3]
I had a boss at one job who would often talk about striving for excellence in everything we did — whether it was a memo, a task, a project, whatever. I tried to instill that, too, in the people who reported to me and myself. It may sound cliche’ to “strive for excellence” but it is a meaningful aim for life.
The sadness of the human body. The human body, with its many indented, tender, vulnerable parts. The forearms. The armpits. The chest. The groin. (page 114)[3]
Isn’t that a lovely use of the word indented?
A beautiful description of sentence:
If snow is the silence that falls from the sky, perhaps rain is an endless sentence.
Words fall on to paving slabs, the roofs of concrete buildings, black puddles. Bounce off the ground.
Letters of my mother tongue, shrouded in black raindrops.
Strokes both rounded and straight; dots fading away.
Curled-up commas and stooped question marks. (page 159)[3]
“Curled-up commas and stooped question marks.” Little punctuation people.
I am going to keep following Han Kang and reading more of her work. In the speech, she says she is working on a new novel and will keep working. The questions she explores are so profound. And she does not claim to answer the questions. She “reaches the end of the writing process,” and is changed. She continues to live in the questions. As do we all.
[1] “Greek Lessons by Han Kang review – loss forges an intimate connection.” Em Strang, 11 Apr 2023. The Guardian.
[2] English translation of YouTube video of Han Kang’s speech, “Light and Thread"< at the ceremony awarding her the Nobel Peace Prize of Literature 2024. Han Kang – Nobel Prize lecture. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2025. Sat. 4 Oct 2025. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/han/lecture/
[3] Greek Lessons | A Novel by Han Kang, Translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won. Copyright 2011 by Han Kang. Translation copyright 2023 by Deborah Smith. Published by Hogarth, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.