This story follows a Greek teacher, who is going blind, and a woman in his class who has lost her voice. Generally, each chapter alternates from one perspective to another. Han's writing is consistently beautiful and flows well between each character.

However, the narrative doesn't feel as arresting, profound, or fully formed as her previous works. The student's story feels unresolved—both emotionally and plot-wise. I feel like she was mostly looking back through her memories without reflecting upon them, or finding some way to grow from her experiences. It felt like she was gazing at her life from behind a protective pane of glass, and it left her story without much emotional impact for me. The teacher's story was more captivating and realized—it felt as if he were truly examining his place in life and reflecting on his life to understand how he got to where he is.

Such an uneven balance between the two characters made it hard to find the point of the story, especially since it took so long for the two to interact in any significant way. And that ending.. HM.. I am not sure how I feel about it, one moment in particular. I could see some artistic or symbolic appeal, but it didn't fully justify what happened, in my mind. All in all, while I enjoyed reading Han's writing again, I found this book a tad disappointing.

I read Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” shortly before I began Greek Lessons to familiarize myself with the author’s writing and while I enjoyed the former, I feel that Greek Lessons unfortunately went too far over my head. I loved the idea of exploring deeper human connection through language and communication, but I was unable to connect to the characters or the story. I ultimately believe I was just not the target audience for this one- and that’s ok! I would consider returning for a reread in the future, maybe when I’m feeling a bit more introspective and want something that I can really take my time digesting.

I was excited to read Greek Lessons after reading The Vegetarian, another of Kang's popular translated works, and I felt that this had the same kind of inventive, introspectve premise as The Vegetarian. Also like when I read The Vegetarian, I left this book slightly baffled and a little unsure of how much I'd enjoyed the reading experience. On one hand, it is sometimes incredibly opaque, abstract enough that the narrative is obscured or overshadowed; to an extent, this is thematiclly intentional, but it's still frustrating. After some chapters, I found myself wondering if this was the sort of media that's too highbrow and intellectual for me to really "get."
On the other hand, there's much to love here. It's beautifully written, and you can tell that the translation work is immaculate. It was more poetry than prose at times, yet surprisingly captivating given that I don't usually consider myself a poetry girl. And there is something deeply and undeniably romantic about Kang's musings on human communication. I think that for anyone fascinated by language, linguistics, or communication, this would be a must-read, both in terms of its subject matter and in the remarkable work accomplished by its translators.

Thank you to Hogarth and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a review.
Han Kang returns with Greek Lessons, a narrative focused on new beginnings and mid-life introspection. Credit is due to Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won, who translated Kang’s novel seamlessly. A young woman had a flourishing career in the publishing industry only to arrive at a critical juncture to rediscover happiness in her life as she has lost her ability to speak and uses Korean sign language. Ancient Greek lessons allow her to reflect on the world around her, and her actions spark the curiosity of her language teacher, an older gentleman who is losing his vision. These individuals reveal their life stories and vulnerabilities as they are inspired to grow and surpass their limitations and fears. Kang’s newest work takes readers on an introspective exploration of the power of language, its functions, and its contributions to culture and society. Greek Lessons epitomizes language’s importance to the human condition.

This book is perfect for fans of Kang's previous book, the Vegetarian. It also reads like Cate' Blanchett's tar. A cool modern fable.

희랍어 시간 (Huilabeo Sigan) by Han Kang was originally published in Korean in 2011, this is her fifth work to be translated into English. Thanks to Hogarth, Random House and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All quotes in this review have been checked against the final published version. Where there are differences, I have deferred to the final product.

Han Kang the celebrated author certainly needs no introduction although this is my first time reading her work. Greek Lessons must have been quite difficult to translate with the emphasis on language so kudos to translators Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Woon. The intriguing cover art design by Anna Kochman also warrants a mention, very well-suited to the themes of the novel.

This review is one of the most difficult I've written and I am tempted to resort to mostly quoting. Greek Lessons simultaneously keeps the reader at a distance yet awakens intimate visceral reactions. Subsequently, I feel like analyzing it dispassionately and on the other end of the scale, pouring out the vulnerability in an unending torrent. This book has lingered with me days after reading.

First, the writing. Philosophical, contemplative, poetic. Although a short book, the reading of it cannot be rushed. The point of it is the language. Although there are linguistic elements discussed such as phonemes, diacritical marks and verb declensions, language to both the main characters is essential and elemental.

<i> 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 wings its way to the listener. The tongue grows dry, saliva spatters, the lips crack. When she found that physical process too much to bear, she became paradoxically more verbose.</i>

<i>...a thick, dense layer of air buffered the space between her cochleas and brain. Wrapped in that foggy silence, the memories of the tongue and lips that had been used to pronounce, of the hand that had firmly gripped the pencil, grew remote. She no longer thought in language. She moved without language and understood without language— as it had been before she learned to speak, no, before she had obtained life, silence, absorbing the flow of time like balls of cotton, enveloped her body both outside and in. </i>

For the divorced thirty-six-year-old woman whose mother has passed away, lost custody of her son and inexplicably lost her speech: <i> She has chosen to learn Ancient Greek at this private academy because she wants to reclaim language of her own volition. </i> Han Kang in an <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/91734-han-kang-explores-language-barriers-with-greek-lessons.html">interview</a> states that "the entire book ... is a process of retrieving the first-person voice for this woman.” Indeed, the woman using a third person voice refers to her pain obliquely while the man, her Ancient Greek lecturer, possesses a first person voice and confronts his painful memories head-on. They ponder the middle voice in Ancient Greek that "expresses an action that relates to the subject reflexively."

As for the thirty-eight-year-old man, his family moved with him to Germany when he was fifteen and he is back in South Korea by himself grappling with his impending blindness due to a hereditary condition. He teaches both Ancient Greek and Plato: <i> That when the most frail, tender, forlorn parts of us, that is to say our life-breaths, are at some point returned to the world of matter, we will receive nothing in recompense.
That when the time comes for me, I don’t see myself remembering the full range of the experiences I’d accumulated up to that point only in terms of beauty.
That it is in this tired, worn context that I understand Plato.
That he himself knew that such beauty does not exist.
And that there is no complete thing, ever. At least in this world. </i>

There is little room left to discuss how blue and silence surface repeatedly as both a descriptor and motif. While thinking of an image to describe the feeling of this book (both the two cover jackets do very well), I visualized a heavy stone dropped in the middle of deep still blue waters. Greek Lessons left me as drained and sensitive to the world's hurts as the main characters. There is a scene toward the end where the woman is writing on the man's palm to communicate, I remember thinking at that point that this book touches that softest most tender part of our hearts, the part that Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön talks about us having to expose to reach that tender compassion for all human beings. Imagine my delight when Han Kang mentioned this exact part in those terms in the aforementioned interview. The five star rating notwithstanding, I am not anxious to repeat this reading experience. My posture while reading was jaw slightly clenched, brow furrowed, tongue pressed tightly against the roof of the mouth.

Greek Lessons is a powerful novel, true to Han Kang’s previous work. This story follows the narratives of a young mother who has lost her ability to speak and her Greek language teacher who is losing his sight. The two are drawn to one another and realize their similarities run deeper.

I thoroughly enjoyed Greek Lessons — its pacing, richness, and character development is beautifully done. It lacks some of the complexity and is a bit more muted than some of Kang’s other work, but is stunning nonetheless.

Thank you to Hogarth, Random House, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

GREEK LESSONS by Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won) is an ethereal novel set in Seoul about a middle-aged Greek language teacher who is slowly going blind, and one of his pupils, a woman who has mysteriously lost all use of her voice, along with losing custody of her eight-year-old son.

This book is all vibes with minimal plot (reminding me in different ways of An Yu’s GHOST MUSIC, Katie Kitamura’s INTIMACIES, and Yiyun Li’s THE BOOK OF GOOSE). While I appreciated aspects of those three books, none of them is my favorite, and the same applies to GREEK LESSONS. Whereas I found Kang’s HUMAN ACTS to be historically important and THE VEGETARIAN to be psychologically disturbing, GREEK LESSONS floats in a space of more philosophical musings that unfortunately were, for me, more prosaic than profound.

The perspective shifts in the book can be confusing, as some chapters address a “you” that varies from the Greek teacher’s childhood crush to his sister to his friend; the significance of these fleeting appearances is not always clear. Parts of the book are opaque to the point of being unenjoyable, though maybe I’m the one who’s not erudite enough to “get” the book…completely possible, esp given Kang’s stature as an author. The prose is unremarkable.

With themes of language, touch, and connection, readers who appreciate quiet philosophical vibes may enjoy this book. The ending is quite lovely as well.

This was a big departure from Kang's prior book, and I'm not sure I was the right target audience. The language is gorgeous, however, and I thought the oppositions and complementary weaknesses of the characters were fascinating. The novel felt very much like it was in dialogue with Katie Kitamura's Intimacies - both were very focused on the idea of language and translation from thought (and the language chosen) to another. And like in Intimacies, the relationship between people is both strengthened and harmed by words themselves.

3.5 stars for beauty and elegance, but not the extra half star since as strange and beautifully as it is written, it doesn't rise to the eeriness of Kang's prior work.

What I love about Han Kang’s writing is the stunning imagery and the rich visceral sensory experience she creates for her readers while traversing pain, delving into pleasure while examining unique responses to an individual’s struggle with pressures caused by traditional approaches to the human condition.

In Greek Lessons Kang looks at language, bodily deterioration, displacement, disorientation and memory as her characters strive to live in the present as primary sense modalities—vision and speech are declining and much life is left to live. Kang shows readers how intersections between language, sensory experience, memory, and love are challenged when lost or dislocated when relationship building. The premise is entirely unique: A Korean woman who emigrated during youth to Germany struggled with a developing sense of self and place who lost her capacity to speak. She returns home to Korea and meets a Greek teacher at the academy where she studies and he is becoming blind and somehow they fall in love in spite of the language they could not share.

The meditations on language and how it interferes with experience and expression as well as being time and context specific are gorgeous. In addition the excerpted Greek Philosophers created thought spirals and loops that led me away from a story line and wondering who was narrating half the time. As prose was building and opening memory lines and painful pits the people populating Kang’s story merged and the confusion it created for me was frustrating. So much convergence creates an effect of what it feels like and means to be displaced. This feeling is scary, ecstatic, analytical, and interpretations hinge on memory except memory is fleeting when language isn’t there to describe moments that were pleasurable or beautiful. What remains is pain because the language describing pain matters less than the pain and causes.

Leaving this work, all I can say is that it is all form and no shape. This work is a wave of sensations and a wondering over what it would be like if one lost their way to see or communicate. The characters had options to learn braille and sign but then they’d have to give up that learning for basic survival learning and they were too late. So passion wins in this work—passion to learn, to survive, to love. to live and not do so by way tradition but rather by trust and intuition. Is there a marriage better than this when we all end up as ash and dust anyway?

In the way that The Vegetarian was moving so too is Greek Lessons. Somehow Han Kang lays bare mortality and interrogates how individuals choose to live those short minutes we call life. Kang asks us why and if the reasons are ridiculous or necessary. I just wish this particular work had more structure to it because it’s seductive and amorphous, but it’s still a novel with characters and a story and offering a little more transparency and shape sustains a reader’s trust and confidence so they can care about what happens to who and why. I’m not a practitioner of any faith blind or not and I don’t look to be indoctrinated even in fiction. However, it was immersive and lovely even if the love and life felt otherworldly.

Gorgeous cover, gorgeous writing. HUMAN ACTS has lived in my mind rent-free for almost a decade, so I was grateful and excited to receive an early copy of GREEK LESSONS from the publisher & NetGalley.

GREEK LESSONS is a very thoughtful meditation on language and communication that deserved to be savored, and I never found myself in the right headspace for this mood read. It's very atmospheric, and little happens to advance the "plot" until the final pages. I would have enjoyed this story more as a poem or novel in verse. I wasn't gripped by any characters' anecdotes or struggles and was too impatient and detached to enjoy Han Kang's message.

This was a miss for me, but doesn't close the door on Han Kang, who will always find herself in my TBR.

Han Kang delivers another gut wrenching novel of two people’s experiences with loss in their lives. This work was translated by Deborah Smith who brought Han Kang’s story to a whole new audience. This book is about language. How it connects us. How it isolates us. How it can tear and rebuild the relationships in our lives. However, language is not just spoken.


Our first character has come to a realization that she can exist without using verbal words. She wanders through life feeling as they her existence is an inconvenience. Her ability to piece together words become a task the she fears. However, her love of language still resides in her. And she takes an Ancient Greek class to learn about characteristics of different language. As she switches between the three languages she knows, she reflects on her life. There are so many ways to describe the loneliness she is feeling.

Our secondary character is losing his sight. Like the woman, he is losing a part of himself that he once had full control over. There are many types of loss. Losing a loved one. Moving away from your home. Having a relationship end. However, this book also describes losing yourself. As this man stands in front of the class, a lecturer of Ancient Greek, he knows he may no longer be able to teach. Once he is honest about his condition, he knows there is a possibility that people will not want to accommodate his needs. His vision starts to betray him and take away his ability to live his daily life.

In a world that is uncomfortable with the vulnerability of strangers, these two have met at the most critical parts of their lives. However, it is this vulnerability that shows how important human connection is. Isolating yourself because you feel like you will only burden others can be extremely lonely.

People find ways to communicate and support each others needs. Regardless of spoken or written language. People can look each other’s eyes and understand the journey one has been through. People can draw on each other’s skin in the absence of a pen and paper. People can read lips, hand movements and bumps along a surface. There are so many forms of language. Han Kang delivers this message with such honesty and raw emotion.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc.

What a beautiful tale of two lost souls able to bond over language, one thought to be just as lost as they felt. I am thankful to read this story in mine at last!

Quiet, contemplative, philosophical literary fiction about two lost people trying to find their way in the world after their lives are upended by losing one of their treasured senses. One of them loses the ability to speak, while the other loses their eyesight. Stuck in some in-between space they search for new way of relating to the world, new ways of being, of not losing themselves completely. Full of mediations on language, the power of language, linguistics and human connection, Greek Lessons is a very interesting read, but a lot less intense and weird than The Vegetarian, which might scare some readers away.

I liked The Vegetarian when I read it years ago, so when I saw Han Kang’s latest offering, I snatched it up. Unfortunately, Greek Lessons went mostly over my head. Even though it’s quite short, it’s one you may want to take your time with.

This story follows a young woman who signs up for Ancient Greek Language lessons after losing her voice. Meanwhile, her Greek Language instructor is losing his sight.

As the title suggests, this book examines language and the variety of ways people communicate. It is very introspective and philosophical-leaning.

The writing is stunning, as you’d expect from this author. Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won translated it beautifully.

Even though the writing was exceptional, it felt detached. I don’t need to connect or relate to characters, but if I feel there is any distance, or detachment in the writing style, then it’s hard for me to become invested in the story, which was the case here.

If you enjoy philosophy and languages, you may enjoy this novel. It’s been years since I’ve studied Greek, so bumbling my way through the few bits in this book was fun.

Thank you to Random House for providing an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://booksandwheels.com

I would read anything that Han Kong wrote. She is one of my favorite novelists. I was very excited to get an ARC of her new novel Greek Lessons. It was not what I expected. It's very different from The Vegetarian, Human Acts and the White Book. It's a story of a two people, one lsoing his sight and a woman who has lost her voice. It's not as easy to get into as her previous novels but it has a lot to say so don't get discouraged. The cover really describes the novel well in that it is told in layers and as things get peeled back you see the people in this novel are very complex and have more layers than an a person would think. Everybody makes judgements about others without really knowing what happned to them before you met them. It's kind of what's going on in our world today. It also show how women are becoming invisble to the things that men are doing to them and the men are becoming blind to what they are doing. (This novel was published in Korean in 2011 so it's very interesting that things seem to be worse for US readers in 2023.) This is a very short novel so please be patient with it because the rewards of this novel are great. Thank you to Hogarth Books and #Netgalley for the read.

Greek Lessons contains many absolutely beautiful passages about language and expression. Like in her other work, Han Kang has excelled at creating characters whose sorrow is palpable and heart-wrenching.

Despite the beauty of the writing and the characters, though, I found it difficult to stay connected with this story. The dual perspective was sometimes confusing. Several times, I had to stop my reading and flip backward to confirm which character was the focus of a particular section. Furthermore, the connection between the two characters was ultimately minimal. Other than in classes (where they don't communicate), it's not until the very end of Greek Lessons that they have an opportunity to connect in a way that transcends spoken language.

Ultimately, I was disappointed by this novel because I wanted much more from it. Every other Han Kang book that I have read has become an all-time favorite. Perhaps my expectations for Greek Lessons were just too high.

I read Kang’s The Vegetarian recently, and had mixed feelings. It gave me much to think about, but I found the novel uneven. I had a sense of disconnection to the story, only finding emotional attachment to the last section, but it was intriguing and I wanted to read Kang again. Greek Lessons was published in Korean in 2016, and the English translation is out this month.

The plot is simple. There is a woman, who has lost her words; and a man, who is losing his sight. They share space in an ancient Greek language course: she the student, he the teacher. Ever so gradually we learn their backstories, which illuminate their present.

Greek Lessons has the same emotional tone as The Vegetarian. It is a cerebral novel. Again, there’s a sense of detachment most of the way through this book, but there were points of true connection that punctured the intellectualism and brought me close to the characters. It made me invested. Kang at once kept me at a slight distance because of its philosophical and intellectual bent, but then suddenly brought me close to the characters in a rush of emotion.

The beginning of the book was fascinating. I contemplated the themes and motifs: blood, tears, silence, isolation. It weaved simple threads of Buddhism, existentialism and Greek logic into the story. There were so many beautiful passages! The translation seemed well done.

Gradually, the prose became more abstract. Dreams took on meaning and weight, and at one point, Kang’s writing morphed seamlessly into what I can only describe as poetry. Such a beautiful device on the page and an absorbing reading experience. The ending was so fractured that I’m not sure what to make of it, but that’s okay with me. It left me with a feeling of both connection and loss.

This book left me feeling philosophical and wistful. A short, contemplative read that whispers rather than shouts, it’s the epitome for me of a “no plot just vibes” novel. I read it slowly, and because it’s short, it felt approachable. Despite its intellectual bent, Greek Lessons had emotional heart, felt balanced, and led me somewhere I wanted to explore. This book won’t be for everyone, and I can see it being something that one might need to pick up when in a particularly relaxed frame of mind. To me, it’s a “day when you have a chunk of free time, a quiet nook, and a good pot of tea” kind of book.

Thanks to @netgalley and @randomhouse for a copy in exchange for my review.

I did not finish this book as I realized it was not a book for me. Although I’m interested in languages and motherhood, the story did not pull me in.

Han Kang's writing is complex, eloquent, and though provoking! Greek Lessons explores the intricacies and importance of communication and how vital it is to human connection. I really loved this!