We Do Not Part, by Han Kang

Trigger warning for historical mass killings.

It takes a special kind of courage and resilience to study the blackest corners of our history. It makes sense to never want to speak of the worst things humans have done to each other. And yet, if we never speak of the Holocaust, chattel slavery, genocide, etc., or only learn a distorted version of these events, how can we truly learn to be better, just people? As I read We Do Not Part, the brilliant and shattering new novel by Han Kang, I kept thinking of the mental toll Iris Chang paid after researching and writing her book about the Rape of Nanking. The protagonists of this book also find themselves haunted by what they learned when they researched the Jeju Uprising and the mass killings that followed in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This book is beautifully translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris.

Kyungha, a writer, struggles with debilitating migraines and often finds herself so nauseous she can’t eat. Sometime before the novel, she left her family and moved into her own apartment. It’s hard to tell how long she’s been in the grip of terrible depression and pain, though she seems to be emerging from it. One wintry morning, she gets a call from Inseon, a photographer and woodcarver she collaborated with on a documentary about the Jeju Uprising and the survivors’ efforts to find, identify, and reclaim the remains of their lost loved ones. Inseon has suffered a terrible accident in her woodshop and, because she is as solitary as Kyungha, she needs someone to immediately go to her home on Hallasan, the dormant volcano on Jeju Island, to rescue her bird. Inseon tells Kyungha that she has to leave right away. The bird hasn’t been cared for in the days it took to get Inseon to the mainland, get through surgery, and start her horrifically painful recovery process. If Kyunhga doesn’t leave now, the bird will die.

The journey to the hinterlands of Jeju is not easy. The entire island is covered in snow. The buses are struggling to complete their routes and the airport is already canceling flights by the time Kyungha arrives. Her struggle to get to Inseon’s house begins to take on the air of the supernatural. People appear on the road like ghosts. (One of them might actually be a ghost.) Kyungha has to walk most of the way, through the deep snow and growing dark in her inadequate clothing. She falls, recovers, and finally makes it to Inseon’s house. Kyungha is so out of it that she starts to wonder if she died on the way and is in some kind of afterlife.

At this point, cold, hungry, tired, in pain from a migraine, Kyungha starts to drift through time. She slowly reveals the long, terrible history of the Jeju Uprising, a history that was illegal to speak of for decades under the repressive South Korean government. Kyungha remembers Inseon’s hunt to find out what happened to relatives and friends of her mother who were killed during the Uprising or its aftermath. Inseon’s intense quest mirrors her mother’s quieter but no less determined efforts to find out what happened to her lost ones, where, and when. None of them can forget, even though carrying the memories is clearly killing something inside of them. If they don’t remember, the people who were killed all those decades ago will be completely forgotten.

I marveled at Han Kang’s writing as we went deeper into Kyungha’s memories and the memories of Jeju Islanders. My summary is much more hamfisted than the subtle, thoughtful revelations in We Do Not Part. What really struck me about the book was the way that Kyungha settled into a peaceful acceptance of the past. She does not forget but she learns to move forward while carrying the memory of what happened on Jeju Island, all those years ago. It is possible to live even after learning the terrible reality of our histories if we are willing to bear the pain long enough to find our way through to the other side, metaphorically. If we can do this, the lost need not stay lost forever. Perhaps, we might even find a measure of justice for the crimes of the past.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.