Human Acts is a superb novel and books like this make me fundamentally hopeful about the future of literature. This is a really harrowing read which unflinchingly stares into the abyss, into the coldest, cruelest, most unforgiving aspects of human nature and our shared experience. The way Han Kang depicts the Gwangju Massacre, examining its aftermath, its reverberations, the bloody entrails strewn on the sidewalks, the lines of bodies in the makeshift morgues, the suppurating decay and cloying smell of death, slams you with far more emotional force than any direct examination of the events ever could. Her prose is direct and understated and the bitter, resigned tone of the book is powerful beyond measure. The perspectival shifts in this book are a stylistic masterclass in how to build narrative out of fragmented perspectives and create a powerful, interlocking patchwork of impressions and recollections. 

Above all, I think there's something incredibly haunting about this book. The characters in it are haunted by their memories and the imagery itself lingers with you well after you finish. Kang is particularly apt at capturing the moments when, whether we realise it or not, something inside us irrevocably breaks and I think she does a phenomenal job of describing how memories haunt us like restless spirits:

Of course, in Human Acts, these pangs of regret and guilt - "conscience, the most terrifying thing in the world" - are taken to their natural extreme in a scenario in which survivors look back, unable to forgive themselves for their inability to alter the course of events. There's something eminently universal about this even though most of us will never experience anything close to the horrors described in this book. We are all victims of history, buffeted by unpredictable forces, and we all look back and imagine what we could have done, knowing we should have been nobler, more courageous, but were things to happen again we'd likely behave in much the same way. 

This book taps into deeply contested questions about human nature. It's in the tradition of writers like Naipaul, Greene, Coetzee, and most of all Conrad, cynics aware of the dark tempest which swirls outside the guardrails of civilisation. It explores that notion of the push and pull between our innate barbarism and our nobler impulses. How are we meant to live with and trust our fellow human beings when cruelty lurks just beneath the surface? When ordinary people who could be our colleagues or friends are capable of inflicting unspeakable pain? If we are brutish by nature, what can we do to limit this? I appreciate and admire Han's general cynicism, but also her capacity to identify the rays of hope which do exist. She doesn't mawkishly appeal to the better angels of our nature or naively suggest that everything will be alright, but she remains conscious of the fact that decency and kindness exist and must be cultivated:

What struck me most about this book was the visceral physicality of the writing. The prose is deeply uncomfortable to read at times. It makes you cringe. There's a sense of repulsion:

Kang is a brilliant corporeal writer who is able to flesh out the physical realities of violence and suffering. She boils killing and torture down to what they are: mundane, repetitive processes; piercing screams; the loss of control of bodily functions; piss, shit, vomit and blood; and that hollow, hungry look in the vacant eyes and gaunt faces of people stripped of their humanity. Portraying suffering with such immediacy is shocking but is not done for shock value. It underscores how fragile humanity is and how easily people with dreams and desires can be cast aside like hunks of meat. Few books better distil the long-lasting effects of trauma or the overwhelming desire for release, to escape the prison of the body as a means to freedom from suffering:

I'm unsurprised she won the Nobel and, although I largely disliked The Vegetarian, this book alone justifies the award. Human Acts is an eternal reminder of how historical traumas and tragedies rewrite the genetic code of societies. They might not be spoken about, people may carry the burdens silently, it may take decades for recognition of any sort to occur, but it always lurks in the margins. It's the sliding doors moment in people's lives when "soundlessly, and without fuss, some tender thing deep inside [them breaks]".