HUMAN ACTS

Han Kang

The Gwangju Uprising was a bloody stepping stone on the struggling path toward democracy for South Korea. While the true number of casualties was forever occluded from history, the fictional death of a middle-school boy haunted the narratives of the novel, lamented and condemned the inhuman acts of unspeakable brutality. Some readers may find the distant, impersonal tone dominant almost throughout the novel disconcerting; however, dissociation may be the only survival method in the face of overwhelming traumas.

I noticed that the adjective “cold” appeared in the novel roughly three dozen times in all seven chapters with a multitude of connotation. The infamous uprising not only obliterated the death but also extinguished the flame of survivors’ hope for personal justice in the aftermath. The numbing effect therefore doomed the ones left behind with a lifetime of picking up the broken pieces of their shattered and perpetually tormented souls by the curse of memories and debilitating grief.

Have you heard about the Milgram experiment in which people abandoned their personal conscience to blindly obey authority? This chilling trait of human nature was responsible for recurring horrific crimes against humanity throughout our brief chronicle of mankind. Blessed be the heart of the courageous ones who choose to stand on the right-side history in opposition of mass obedience for oppression.

WONG KAR-WAI TRILOGY

Maggie Cheung

Years ago when my life was carried away on an unyielding wave of melancholy, I sometimes abandoned myself into the ethereal world of Mr. Wong's cinematography. I watched some of his movies multiple times alone and with different people, but I always pretended that it was my first time with each viewing experience. As time progresses, specific details of each movie blur away, and only vague remnants of feelings associated with certain scenes follow me until this day. By chance, I discovered a collection of dialogues that I wrote down for Days of Being Wild (1990), In The Mood For Love (2000), and 2046 (2004). I tried to remember why I took these notes, but the past is something I could barely see and completely out of my touch. As I reviewed the notes and struggled to find the reasons, fragments of scenes from each movie and the mood they induced within my psyche came rushing back as if promptly awakened from soporific oblivion.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE

Kurt Vonnegut

A near-dead person has the alleged ability to review the entirety of his life as he advances toward that blinding tunnel of light. This novel was the jumbled life assessment of somebody suffered from severe PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. Billy Pilgrim may think he traveled through time, but he may just as well flash back and forth within his own memory during the nano-second right before his death. Much like Dr. Crowe in the movie The Sixth Sense, Billy's version of reality made sense only to him in order to cope with horrific events in his life.

 As a reader, I love to tip-toe on the literary fence that any author planted between their land of fantasy and reality. I can choose to lean on the paradox of fourth-dimension venture of the Trafamadorian aliens or I can choose to blame Billy's experience on those cheap Kilgore Trout science fictions he read. This unambiguity underscored the religious argument of fate and free-will that Billy vigorously debated with the aliens. 

I like certain pieces and bits of this novel; I get the sentiments on war. the absurdity of death, and all the originality with which it was written. However, the fragmented novelty of it escaped my enjoyment and rendered me unable to read it the wholesome synthesizing way that the Trafamadorians read their novels. So it goes.

A LITTLE LIFE

Hanya Yanagihara

I could not handle the intense viscero-somatic reaction elicited from this harrowingly depressing novel. All suffering was blown up to a cosmic proportion, everything on a brighter side was permanently tainted with the sickest shade of abuse, loathing, and self-destruction. Extremism shoved this novel forward: everybody was either the perverted devil incarnation himself or Mother Teresa with a perpetual savior-complex and the holy patience of a thousand gods. The folks who did not fully fit those categories scrambled around in absolute bewilderment of whatever the bloody hell happened to Jude, the main character, whom was such a malignant magnet for evil that thoroughly nullified even the most restorative forces of love.

 I made the mistake of choosing this book for my bedtime reading, which repeatedly jolted me wide awake with damning disbelief and a distressing need to stand under a hot shower scrubbing myself vigorously with antiseptic soaps for hours. Hanya Yanagihara was a true voyeuristic sadist who masterfully juxtaposed elegance and depravity in her plot and characterization. However, dooming the folks having same sex relations is rather exploitative, no? Additionally, I can empathize with the needs to fix the damaged souls, but I also wanted to scream at a lot of people in this book that they ain’t no miracle workers, so please, let nature run its inevitable course.