I just finished reading Greek Lessons by Han Kang, and I feel like I experienced an art form laid out in words. The author writes primarily about language—how it gives us a sense of belonging, order, healing, or even entrapment. There are two protagonists in the story, a male Greek teacher and a female student. In my reading, they embody two aspects of language: the Greek teacher is trying to find a sense of belonging and community in his home country after living abroad in Germany for a long time, while the student is trying to process painful life events that she could not work through using her fluid and unstructured exposure to her mother tongue. Interestingly, both of them come together in a classroom to learn a foreign language—Greek. She takes up studying Greek not because she wants to explore the great thinkers whose words have survived the test of time but because she wants to come to terms with language in a more formal way, as Greek places extreme emphasis on forms and structures. Meanwhile, she yearns for the visceral expressivity of simple words and phrases; this is in stark contrast to the teacher, who believes that the simplification of language symbolizes cultural decay.
Another element that brings them together is their shared sense of isolation from the outside world, brought on by their disabilities: she has lost the ability to speak, while he is gradually going blind. Both of them feel overwhelmed by emotions brimming beneath the surface. In a poetic turn of events, one fateful day the woman is unable to help a trapped bird escape, and subsequently, while trying to free the bird, the man falls, breaks his spectacles, and is left asking for help. The trapped bird mirrors how they feel about their pent-up emotions. This scene also reverses the dynamic between them that had persisted all along; now, she is in a position to help. They spend time expressing themselves through a menagerie of expressions: the man speaks about his childhood in Germany, his love for a deaf woman, his life-affirming friend, and his loneliness; all of which trigger memories in her about her divorce, her deceased mother, and her son, for whom she lost custody. She communicates to him by writing on the palm of his hand—a childlike, intimate form of conversation—interspersed with periods of silence.
The woman returns the next day, unable to sleep at night, to take him to get a new pair of glasses. They share a moment of intimacy beyond words; even as they come together, they remain oblivious to each other’s vast internal states and feelings. What follows is a dreamlike sequence during which the author portrays their time together as lying in a deep-sea forest. She utters a faint, bubble-like sound—precious because it comes straight from her heart, though it lasts only a while.
The novel ends on a circular note (with a chapter titled “0”), where she is trying to speak a syllable, but we are not made aware of what she says.
This novel touched me deeply. The author explores language—the various aspects of it—and how we try to deal with our emotions and ideas through it. We fail trying to express ourselves fully through language and succeed when we embrace the entire spectrum of expressivity, from simple words, thoughts, and memories to precious silence.