With dreamlike prose, the highly anticipated English translation of another one of Han Kang’s novels left me in a daze. The plot moved slowly and felt surreal as it shifted from dream sequences to flashbacks to the past. I wouldn’t go so far as to slap the magical realism label to this novel, but there was something about the way Han crafted her story that left the reader hanging between the real and unreal. We Do Not Part was quiet and devastating, but in a way that differed from the haunting quietude that Human Acts had. Much like Human Acts, memory and remembrance played important roles to reflect on South Korea’s tumultuous history during the twentieth century (with a particular focus on the Jeju Island massacre in 1948 for We Do Not Part). Furthermore, Han accentuated this tragedy with one of the characters’ own trauma and memory with it. However, I felt this novel was missing something, perhaps the fact that the characters and the story felt more distant to me, lost in the heavy snow that remained ever-present throughout.

With that said, something about the way this novel was crafted made me realize that I need to revisit it after reading more of Han’s works. I’ve only read The Vegetarian and Human Acts (at the time of writing this review), but I get the impression that she pulled themes and imagery from her other novels for We Do Not Part as a culmination (of sorts) of her commentary on the complexities of being human and the histories we’re inextricably tied to.

I get the sense that I may have missed some symbolism while reading (which is entirely my fault for not reading it consistently), so, again, I’ll have to revisit this novel and see what more I can get out of it.