Greek Lessons follows two central characters, a woman who has (seemingly inexplicably) lost the ability to speak and a teacher of Ancient Greek at a private arts academy who is steadily losing his sight. Some of the most memorable passages of the book come from the teacher's meditations on going blind, especially when he begins to tie that into readings of Plato. Greek Lessons is a very strange book. (I was not really surprised by this after having read The Vegetarian.) The prose has a sometimes awkward quality in English that (not being able to read the original) I'm tempted to ascribe to translation, but I have no idea whether or not that's the case. There are moments of real, sheer beauty in the writing but overall I found the novel confusing and somewhat disjointed—the shifts in perspective and the tendency, especially towards the end, for the narration to lapse into broken lines almost like poetry, were distracting to me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hogarth for the e-ARC! Greek Lessons is my first read from Han Kang and I was immediately intrigued to read more of her works from the second I finished this one. With a heavy focus on language, Kang shows how the importance of senses and communication causes great disconnection between the two main characters. Eloquent, thought provoking and poetically melancholy, I really liked this one and cannot wait to dive into her other works.

This is a hard book to review. At times, I felt it to be uneven, but then I wonder if it has to do with the nature of the story (or even lack thereof). There are some books I am sure I will have to revisit in order to appreciate them fully, and this is one of them. Like all of Han Kang's works, this is exquisite at the sentence level, more poetry than novel. (although I must admit I found the translation to be a bit rigid in places). Nevertheless, the overall effect is evocative and immersive.

"Greek Lessons" interweaves two stories: that of a professor of Greek who is losing his sight, and one of his students, a middle-aged woman who has lost her speech (and her son in the process). I found the teacher's sections to be far stronger on first read, perhaps because we see him in relation to other people. There are some lovely passages about love and death that absolutely blew me away. Han Kang at her best.

Ultimately, this is a story about the burden of existence and the retreat from language in the face of hurt. Or rather, I would say a retreat into silence when you love the world too much and cannot bear the pain inflicted on other living beings.

I am still gathering my thoughts. But there is no denying Han Kang is a fantastic and thoroughly original writer.

There was something so heartbreakingly beautiful to Han Kang's enigmatic new novel. Loosely, it's about two people who meet while each is going through their own private transformations (loss of sight, loss of voice). The novel is about the bond they form, but also about language. It's a difficult, surprising novel -- and it gives no easy answers. But the prose is delightful, and it left me feeling something only great art ever does. I feel... changed, in many ways.

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!

Breathtaking writing - at times I read a passage aloud just to experience Kang’s words in another way. The novel involves a woman losing her ability to talk and a man losing his eyesight. It was an interesting take on what life is about and communicating without voice or sight - don’t we all experience that metaphorically at times - not being able to say things like we want or see what’s in front of us. This one is slim at 192 pages and was a true pleasure to read. Thanks to Hogarth for the advanced copy. What a brilliant writer Han Kang is.

A Korean literature professor in Seoul whose earliest memory is about drawing Korean symbols in the dirt, has once more lost her ability to speak. It happened earlier in her life as well, as a teenager, the psychiatrist she was taken to of no use, it was learning a new language that broke whatever had dammed her up. She is suffering not only the loss of her voice via her words but other losses as well and is one of the two unnamed protagonists in Greek Lessons, the other, a teacher of ancient Greek, a Korean whose family relocated to Germany years before, and he has returned to Korea, wanting to be home as his eyesight fails. He is teaching the ancient Greek class that the woman is taking, she hoping that a new language might return her speech to her. A gentle very interior and elliptical novel about language, solitariness, the search for connection no matter how brief, the human desire for touch.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hogarth Press for an ARC.

I previously read Han Kang's novel The Vegetarian and absolutely loved it, but I couldn't connect with the writing style of her latest novel at all.

In Greek Lessons, we follow a woman who’s taking an evening class in Ancient Greek. Why she’s chosen to take this, of all things, we do not know. She seems very self-contained, studious, but not actively participating. We start to know a bit more about her and discover that she’s lost her ability to speak, and the custody of her eight-year-old son. We also get to know about the instructor and his personal history and we learn that he is losing his vision.

It’s a slim novel, told with a light touch, and yet Greek Lessons gets readers thinking about a lot of pretty deep issues. We reflect on language, and the loss of language. We think about how each of our senses connects us with the world and each other. And we’re left contemplating what happens when we’re cut off from our families, each other, and the world. Do we need human connection or can we live entirely on our own?

Greek Lessons is definitely a book about language. Written in Korean, about learning Ancient Greek, with a character who’s lost the ability to speak, and now translated into English, Greek Lessons pushed me to think about how our experiences are mediated through our language and how each language reflects and shapes the culture in which it exists.

I was impressed by the translation of Greek Lessons. There are parts of the book about written Korean and these were translated (and possibly more fully explained) in ways that made understandable for me what would probably have been self-evident for Korean speakers.

But while Greek Lessons has much for a reader to gnash their teeth into on an intellectual level, what really made this book powerful for me was Kang's depiction of the isolation and loneliness of its characters. It is a deeply sad book for much of the time, though nothing especially sad happens during the present time, both characters have wounds from their earlier life that have left a permanent mark.

Like the photograph of shadows on the ceiling or a curtain gently blowing in an open window, Greek Lessons dwells in the quiet, dim spaces of our lives. It’s a study of the tiniest of moments, the minutest of sounds—like the shuffling of a foot or the brush of a sleeve—and about how, although this quiet isolation may feel safe and comfortable, we can become lost in it and disconnected from the world around us. In addition to recalling memories, Kang’s characters dream and sometimes the boundary between dreams and memories and current time blur in ways that are disorienting but illuminating.

As reading more translated fiction is my main 2023 reading goal, I was excited at the chance to add Han Kang to my reading list. The winner of the 2016 International Booker with The Vegetarian, Kang unsurprisingly came up in many people’s predictions for this year’s longlist. While Greek Lessons didn’t make the list, I’m incredibly glad I read it. Highly recommend.

Han Kang always delivers a book that makes you think.

Stylistically, she changes, but still has an ability to use language (beautifully translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yea Won) that creates a mental atmosphere as well as a moving picture of a story.

In this offering, she gives us a Greek language teacher who can't see, and a student who loves language, but hasn't spoken for years. Their relationship is central to the story, but not: most of the book is their separate lives, but moving toward each other.

Though not her best, this was another wonderful book from an exciting author, and I hope there are many more to come.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Hogarth Press for the Advance Reader's Copy.

Greek Lessons was my first book by Han Kang, and I can see why she has received praise and accolades for her previous books. I was actually first introduced to Kang through her recent story in the New Yorker, "The Middle Voice," which is excerpted from this short novel. I was intrigued by her exploration of language and loss in the story, and glad to see these themes expanded upon in the novel.

In Greek Lessons, we meet a young woman who has lost her voice. For the second time in her life, since learning how to talk, she is suddenly unable to make sound. The first time, she found her brain was "unblocked" by learning a language very different from Korean, so she is taking Ancient Greek lessons. At the same time, a young man with a degenerative eye condition is slowly losing his vision. The two are brought together by these classes and their conditions.

While many of the descriptions of this book focus on the story of this young couple, the heart of Greek Lessons is language and the different way that we can communicate with one another. In her slightly detached prose, Kang explores the loneliness of losing the ability to communicate with one another and the importance of connection. This theme was particularly poignant for me as I read Kang through the layer of translation, which added complexity to this conversation.

If you like heady, semi-philosophical reads with a focus on language and relationships, definitely pick this one up.

Thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my review!

Oh I feel so bad about what I’m about to write. I had such a yearning as I read this novel for it to linger longer on the ideas and poetics of what was being said and experienced by these characters. I felt like maybe a half-dozen masterpieces began and carried me forward into new, brave thoughts—and then they were abandoned. Some other, amazing story began. Maybe these threads tied together a little by the end but along the way the weave kept getting torn apart as tense and place and time all changed from one page to the next. I’m grieving for the novel that might have been. It needed a center for me. A grounding that wasn’t there. I had some pretty ideas flash by. Maybe that should be enough.

Greek Lessons is a short, moving novel about the intimacies between two individuals both dealing with losses. Han Kang is so good at writing reflective novels and packing a lot in a small amount of words. A woman joins an Ancient Greek course, where she meets the instructor. They both find themselves at a difficult stage in life. She has lost the ability to speak. This is not the first time this has occurred in her life, and this time was most likely precipitated by the death of her mother and losing custody of her son. Her inability to speak is matched with her instructor who is losing his sense of sight- something that began when he was quite young has gotten progressively worse. He knows he will eventually lose his sight. He too lost someone close to him. A moving thought he has about the woman he lost was "sometimes I put the question to myself using the form of Greek logic you so detested. When we take as true, the premise that if something is lost, something is gained, given that I lost you, what have I gained? What will I now gain through the loss of the visible world"? It is heartbreaking and the intimate connection forged between the two is incredibly moving. While I still favor The Vegetarian, this novel is a worthy addition to any Kang fan.

Thank you to Hogarth (Random House) via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

First, I’d like to extend my gratitude to Netgalley, Random House, and Han Kang for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Greek Lessons is a poignantly abstract exploration of the limits of language and the intimacy of communication. It’s difficult to describe the fascinating quality of how this book plays with its content via its form; it truly feels like every word of the story is a deliberate choice to communicate something different about its themes. The writing itself is almost divine in how it suits the narrative and its characters-- each of the two protagonists has a distinct voice, both with an underlying sense of restraint that presents differently between them.

Much of the novel is written in flashbacks, but they read as genuine experiences of memory rather than myopic retrospection, and as such the muted grief and nostalgia of the main characters in respect to their pasts drives the arc of the novel rather than straightforward plot beats. This is a slow, heavily character-driven book, and its realistically-flawed characters make it entrancing to follow. The audience forms their image of both protagonists through how they process the world in their respective sections, as well as with how they see each other; that perspective difference, a kind of miscommunication itself, brings emphasis to the themes of belonging, communication, and closeness this novel examines.

Ultimately, Greek Lessons is a book which understands the power of its language. It tells its story from perspectives which offer unique insight into that power, and does so with graceful, sublime figurativity that slowly evolves into poignant abstraction as it continues. This one definitely merits a reread, or multiple, to absorb and bask in the beauty of its writing. I loved it.

Han Kang's Greek Lessons is unlike any book I've read recently. It was quiet, a bit uncanny, and beautiful. I was surprised by how poetic the writing is in this book. I found myself frequently needing or wanting to re-read many of the sentences. This is the story of a woman whose trauma makes her mute and her Ancient Greek teacher whose sight is deteriorating into blindness. For most of the novel, we explore the two characters' pasts and present, largely independent of each other, with scenes of class time woven in. Towards the book's last quarter, the two characters connect deeply.

I would recommend Greek Lessons to anyone who enjoys poetic prose and is fascinated by the power of language.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hogarth for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

**I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

I loved Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” – it’s a book I still recommend to people, even though it has been years since I actually read it. It elicited such a strong emotional reaction that first time that I have held on to it since. I own two of Kang’s other books – “The White Books” and “Human Acts” – although I have still not gotten around to reading them. With these strong memories of “The Vegetarian” still in my mind, as well as the continued love for and popularity of Kang’s novels, I expected something similar from “Greek Lessons.”

I did not have that feeling.

“Greek Lessons” is not a bad book. It has a very simple premise, revolving around the question of the human condition as it relates to loneliness, language (in its multiple forms, all of which relate in some way to the body, whether the body is able to communicate or not), and finding connections. I am often compelled by novels in which characters are left unnamed, even given very sparse backgrounds, and where there are lengthy sections that seem to be removed from any concept of linear time. This is the case in Kang’s latest novel, where there was often an uncertainty about who was speaking, where this uncertainty was a positive rather than a negative because it pushed me, as the reader, towards more philosophical contemplations.

Yet for some reason, this dd not work in “Greek Lessons.”

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t able to dedicate my full attention to the novel the way that I could in the past, where I could give all of my headspace to the text. I often found myself agitated, confused, unable to follow. The meaning of the title wasn’t lost on me – in fact, there are many possibilities for this, significances that I think Kang works into the text wonderfully. But these were not contemplations I felt compelled to undertake. Similarly, I did not become absorbed into the more philosophical dimensions of the actual Greek lesson nor were the more poetic sections of the text, in which the two protagonists contemplated their own loss of communication, through the loss of speech and waning sight, enough to make me feel deeply moved.

I wonder if “Greek Lessons” might be a bit too heavy-handed, in some ways, or if this is the case of having read so many works of literary fiction rooted in reality and exploring what it means to be human and establish meaningful connections that one becomes picky about what they find moving. I do not think “Greek Lessons” is a bad book, nor that my current rating is entirely fair. These thoughts might be coming from me as I am now reading this novel than they are as someone who immerses herself in every literary work like an archaeologist with a little brush. At the very least, this was simply not a book I felt amazed by, that I would go around telling people about. It is one I would be willing to revisit in the future to see if a different headspace and context might change my opinion.

In Greek Lessons, Han Kang's signature poetic prose follows a mute woman who is taking ancient Greek language lessons from a man who is quickly becoming blind. As we peek into these characters' pasts, their trauma and their pain, we see the true value and importance of language in our journey toward intimate connection. The threat that loss of language can have on our relationships, with others and with the world at large.
Han's writing (and the translation by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won) are truly stunning -- poetic, sad, warm, affecting. Descriptions of rooms bathed in blue light in the hours of early dawn, a beautiful woman looking through film strips help up toward the sun, etching letters into the dirt, fingertips writing on a palm, secretly witnessing a kiss between strangers.
The alternating perspectives illustrate how the two characters view the world and their separate situations. As their worlds slowly collide and become entangled, we, the reader, feel the rush of emotion and intimacy that the lonely characters must be feeling as well.
Greek Lessons is a beautiful, short novel that I wanted to reread the moment I finished it. Truly superb, Han Kang is one of our greatest literary treasures.

I will think about this book for a long time. It was absolutely stunning, in every way.
This is a powerful and poetic story of two strangers, wading through the depths of loss, and the unlikely way in which they find themselves intertwined.
A language professor whose slowly disintegrating eyesight leaves him navigating life on the precipice of an eternal haze. A woman who has lost her language and ability to speak, as grief and trauma render her mute. When the two meet, they discover a quiet and hazy understanding in one another.
Reading this book was a truly sensory experience, teeming with poignant nostalgia, memories pooling behind eyelids, and the fearful realization of losing something you'll never recover.
With delicate and deliberate prose, Han Kang creates a masterful inspection of the human condition, and a breathtaking exploration of language, grief and intimacy that left me with a feeling that I can't quite describe.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hogarth for providing me with this e-ARC.!

A quiet, beautiful, and slightly disorientating story of two people drowning in loss. A woman loses her ability to speak. A professor is losing his ability to see. They find themselves drawn to one another. The detached nature of the writing and scene setting only made me want to get closer.

Thank you very much to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

I will be honest, this is not going to be my favorite Han Kang book, but it does show her range. The Vegetarian is probably her most famous work, but this lacks the strangeness and the claws of it. My favorite by her is Human Acts, which is more poignant, but I would argue more pertinent. The White Book is more of a poetic examination of emotional trauma. Greek Lessons is about human connection and the different pain that everyone has. It’s messaging and imagery is more subtle than

Everyone is experiencing pain, but it manifests and shows differently for all. However, we can bond over our pain, even if it isn’t shared pain. Just listening to someone express their pain can create a bond with and empathy for that person. The woman’s shows up in loss of speech. His shows up in his everyday sort of struggles with culture and fitting in. However, by the end they have both found someone who could support them in a the future. That is if you, choose to believe that there is a happy ending after the book ends.

I think my favorite part of this book was the examination of the Greek language and the discussions around their culture and Plato. I teach English and enjoy picking up bits of languages here and there. I find languages to be fascinating and this book highlight some of the reasons why. The similarities and the differences, how they shape a culture… language is just so amazing when people examine it. It almost made me want to learn Ancient Greek. Almost, there were a few lines complaining about the grammar, which put me off.

Something that I wanted, but didn’t get from this novel, was more emotion. Everything felt very detached and muted when I compare it to The Vegetarian and Human Acts. I don’t know if this is because of how this book was written originally or because of changes in translation. I just didn’t feel that much with these two characters. Did I feel sorry for them? Sure, but I never teared up or almost started to cry at any point, which is a bench mark for these type of books. I know, me putting expectations on a book, is not the fault of the book.

Overall, I think that readers of Han Kang’s other novels will find this an interesting addition to her translated works. None of her books are exactly alike, so I think that it’s fine to think that if you like one you may like another, but you could also like one if you didn’t like another. They’re very different, but depending on themes that are more prevalent for you, your appreciation may vary. However, I think it is worth giving it a chance if you didn’t like her other novels, but something about this one speaks to you. She’s a bit of a literary chameleon, which is why I’ll continue to read her novels as they’re translated. I just hope that it isn't as long of a wait this time.

Thank you to Hogarth and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel, however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

A woman is losing her ability to speak. A man, her teacher, is losing his ability to see. Han Kang's writing is beautiful and poetic. She is able to simply express the pain and suffering of each character and how it binds them together. She builds each character's background with just a few lines that drops the readers into their heads. This is a short simple book packed with a lot of feeling. I loved it.

Thanks to @netgalley for the ARC.