Review: 'Greek Lessons,' by Han Kang

Plato's allegory of the cave, which examines how our conception of the world relates to our perception of it, has been sparking debate ever since the "Republic" hit Athenian agorae nearly 2,400 years ago. The great Greek philosopher argued that as we are unshackled from the cave wall and acquire freedom, education or experience, our understanding becomes dependent not solely on our senses but on reason, which allows us to grasp the true nature of things.

Han Kang's tender new novel "Greek Lessons," translated with lyrical precision by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won, takes Plato's premise as the jumping-off point for an affecting look at two adults whose ties to the world have been sundered — a poet whose voice has gone silent and a teacher whose vision grows dark. As they draw toward a meaningful encounter, they grapple with their individual losses and question how humanity's needs and desires change as our means of interacting with the world and each other are circumscribed.

The unnamed poet has always been interested in language: "The more keenly she felt it, the more fiercely she clasped the words." She temporarily lost her voice at age 16, becoming "wrapped in a foggy silence," unable to think "in language." Eventually she began to speak again, perhaps via the talismanic effect of a foreign language, but now 20 years later, "the silence" has returned. Hoping to engender another recovery, she enrolls in Ancient Greek lessons.

Her teacher, also unnamed, was diagnosed with progressive vision loss as an adolescent in Germany, where his family relocated when he was 15. While there, he had a formative love with a woman who lost her hearing after a childhood illness. He worried that once his sight was gone, they would be unable to communicate without speech, a misgiving that doomed their relationship and still haunts him years later as he watches the poet sit silent in his classroom.

Outside of class, the poet recalls losing her son in a custody battle and her mother to cancer. The teacher writes letters to his younger sister, a soprano, praising the balm of her voice. Neither concentrates fully on their present, until they realize how much their mindfulness matters.

The translation by Smith, who also did Han's three previous English-language novels, and Won, who has translated luminaries such as Ali Smith into Korean, is suffused with crackling sensory imagery that emphasizes our ties to the world — "an ice-cold explosive in the center of her hot heart"; "the spring night air, which is thick with an anticipatory sweetness of crushed petals"; "the river water scintillated in the July sunlight like the scales of a huge fish."

Discussions about the mutability of voice and language, the relationship between students and teachers, and the distance between parents and children fortify a story built around timeless lessons from millennia ago. Whether Han's novel will endure as long is anyone's guess, but readers will surely gain fresh insight from "Greek Lessons" each time they pick it up.

Cory Oldweiler is a freelance writer.

Greek Lessons

By: Han Kang, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won.

Publisher: Hogarth, 192 pages, $26.