You know a novel’s bad when, after reading it, you have to go back to the book’s ad copy to find out what the damn thing was meant to be about!
Apparently it’s about the relationship between a woman who’s lost her voice/mother/son and is a student in a Greek language class and the class’s teacher who’s upset about having grown up in both Germany and Korea and is losing his sight.
I got some of that from reading this but the voices are so indistinct that I thought both “characters” mentioned above were the same person!
There’s no discernible story - the characters interact, I guess, but nothing seems to happen or go anywhere. It feels allegorical - something about communication maybe? - but comes off as pointless.
Han Kang’s previous novel The Vegetarian, which wasn’t bad, seems to have been a flash in the pan because I’ve tried her other books and they were all terrible, especially this one. It’s early doors still but I’m gonna put Greek Lessons forward for one of 2023’s worst novels!
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