Blanc

by Han Kang

À la faveur d'un séjour à l'étranger, Han Kang pose sur une feuille quelques mots, tous liés à une couleur, le blanc. Le blanc d'une couverture pour bébé, le blanc du sel ou de la neige, le blanc de la lune et celui du magnolia. À travers chacun de ces mots, elle progresse dans sa mémoire, dans son histoire.
Nous avançons ainsi sur la surface tranchante du temps – au bord d'une falaise transparente. Nous posons un pied sur l'extrémité dangereuse de la durée vécue et avançons l'autre pied dans le vide. Non que nous soyons courageux, mais nous n'avons pas le choix. En ce moment même, je ressens cette menace. Je me hasarde dans un livre que je n'ai pas encore écrit, dans un temps que je n'ai pas encore vécu.
Ce nouveau roman de Han Kang est un voyage dans un paysage de neige et de douceur, vers les sentiments les plus intimes d'une femme face à elle-même.
Han Kang est née à Gwangju, en Corée du Sud. Traduits dans le monde entier, plusieurs de ses romans ont été adaptés au cinéma. En 2016, elle a reçu le Man Booker International Prize pour La Végétarienne.Han Kang est née à Gwangju, en Corée du Sud. Traduits dans le monde entier, plusieurs de ses romans ont été adaptés au cinéma. En 2016, elle a reçu le Man Booker International Prize pour La Végétarienne.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Contemporary, Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Asia, Asian Literature

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 25, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Han Kang ( 한강) was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, as well as Human Acts, The White Book, Greek Lessons, and We Do Not Part. In 2024, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."

Reviews

[Sean Barrs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Music is often associated with memory. I often hear a song and I’m taken back to a time, to a place, to a person, to an experience that I never will be able to regain: to a moment that song embodies that will forever be lost in the endless river of life. For Han Kang the colour white has a similar effect; it smashes open the floodgates to her mind and drops torrents of memory over the body of her writing.

"Why do old memories constantly drift to the surface?"

Because they never leave us. Because they never stop defining who we are and shaping our paths. Han Kang is haunted by her past, by her memories and by her dreams of the dead. There is a certain sense of guilt, of sorrow, that permeates her own life, a life that exists when another did not. This hangs over the writing, and the author’s conscience, forever digging outwards from the back of her mind: it’s a blazing reminder, one she endures with every step.

“This life only needed one of us to live it. If you had lived beyond those first few hours, I would not be living now. My life means yours is impossible. Only in the gap between darkness and light, only in that blue-tinged breach, do we manage to make out each other’s faces."

Such a thing questions the very nature of writing itself. What’s it for? Is it to entertain? Is it to tell a story? Is it to communicate a thought, a dream, an idea, or can it have another purpose?

It can be cleansing; it can be cathartic and it can even be a means of finding oneself. By exploring such a simple idea as a colour, a colour that embodies much to the writer, it allows her to explore the dark recesses of her mind and come to terms with emotions and experiences that have hung over her for a lifetime.

The White Book is a powerful evocation of human spirit, of human pain and suffering, but it’s also a book about learning to live with our daemons and our darkest experiences; it’s a book about life, and it’s also a book about death: it’s a book about the small amount of stark whiteness that separates the two.

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You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
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[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I recently enjoyed this author’s novel The Vegetarian. The White Book is not a novel; it’s a collection of mostly one-page mini-essays, almost meditations, on things that are white.

The focus is on loneliness, loss and mortality. Several are about the whiteness of pain (the author suffers from migraines).



Amazing how many things that lend themselves to symbolism are white when you think of it. So we have pieces on baby gowns, rice, fog, breast milk, salt, sugar, pills, hair, the Milky Way, bones, ashes, and so on.

There’s also a lot about winter: snow, snowflakes, frost, sleet. The narrator is visiting Warsaw, but her own country of Korea has harsh winters and she also visits the Artic to see the midnight sun. So there’s a lot on winter whiteness: snow, snowflakes, ice, sleet, frost.

A couple of examples of good writing:

“At times my body feels like a prison, a solid, shifting island threading through the crowd. A sealed chamber carrying all the memories of the life I have lived and the mother tongue from which they are inseparable. The more stubborn the isolation, the more vivid these unlooked-for fragments, the more oppressive their weight. So that is seems the place I flee to is not so much a city on the other side of the world as further into my own interior.”



In the chapter Frost:

“Trees shiver off their leaves, incrementally lightening their burden. Solid objects like stones or buildings appear subtly more dense. Seen from behind, men and women bundled up in heavy coats are saturated with a mute presentiment, that of people beginning to endure.”



The author occasionally gives us poetry:

“Because at some point you will inevitably cast me aside.
When I am at my weakest, when I am most in need of help,
You will turn your back on me, cold and irrevocable.
And that is something perfectly clear to me.
And I cannot now return to the time before that knowledge.”

I enjoyed the book. Reading it was like meditating.

Here are links to my reviews of two other books by Han Kang:

Human Acts

The Vegetarian



The author (b. 1970) has written a half-dozen novels of which three have been translated into English. Her book, The Vegetarian, won the 2016 Man Booker prize for translations. This book reviewed here, The White Book, was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker prize. Since I originally wrote this review, the author won the 2024 Nobel Prize.

Top photo from marketplace.canva.com
Photo of Warsaw from gettyimages.com
Snow at Argenteuil by Claude Monet, 1875 on Wikipedia
The author from lithub.com

[zuza_zaksiazkowane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am almost speechless.

which, if you have the misfortune of having encountered me before, you know happens precisely never.

this book is so beautifully written, so emotive, and so brilliant. i initially gave it 5 stars, and i would have kept it there, except i have since read bluets and found it a slightly more satisfying (for me) version of this.

even still, it has to be 4.5.

han kang hive stays winning.

bottom line: wow wow wow.

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pre-review

holy f*cking moley.

review to come / 4.5 stars

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currently-reading updates

i have loyalty to two things in life: brown butter chocolate chip cookies, and han kang

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reading books by asian authors for aapi month!

book 1: kim jiyoung, born 1982
book 2: siren queen
book 3: the heart principle
book 4: n.p.
book 5: the hole
book 6: set on you
book 7: disorientation
book 8: parade
book 9: if i had your face
book 10: joan is okay
book 11: strange weather in tokyo
book 12: sarong party girls
book 13: the wind-up bird chronicle
book 14: portrait of a thief
book 15: sophie go's lonely hearts club
book 16: chemistry
book 17: heaven
book 18: the atlas six
book 19: the remains of the day
book 20: is everyone hanging out without me? and other concerns
book 21: why not me?
book 22: when the tiger came down the mountain
book 23: the lies we tell
book 24: to paradise
book 25: pachinko
book 26: you are eating an orange. you are naked.
book 27: cursed bunny
book 28: almond
book 29: a tiny upward shove
book 30: ms ice sandwich
book 31: the woman in the library
book 32: nothing like i imagined
book 33: night sky with exit wounds
book 34: all the lovers in the night
book 35: the white book

[Taufiq Yves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took my time with this book - read it in bits and pieces over a long stretch. It’s not the kind of book you can just breeze through. If you pick it up at the wrong moment, it’s hard to grasp what it’s really trying to say. You need to slow down, read it gently, let your emotions seep into the words - only then does it start to make sense.

This book was written by Han Kang during her stay in Poland. Like Olga Tokarczuk, also a Nobel laureate from Poland, Han’s writing defies easy categorization. It’s fragmented, philosophical, more like a personal notebook of reflections than a traditional novel. Maybe not even a novel at all - more like a private journal of emotional memory.

In it, Han writes about 63 things that are white: swaddling cloth, breath, the white city of Warsaw, frost on the sea, a pillowcase that “seems to be whispering,” fog, snow… Maybe colors aren’t meant to be understood - they’re meant to be felt.

That’s what The White Book is like too. Han turns this elusive color into a symbol - 1 that, to me, speaks of mourning and reflection.

On a personal level, the book is a spiritual connection to her sister, who died just 2 hours after birth. Han imagines her sister as a newborn - this tiny, delicate creature she never got to meet. The most fragile of all mammals, pale and beautiful, like a piece of white rice cake.

From the perspective of her time abroad, Poland - a country devastated by WWII - naturally evokes introspection. Han writes, “As I walked through the lush forest path, it struck me: everything here has died once.” Being in a foreign land made her realize how the body can feel like a prison. Personal memory and historical memory don’t always align, but the distance made her yearn to dig deeper into her mother tongue, to use language to sketch the landscapes of memory.

The dead and the reborn city are both transformed into the motif of white - symbolizing longing, grief, desolation, purity. It’s a life experience shrouded in fog, separated by time and space. To truly contemplate life is to wade through that blur, and inevitably, to feel a quiet sadness.

I’ve reread passages from this book many times, and each time I’m struck by how Han Kang writes with such raw tenderness. Like this: “The snow-white swaddling cloth tightly wrapped the newborn. The womb is the smallest and warmest place in the world. The nurse, afraid the sudden vastness of the outside world would terrify the baby, wrapped him tightly. Now, he’s breathing with his lungs for the first time. He doesn’t know who he is, where he is, or what life even means.”

Or this: “Though she stared at her mother for a full hour, her undeveloped optic nerves couldn’t make out her mother’s face. She could only hear her mother’s voice. Live. You must live. That incomprehensible sentence was the only sound she heard.”

In these moments, Han seems to inhabit her sister’s body, imagining the world through the senses of a baby who lived only a few hours - reaching into a memory she herself never had access to.

She also projects the idea of “white” onto everyday things: a piece of white cotton cloth whispering, “You are precious. Your sleep is pure. There’s no shame in being alive.” The white mist of your breath is proof that you’re still here. The heart of a cabbage, bright and tender, holds the most delicate leaves.

Han’a writing often stares directly into the abyss - whether it’s history or womanhood. Watching her interviews, you get the sense she carries a heavy, quiet sorrow. Her gaze is deep and still, her voice soft and slow, with a kind of fragile strength.

Sometimes I even think - if one day she were to leave this world like Woolf, Zweig, Hemingway or Kawabata - it wouldn’t surprise me. Han seems like someone who appears fragile on the outside, but holds immense vitality within.

In the afterword of this novel, she offers a warm thank-you to her son, who came home from school every day to share all the white things he saw. She also sends a calm, impossible greeting to her young parents, who lost their first daughter in the autumn of 1966.

Through her travels in space, she slips into a tunnel of personal memory, into the heart of all things. By imagining her sister’s brief life, she experiences a love that’s deeply embodied and familial - and extends that love to her parents and her child.

Han isn’t wallowing in grief, nor is she simply pouring out sorrow. Through her meditations on death and memory, she’s quietly encouraging herself - and us. to keep seeking the fierce, burning pulse of life.

“I dare to lend my life to my sister, to that child, to her. So I must keep thinking about what life means. Because I want to give her this body, warm with flowing blood, I must keep tending to it, every moment, keeping it alive.”

To live is to carry the feeling of having survived.

3.8 / 5 stars

[Bianca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm ...

I don't know what to make of this book.

It's elegant, in a minimalist, subdued kind of way.

The font size is minuscule, there's a lot of white space and empty pages.

There are some nice passages, but also a whole lot of simple, simplistic, and "I don't get the point" kind of writing - writing for the sake of writing, or better said, I was reading it and not getting much out of it, despite wanting to.

I don't know - it's one of those "concept books".

You definitely have to be in the right kind of mood/frame of mind to appreciate it.

Or maybe not. It's not terrible. I wouldn't call it great either. It's probably one of those books you give more value to because of who the writer is. Probably.

I don't really know...

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a difficult book to describe, difficult to review. A very unconventional narrative, but the writing is just gorgeous. Sad at times, a reflection on the sister that she never knew using the color white. Descriptions of the feelings these things invoke, politics, reminders of the past, present. Meaningful. Things that make one ponder, ask questions.

Lace curtain. "Is it because of some billowing whiteness within us, unsullied, inviolate, that our encounters with objects so pristine never fail to leave us moved?"

Breath cloud. "On cold mornings,chat first White cloud of escaping breath is proof that we are living. Proof of our bodies warmth."

Handkerchief. "A single handkerchief drifted down, slowest of all, finally to the ground. Like a bird with it's wings half furled. Like a soul tentatively sounding out a place it might alight."

Each item is followed by a descriptive meaning, all beautiful. One could literally find special quotes everywhere. A book to savour.

[Repellent Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo que me hace sentir Han Kang con sus historias, no me lo hace sentir ninguna otra autora o autor. Me tiene desde la primera hasta la última página en un estado de agitación, con el corazón en un puño. Tiene la habilidad de hacerme sentir muchas cosas con muy pocas palabras. Trastorna totalmente mis emociones y es algo que no todos los autores consiguen en mí. Y menos conseguirlo con todas sus obras (al menos con las que tenemos por ahora publicadas en español). Y eso es lo que me ha pasado con Blanco.

Han Kang se va a servir de diferentes cosas blancas para contarnos la historia de una tragedia familiar, y cuales son sus sentimientos respecto a este dolor. Ante la pureza del blanco, la autora trata de consagrase con ese dolor, que la sigue atormentando. El libro fue escrito durante la estancia de Han Kang en una ciudad europea, que durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial fue completamente devastada y esta ciudad reconstruida, prácticamente nueva, la inspira para hablar de un episodio tan doloroso del pasado.

Lo primero que destaca es la forma tan curiosa de narrar la historia. Parecieran pequeños relatitos sin unión, meras opiniones que le surgen al pensar sobre uno de estos elementos u objetos. Pero poco a poco vamos entrando en la historia, en el drama. Los capítulos no duran más de tres páginas, en algunos casos solo una, pero aún así conseguían mantenerme en silencio reflexionando al acabar cada uno de ellos. Es un libro cortito, pero con una gran profundidad.

Si lo comparo con las otras dos obras que tenemos en español de la autora, "La vegetariana" o "Actos humanos" (que ya son dos de mis libros favoritos a día de hoy), en este vemos mayor "sencillez" en cuanto a forma, y quizás es mucho más directo, aunque la autora sigue sirviéndose del vehículo de la metáfora para represesentar mensajes mucho más profundos. Mensajes que continuamente te invitan a la reflexión y que emocionan.

Y no quiero acabar mi opinión sin mencionar como escribe esta mujer. Su pluma es tan exquisita y profunda que consigue hacerte empatizar con cualquier realidad, aunque te pille al otro lado del mundo y no hayas vívido nada ni remotamente parecido. Sabe sintonizar muy bien con las emociones humanas y además lo hace siempre de manera original, siempre con su toque especial. En definitiva, Han Kang es mi autora favorita y solo espero y deseo que su editorial en español no abandone la publicación de sus libros, porque aunque me lo hagan pasar mal, me dan vida y los necesito todos. ¡Vaya genia!

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 3rd book I’ve read by Han Kang, a phenomenal contemporary Korean writer. ‘The Vegetarian’.....was fierce with haunting prose making it very hard to put down. It was gut-wrenching painful for me personally having survived the horrific years when our daughter was starving herself to death.....
Yet....I knew I was reading something brilliant. I became an instant fan of Han Kang.

The next book I read by this young exceptional author was ‘Human Acts’. It was brutal.... one that I continued to feel its depths long after I read it. Do you ever throw your hands up in the air - literary clueless in understanding why people are cruel, mean, cold hearted TO YOU?.......well....take it 1,000 steps more....
Why do we have such extreme violence in the world? Bloody frightening riots - killing hundreds of people at a time. Han wrote about how a single event changed a nation in South Korea.

Both books were devastatingly powerful - literary masterpieces about humanity.

“The White Book” ....is equally a masterpiece- one that possibly took more courage to write than her first two books....given she is blood related to this story.
Note....”The White Book” ‘does’ tell a story ....but is not written in the traditional way a novel is. Han reflects on her list of white things in short chapters, ( and inserts other relating topics), .... telling a story - from personal history - imagination, loss, grief, hope, human fragility, and love.

At the start Han says, “In the spring, when I decided to write about white things, the first thing I did was make a list”:
Swaddling bands
Newborn gown
Salt
Snow
Ice
Moon
Rice
Waves
Yulan
White Bird
“Laughing whitely”
Blank paper
White Dog
White Hair
Shroud
“With each item I wrote down, a ripple of agitation ran through me. I felt that yes, I needed to write this book and the process of writing it would be transformative,
would itself transform into something like white ointment applied to a swelling, like gauze laid over a wound. Something I needed.

Han’s hopes in writing this book was to be “transformative”. It’s a story that is part of her personal history.
It was definitely transformative to me. I looked at life and death in ways I haven’t before. Han opens a new pathway in which to examine life and death - past history and how it shapes our current and future selves.

Starting with the title of this book: “The White Book”.....
I began this book by sitting for 10 minutes -meditating - simply preparing myself to open a Han Kang book.
I wondered about the title....”what might it mean to Han?” ( I’ve learned a little from the 3 books by Han: the titles of her books are ALWAYS POWERFUL with much more depth than first glance. So I wondered....”why white things”?

The word *WHITE* in western cultures symbolizes purity, elegance, peace, and cleanliness; brides traditionally wear white dresses at their weddings. But in China, Korea, and some Asian countries white represents ‘death’, ‘morning’, and ‘bad luck’, and is traditionally worn at funerals.

I honestly will never EVER think of a newborn’s birth- their LIFE - if they should die soon after birth - the same again - EVER - AFTER READING THIS BOOK!
I know women who gave birth - and their baby died just hours after their birth. ALL I saw ( which wasn’t it enough?), was the immediate grief. I saw something else which Han presented. She shifted my thoughts about an early death. Still morning - still deep sadness from the sudden death...but what difference does this short life bring to others? I kept reading - and my mind expanded.

In Han’s book - we learn that a 22 year mother gives birth to a premature baby girl. She is dead in two hours. From there - as I continued reading - I began to look how this baby girl’s life - for two hours- spoke to Han [the inspiration for this book comes from true events in Han’s life] ....
at some point.....”it occurred to me that if I had been similarity visited myself, by my mothers first child who had lived just two hours, I would have been utterly oblivious.
Because the girl had never learn language at all. For an hour her eyes opened, held them in the direction of our mother’s face, but her optic nerves never had time to awaken and so that face had remained beyond reach. For her, there would have been only a voice, ( the mother’s voice of grief), >....’DON’T DIE. FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T DIE’. Unintelligible words, the only words she was ever to hear”.

More memories.... The year after the mother lost her first child, she had another premature baby.
“Had those lives made it safely past the point of crisis, my own birth, which followed three years later, and that of my brother four years after, would not have come about”.
“This life needed only one of us to live it. If you had lived beyond those first few hours, I would not be living now. My life means yours is impossible. Only in the gap between darkness and light, only in that blue-tinged breach, do we manage to make out each other’s faces”.

The narrator was vitality aware of walking side by side with her sister. The sister she never knew - the sister she wished for - the sister who the narrator loved. They shared a profound unspoken language together.
YOUR EYES
“ I saw differently when I looked through your eyes. I walked differently when I walked with your body. I wanted to show you clean things. Before brutality, sadness, despair, pain, clean things were only for you, clean things above all. But I didn’t come off as I intended. Again and again I peered into your eyes, as though searching for form in a deep, black mirror”.

There are other short stories - about a dog, a white butterfly, a white bird, wild ducks, university classmates who had studied literature together , ( their death), ....and their life - rejuvenation, revivification and White Flowers .....
“The brief March blooming of two yulans”. Touching story.

Another achingly beautiful book, by Han Kang, ( A woman I wish was my own sister), with it’s ‘new-ways-of-looking-at-life-and-death’, .....will stay with me for a long time.

Grateful to be offered an advance copy by Crown Publishing, Netgalley, and Han Kang

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am quite unsure how to review this brilliant little book. I think it is something that needs to be experienced rather than read about. Told in a series of very short musings on different white things, Han Kang circles her own grief and Warsaw’s scarred history in a way that I found absolutely moving. I read the book mostly in one sitting (it is very short) and can only recommend doing that. This way the interplay between the blank spaces on the page, the photography, and the writing worked to create an immersive experience.

Han Kang’s writing is economical; there is not a spare word to be found. It gives the impression of deep concentration and thoughtfulness which worked extremely well for this book. Another way to describe her prose would be elegant and precise. I loved this. I find there to be something fascinating in being able to write about personal trauma in this way – rather than it reading clinical it made the book all the more profound for me.

I have recently read Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, which much in the same way deals with a colour (blue). But the two books are radically different besides their obvious similarities. Nelson’s writing is a lot more visceral and blunt, whereas Han Kang creates the illusion of distance while being obviously affected. I am very glad to have read of those these in short succession.

There is now only one book of hers left that has been translated to English and I haven’t read. I am a huge fan of Han Kang’s writing.

You can find this review and other thoughts on books on my blog.

[Heba · Rating 3 out of 5]

الأبيض هنا ..ليس حليبياً ناصعاً..بل تتمازج به رمادية حزينة تتسلل إليك في نعومة وهدوء....
كل شيء هنا يوحي بعزلة متفردة..خفة الجمال...وهن الحياة...
ومع ذلك ستدرك بأن ثمة أشياء صغيرة تحتفظ بقدرتها على إثارة حماستك مهما انقضى الزمن وسحقتك المعاناة...
كتأمل قطعة سكر بحبيباتها الصغيرة اللامعة حتى وإن لم تمد يدك لتناولها....

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stunningly written, as she always does, with certain passages so beautiful that I had to read them several times. The novel is very short but I'm not sure I really enjoyed it.

It's very unusual but clearly not something I'd read again

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2024
English: The White Book
Korean literary superstar Han Kang writes about the sister she has never met: When her mother was 22, she was living in a remote area and gave birth to a premature little girl who died after a few hours. In "The White Book", the author employs the color white to meditate on the experience and what it meant for her parents and herself, the child that probably wouldn't have been born had her older sister survived.

The short book is structured in equally short chapters, all referring to different things, memories and ideas that refer to the color white, like snow, sugar cubes, milk etc. (I guess I don't have to explain the symbolism of the color - it's similar to Western associations, except that it's also the color of death). Han Kang imagines herself in her sister's shoes and, by narrating from the perspective of a writer who newly arrived in foreign Warsaw, shows her the white things she ponders when thinking about her. The language is lyrical and highly poetic, frequently the typography ventures into the territory of poetry, and there are also some rather enigmatic photographs.

But is all of that really that deep? The book is a patchwork of vignettes relating to white, and often, it's less than subtle while feeling overblown. Interestingly, this was nominated for the International Booker the same year as Flights which I experienced as similarly overrated: A bunch of perceptions presented as profound insights. And as a dog person, I have to add regarding the chapter on the white dog: There is no such thing as a "fighting dog" (in the German translation: "Kampfhund"), this kind of behavior is the result of animal abuse.

So IMHO, this is Han Kang's weekest book out of those I could get a hold of in translation (The Vegetarian, Human Acts, Deine kalten Hände). Still, Han Kang is a great, interesting writer. If you'd like to learn more about the book, you can listen to our podcast episode (in German).

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the deserving winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life

"제발 죽지마. 한 시간쯤 더 흘러 아기는 죽었다.
죽은 아기를 가슴에 품고 모로 누워 그 몸이 점점 싸늘해지는 걸 견뎠다.

더이상 눈물이 흐르지 않았다."

"For God's sake don't die. Around an hour later, the baby was dead.
They lay there on the kitchen floor, my mother on her side with the dead baby clutched to her chest, feeling the cold gradually enter into the flesh, sinking through to the bone.

No more crying. "

Chapter 5 of 한강 (Han Kang's) quite brilliant Human Acts, as per Deborah Smith's English translation, concludes with the words:

Don’t die.

Just don’t die.

She explained at the time:

through writing the life of torture survivor Lim Seon-ju, I again experienced things which it seems that, as a woman like her, I did not want to have to bear. And so, at first this chapter had the tone of observing Seon-ju from more of a distance, one night in August 2002. I then realised that this was because I had been trying to distance myself from her, and so I rewrote the whole chapter from the beginning. I struggled to write precisely her feeling of being unable to press the button of the dictaphone. And I wrote the final sentence of the chapter, ‘please don’t die’, in Seon-ju’s voice. Don’t die; that was something I wanted to say to her, to all the living, to us.

Later 한강 realised that these words were also sub-consciously influenced by a story her mother had told her, one she retells here:

My mother's first child died, I was told, less than two hours into life.

I was told that she was a girl, with a face as white as a crescent-moon rice cake. Though she was very small, two months premature, her features were clearly defined. I can never forget, my mother told me, the moment she opened her two black eyes and turned them towards my face.

At the time, my parents were living in an isolated house, in the countryside near the primary school where my father taught. My mother's due date was still far off, so she was completely unprepared when, one morning, her waters broke. There was no one around. The village's sole telephone was in a tiny shop by the bus stop – twenty minutes away. My father wouldn't be back from work for another six hours.

It was early winter, the first frost of the year. My twenty-two-year-old mother crawled into the kitchen and boiled some water to sterilise a pair of scissors. Fumbling in her sewing box, she found some white cloth that would do for a newborn's gown.

The White Book is her beautifully poignant tribute to her 언니, her eonni, the elder sister she never had, the little girl with the face of a 달떡 (crescent-moon rice cake), with her two black eyes, dressed in the white gown that was used to swaddle her and later, after her two brief hours of life, served as her funeral shroud.

'White as a moon-shaped rice cake' never made much sense until, at six, I was old enough to help out with making the rice cakes for Chuseok, forming the dough into small crescent moons. Before being steamed, those bright white shapes of rice dough are a thing so lovely they do not seem of this world. Only afterwards, dished up on a plate with a pine-needle garnish, did they become disappointingly matter-of-fact. Glistening with roasted sesame oil, their colour and texture transformed by heat and steam, they were tasty, of course, but utterly unlike their former loveliness.

So when my mother said 'white as rice cake', I realised, she meant a rice cake before it is steamed. A face as startlingly pristine as that. These thoughts made my chest grow tight, as though compressed with an iron weight.

한강 started the book on an extended visit to Warsaw (as an aside, she finished it in my home county of Norfolk) - although Warsaw is referred to only as 'the city' in the book - and another key inspiration was aerial footage she saw of the city, footage shot in Spring 1945 by an American plane:

The city seen from far above appeared as though mantled with snow. A grey-white sheet of snow or ice on which a light dusting of soot had settled, sullying it with dappled stains.

But as the plane gets lowe, the snow is revealed as the ashes of the burnt and almost entirely destroyed city. Visiting Warsaw some 70 years later, she realises:

The fortresses of the old quarter, the splending palace, the lakeside villa on the outskirts where royalty once summered - all are fakes. They are all new things, painstakingly reconstructed based on photographs, pictures, maps. Where a pillar or perhaps the lowest part of a wall happens to have survived, it has been incorporated into the new structure. The boundaries which separate old from new, the seams bearing witness to destruction, lie conspicuously exposed.

It was on that day, as I walked through the park, that she first came into my mind.

A person who has met the same fate as that city.

The White Book was published as 흰 in Korean, one of two Korean words for white, the other 하얀. As the author explained in an interview:

The Korean title of this book is the single-syllable hwin (흰). If hayan (하얀) indicates the white as an ordinary colour, in hwin there might be a certain sadness, the colour of fate. The white of this book’s title is a fundamental colour passing from a baby’s swaddling cloths to a shroud, through the white of salt and snow and frost and waves, the wings of a living butterfly and the wings of the same creature, grown transparent in death.

The White Book is both a fictional novel and, in the author's words, "could be read as narrative poem in 65 fragments" each focused around something that is white - a newborn's gown, salt, snow, ice, blank paper, fog (that vast, soundless undulation between this world and the next, each cold water molecule formed of drenched black darkness) etc.

[NB there are some similarities in concept to [book:Bluets|6798263] by Maggie Nelson, but while Nelson's work is more erudite - an essay based on blue - 한강's book is more poetic, moving, heartbreaking.]

The first section 나 (I) tells, all in this same format of brief prose poems, how the author came to write the book, but in the longest and 2nd section, 그녀 (her), she writes as if her sister had lived and was in the city instead of her: As I have imagined her, she walks this city’s streets.. At a reading I attended, the author explained how she wanted to "lend her body" to the characters in Human Acts and to "lend her life" to her sister here.

And in the last section 모든 흰 (All Whiteness) the narration return to the 1st person, as she addresses her sister:

I wanted to show you clean things. Before brutality, sadness, despair, filth, pain, clean things that were only for you, clean things above all. But it didn't come off like that. Again and again I peered into your eyes, as though searching for form in a deep, black mirror.

And there is also a nod to the events described in Human Acts when, seeing wreaths laid in the city she is visiting, the narrator thought of certain instances in her own country’s history, the country that she had left to come here, of the dead that had been insufficiently mourned

As for the translation, there has been some controversy around Deborah Smith's work, on The Vegetarian in particular. Frankly, some of the commentary has missed the point entirely, as what ultimately matters is the end result, the work that is presented to the English reader, and there only two things need be said:

1) The author works has a very close relationship with her translator, and is clearly delighted with the result.

(although see http://m.yna.co.kr/amp/kr/contents/?c... for her take in the Korean press - she clearly was a little disappointed with the factual mistakes in The Vegetarian - and much happier with the translations of the later books, plus see acknowledges herself that translation does mean the need to produce a different work)

2) As a reader, too, the resulting is truly wonderful.

Smith does have to wrestle with some untranslatable puns - e.g. the Korean riddle 개는 개인데 짖지 않는 개는? (What is a dog that's a dog but doesn't bark), that gives the English answer 'fog' (which at least rhymes), the Korean playing on Korean 안개 (fog) / (안 개 not dog). And the Korean near homonyms for elder sister and front teeth (언니, 아랫니). If I had to make one small point, there is a passage written in the 3rd person where the narrator suddenly refers to 'our mother' - the Korean collective 우리의 would be much more natural here (see http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171...) but rather jars in English.

The English edition is also illustrated with some beautiful photos of performance art 한강 did around the time of the Korean book's launch, e.g. making a small baby dress from gauze, making for a truly beautiful, powerful and moving work of art.

Sources:

https://www.hankangwhitebook.com/light/

http://www.thewhitereview.org/feature...

https://frieze.com/article/ideal-syll...

and a verbal discussion between the author and her English publisher, Max Porter, which I was fortunate enough to attend.

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short and intensely personal and poetic meditation but a very difficult one to encapsulate in a review.

The starting point is a simple list of white things but the book is haunted by many darker undertones. I am not sure how much I understood but it felt profoundly human, spare and elegant, every word charged.

This is my second book from the Man Booker International longlist (I had already read Die, My Love and bought this one before it was announced).

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

2024 Nobel Laureate - a wonderful choice

In the spring, when I decided to write about white things the first thing I did was to make a list.

Swaddling bands. Newborn gown. Salt. Snow. Ice. Moon. Rice. Waves. Yulan. White bird. “Laughing Whitely”. Blank paper. White dog. White hair. Shroud.

With each item I wrote down, a ripple of agitation ran through me. I felt that yes, I needed to write this book, and that the process of writing it would be transformative, would itself transform, into something like white ointment applied to a swelling, like gauze laid over a wound …… I step recklessly into time I have not yet lived, into this book I have not yet written

Now (and not surprisingly) shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.

This book was started by Han Kang during a period living in Warsaw (not identified in this book as such) – a period which enabled her to reflect on a story she had known (and had been part of her identity) all her life: that her mother’s first child died .. less than two hours into life.

Walking Warsaw, after seeing a film of it obliterated in 1945 she realises that

In this City there is nothing that has existed for more than severnty years. The fortresses of the old quarter, the splending palace, the lakeside villa on the outskirts where royalty once summered - all are fakes. They are all new things, painstakingly reconstructed based on photographs, pictures, maps. Where a pillar or perhaps the lowest part of a wall happens to have survived, it has been incorporated into the new structure. The boundaries which separate old from new, the seams bearing witness to destruction, lie conspicuously exposed.

And that further reminds her of her sister A person who has met the same fate as that city. Who had at one time died or been destroyed and the way in which her own life is somehow bound with the life her sister would have lived had she survived and is in some ways built on the broken pediment of the sister’s life – in the same ways Warsaw is built on the ruin of its former self.

This causes her embark on an journey of the imagination I think of her coming here instead of me. To this curiously familiar City whose death and life resemble her own.

That journey, this book, consists of 60+ titled but unnumbered short chapters – each a reflection on a white coloured object, including those in the list above which opens the book.

The book itself is beautifully presented – with (performance) artistic black and (mainly) white photos, and with acres of blanks pages and white space. These features serve to further enhance and place focus on the meditative quality of the prose poems which make up the text.

Overall a moving and beautiful book from a wonderful author, brilliantly and sensitively translated by Deborah Smith (winner with Han Kang of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize) and founder of Tilted Axis Press.

[Kiran Dellimore · Rating 5 out of 5]

The White Book is a wonderful masterpiece of poetry melded with storytelling. Honestly, this anthology/poetry collection was unlike anything that I have read before. The depth of emotion that Han Kang skillfully distills on paper is astounding and heartwrenching. Several pieces of her exquisite prose lingered with me for a long time after I read this book. I guess that is how I would sum up this book in the simplest way. It is a work of literature that will linger with you, digging into the marrow of your bones and the catacombs of your soul.

The White Book is definitely worth a read! Perhaps it might not be for everyone since it is very intense emotionally. However, if you are up for a challenge and willing to step out of your comfort zone then I highly recommend you to give this book a try.

[Pakinam · Rating 2 out of 5]

هان كانغ الكاتبة الكورية الجنوبية الفائزة بجائزة نوبل للأداب لهذا العام و قد جاء في باين الجائزة إنها مُنحت لها عن نثرها الشعرى المكثف الذى يواجه الصدمات التاريخية ويكشف هشاشة الحياة الإنسانية...

هانغ كانغ لها مجموعات قصصية وروايات ودواوين شعر، وتحب الغناء أيضًا وقد نشرت على اليوتيوب تسجيلات لها وهي تغني أغاني كورية شعبية.
روايتها النباتية فازت في ترجمتها الإنجليزية بجائزة المان بوكر الدولية وهي من الروايات اللي بحبها و بعتبرها رواية مميزة جداً ومختلفة عن أي حاجة قرأتها قبل كدة...

الكتاب هنا عبارة عن تأملات أو خواطر كل واحدة لا تتعدي ال٣ صفحات و جزء كبير منها بتتكلم فيه الكاتبة عن أختها الكبيرة التي ماتت بعد ساعتين من ولادتها و لكن أهلها مقدروش إنهم ينسوها ابداً...

الكتاب فيه أجزاء مميزة بس معظمه عادي أوي و كئيب شوية ...

الكتاب الثالث الذي اقرأه للكاتبة بعد النباتية وأفعال بشرية بس أنا منبهرتش إلا بالنباتية و مقدرش الصراحة أقول هل تستحق الجائزة أم لا..

[فادي · Rating 4 out of 5]

أنهيته البارحة، ولأوّل مرّة أشعر أنّ لون "البياض" يرافق أغلب التفاصيل الحزينة، وأنا الذي كان يظنّ أنّ "الأسود" هو المتهم بصفة الحزن.
هان كانغ هي مؤلفة رواية [ النباتية] والكتاب صادر حديثاً عن دار التنوير بترجمة "محمد نجيب"

الكتاب أشبهَ ما يكون بسيرة ذاتية للوجع، بدون حشو.
"كل لحظة هي قفزة إلى الأمام، من فوق جرفٍ غير مرئيّ حيث تتجدد حواف الزمن باستمرار، نرفع أقدامنا من على الأرض الصلبة للحياة التي عشناها حتى الآن، ونأخذ الخطوة التالية المحفوفة بالمخاطر نحو المجهول، نحو الفراغ. لا نفعل ذلك كي نُثبت امتلاكنا للشجاعة بل لأنّه لا يوجد أمامنا طريق آخر"

الثلج، الرمل الأبيض، ذرّات الملح، القماط، الحليب من ثدي أمّ ثكلى، سفوح الجبال البيضاء، مدينة مدمّرة بالكامل تظهر للرائي من عل أنّها بيضاء، كلبٌ أبيض هزيل.

كل هذه المفردات ستثير فيك الشجن والبرود.

حين أغلقتُ الكتاب فعلاً شعرتُ بالبرد يتسلل إلى أطراف أصابعي.

في آخر الكتاب حديثٌ قصيرٌ مع المؤلفة، تقول فيه: "لقد ساعدني الأسلوب الذي اتبعته في الكتابة، كان مثل طقس صغير أفعله كل يوم، تطهيرٌ للذات من نوع ما، كما لو أنني أقترب أكثر فأكثر، يوماً بعد يوم أثناء كتابته، من جزء معيّن في داخلنا، شيء لا يمكن تدميره، شيء لا يمكن تشويهه".

من اللطيف أنّها حين سُئلتْ: "منْ منَ القامات الأدبية ميتاً كان أو حياً تودّين لقاءه؟
أجابت: لا أريد مقابلة الكتّاب، لقد قابلتهم فعلاً من خلال أعمالهم، إذا قرأتُ كتبهم، وشعرتُ بشيء ما، فهذا لا يُقدّر بثمن، يصبُّ الكتّاب أفضل ما بداخلهم في كتبهم، لذا يكفيني أن أقرأ لهم".

[Sawsan · Rating 3 out of 5]

ترنيمة هادئة تُلون الحزن والفقد باللون الأبيض

[Mohammad Hrabal · Rating 3 out of 5]

من به هیچ چیز عزیزی نمی‌چسبم. نه به‌ جایی که در آن زندگی می‌کنم، نه به دری که هر روز از میانش می‌گذرم، نه حتی، لعنت بر آن، به زندگی‌ام. صفحه ۱۱ کتاب
یک روز زمین ناپدید خواهد شد، یک روز همه چیز ناپدید خواهد شد، این حقیقت که زندگی‌هایمان چیزی بیش‌ از لحظه‌هایی بسیار کوتاه نیست که با وضوحی آشکار احساس می‌شود. صفحه ۵۵ کتاب
و او پیوسته فراموش می‌کرد،
که بدنش (بدن همه‌ی ما) خانه‌ای شنی است.
این‌ که خرد شده بود و همچنان درحال خرد شدن است.
لجوجانه از میان انگشتان می‌لغزد. صفحه ۱۰۳ کتاب
مرد میان‌سالی که می‌گفت چقدر آرزوی دوباره دیدن یکی از معشوقه‌های پیشینش را در سنین پیری دارد، آن هنگام که موهای او به سپیدی پر است. هنگامی‌ که به‌ راستی پیر می‌شویم… هنگامی‌ که تک‌تک موهایمان سپید می‌شود می‌خواهم او را ببینم، بدون تردید. صفحه ۱۰۵ کتاب
​۱۴۰۴/۰۷/۱۲

[jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

But can we really call it white? That vast, soundless undulation between this world and the next

Han Kang is the kind of author that happens once in a lifetime. There is something mystical about her work, that even when dealing with ordinary situations, it turns into something far deeper. Most times when reading, it is easy to decipher what the author is trying to convey, the characters are used as bridges to cross to get to a certain conclusion, and the reader can tell what are the author’s views, morals and beliefs. It is a whole different ordeal with Kang. To understand her work, one must actively engage with it. She is an expert in camouflaging herself threading little webs of consciousness that will make one not only a character of the story, but a central part of it.

When gazing at an abstract painting or listening to a symphony, it is set upon the consumer of the art piece to give their own interpretation, and by doing so, entering an introspective journey that will reveal far more about themselves than the artist. Han Kang is like that, turning her stories into instruments to have a conversation with our selves.

A central theme in her novels is the exertion of violence on non-violent recipients, and this one is not the exception. In this case it is manifested through the color white and the kind of things that usually go unnoticed. We tend to think of white as a synonym for pure, pristine, clear, and even bright, and that characteristic is the most important thing an object can possess. Once it loses this, whether by fading with the passage of time, or getting tainted, it loses its value.

metal door had once been white, but that brightness had faded over time
old white sweater
white glow of stone ruins
billowing whiteness within us

I would like to propose something, for anyone who reads this review, and wants to do it. I would like you to look around and find something white that is attached to a memory you hold dear in your heart, that no matter if the color fades or gets less pure it will still be valuable to you, and if you would like to share it with me, I’ll appreciate it.

For me it's a little white box my best friend gifted me on my birthday a few years ago, and it has some of my favorite song lyrics, and book quotes. While we were having fun we accidentally spilled some sauce on it and the stain stayed. I used to be sad about it, my beautiful white box got tarnished forever, but looking at it now, it reminds me of our friendship, and how beautiful that day was for me. It doesn't matter if it isn't white anymore. The meaning is still pure.


_________________________________
Read December 17th,2021
In hindsight I shouldn't have read this on my birthday. Han Kang owns my feelings forever.

[Maxwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't connect with this one, unfortunately. I really enjoyed the previous two novels I read by Han Kang and was looking forward to reading this. However, it is quite a different style than her more traditional novels. This is an examination of the color white, paralleled with the story of a woman who loses her baby hours after it is born. It re-imagines that baby's life in tandem with the narrator's own life who came into existence only because her older sibling did not survive. It's a very melancholy subject but told in a sort of muted way—like the color white. Interesting concept but hard for me to get very invested in, especially because this reads more like poetry at times. Some chapters are only 1 paragraph long; none are more than 3-4 pages. It's a quick read but could also be read very slowly, savoring every line because it's undeniable that Kang is a talented wordsmith. I just prefer, however, her other stories to this one.

[Ramzy Alhg · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكورية هان كانغ ، في آخر اصدار لها ، ركزت على اللون الأبيض بلمعانه وبريقه ، كوصف لشعور داخلي باللانهائيّة ، جعلت من سطح الورق الأبيض لكتابها لوحاً لرسم مشاعرها الباردة والدافئة ، المُفرحة والحزينة ، مطعّمة بالألم النفسي ، تحكي سيرتها بلسان عذب ، ترثيّ أختها التي ولدت قبل أوانها ، وتوفيت في غضون ساعتين.
 
كانت تُخاطب أختها التي لولآ موتها لما كانت هي موجودة أصلاً ، حيث وضحت ذلك بقولها " هذه الحياة لآ تحتاج إلا واحدة منا فقط لكي تعيشها ، لو أنك عشتِ أكثر من تلك الساعتين ، لما كنت حيّة الآن ".
 
الرواية يمثلها شخصيّة واحدة ، هي شخصيّة كاتبتها ، ولايوجد بها أبطال ، هي أقرب الى حديث النفس التي تُجاهد من أجل الوصول الى الكمال .
"ليس هناك بياض (مفقود) شديدالبياض ، كذاكرة البياض"
 
"رغم أن الأبديّة في الحقيقة وهم ، يوماً ما ستتلاشى الأرض، يوماً ما سيتلاشى كل شيء ، يمكنها الشعور بوضوح لآ لبس فيه ، أن الحياة في نهاية المطاف ، لآ شيء سوى بضع لحظات قصيرة".

[Paula Mota · Rating 2 out of 5]

Antes de Han Kang nascer, os pais tiveram outra bebé prematura que morreu passadas duas horas. Neste "Livro Branco", a autora divaga sobre coisas brancas, como sal, lenços, nuvens, ossos, porque a mãe lhe disse que essa bebé tinha cara de bolacha de arroz. Depois de ter sofrido tanto a ler "Atos Humanos", que era tão brutal e visceral que até me tirava o ar, este livro não me tocou minimamente. Pode ser uma questão de sensibilidade ou o facto de não ter tido nenhuma experiência que me faça sentir esta culpa de sobrevivente que parece atormentar Han Kang, mas este livro não é para mim.

[James Francisco Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I hold nothing dear. Not the place where I live, not the door I pass through every day, not even, damn it, my life."

Why you keep on doing this to me, Han Kang? Why? This is the 3rd time you have aesthetically broken my heart and I loved it!

[persephone ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5) a meditation on the color white intertwined with a reflection on grief, memories, the passing of time and senses.

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well deserved Nobel Laureate for Literature 2024!
Very poetical, both in terms of the way the story is told through very brief observation as in the minimal usage of the white pages.

What I found striking in The White Book was the sense of loss and, for lack of a better word, “whiteness” the author conveyed in very little words. The main character lives in Warschau, a war torn and now rebuild city, and reflects on the death of some of her loved ones. Not much happens in the book but the main painful question which is raised is if you can live your life for someone else when they are gone. The writing is sparse, fitting the subject at hand, and got me questioning if Han Kang wrote this book from an autobiographical point of view.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This comes across as a series of meditations on things that are white, written as vignettes in probing and poignant language you could call prose poetry. I was delighted with the majority of more than 60 pieces, most 1-2 pages long, as wonderful play with metaphors of white. But I was also drawn past delight to accommodation to dark and melancholy paths. The narrator, reflecting back from elderly years, is sharing how she comes to terms with many sources of suffering through the power of language. We get little nuggets suggesting hard life during the Korean War and sources of grief like her mother’s loss of a prematurely born sibling. The collection includes wintry pieces on frost, snow, sleet, and fog, the austerity of the moon, and moonlight, the blank exuberance of white flowers and white butterflies, the apparent spiritual messages carried by white birds, the primal memories of white sugar cubes and white rice cake, the monotone of white shrouds and death residue of bones and ashes.

To give you a chance to experience the craft of this poetic mind, I share a complete one of these little personal essays/prose poems:

Sugar Cubes
She was around ten years old at the time. Her first outing to a coffee shop, accompanied by her aunt, was also the first time she set eyes on sugar cubes. Those squares wrapped in white paper possessed an almost unerring perfection, surely too perfect for her. She peeled the paper carefully off and brushed a finger over that granular surface. She crumbled a corner, touched it to her tongue, nibbled at that dizzying sweetness, then eventually placed it in a cup of water and sighed as she watched it melt away.
She isn’t really partial to sweet things anymore, but the sight of a dish of wrapped sugar cubes still evokes the sense of witnessing something precious. There are certain memories that remain inviolate to the ravages of time. And to those of suffering. It is not true that everything is colored by time and suffering. It is not true that they bring everything to ruin.

I was prepared not to like this collection due to my sense that framing them on whiteness was just too arbitrary. But my inspiration and emotional impact from these pieces was quite high. I didn’t quite get the pleasure I had from a recent 5-star reading experience with William Gass’ On Being Blue (alas unreviewed).

This book was provided for review by the published through the Netgalley program.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Kang's acclaimed 'The Vegetarian', and this was so totally different in both format and style, that it came as something of a surprise. And while I could certainly 'appreciate' what she does here, I must say the results left me rather ... cold and indifferent; even though the sad event that occasions her musings here are something I can relate to, having had a stillborn older sibling myself.

Partially this has do to my dislike for spare poetic meditations, but may also be due to expecting something more along the lines of Kang's first translated work. I'm not sorry I read it, especially as it can be read in about an hour, as over half its 161 pages are blank, and many others contain only a handful of lines. I just don't think this will leave much of a lasting impression.