An early concession in Light and Thread, South Korean author Han Kang’s English nonfiction debut, sets the course for much of what follows: “I was, and remain, intrigued by the process of writing poetry and short stories, but writing novels has a special pull on me.”
The essays, diaries and poems brought together here form a companion piece to the Nobel Prize winner’s uncanny and obsessive fiction, but their inability to turn away from her novels makes it hard to judge these forays into different forms on their own terms. By drawing back the curtain and taking readers through her oeuvre, Kang’s newest release will be invaluable to existing fans, while struggling to convince newcomers.
Light and Thread thrives in revealing Kang’s proximity to her fictions. “When I write, I use my body. I use all the sensory details ... I try to infuse those vivid sensations ... as if I am sending out an electric current.” In After Publication, Kang crawls up into a ball under her desk to “experience the interior of a hole in the ground”, while researching massacres for novels Human Acts and We Do Not Part leaves her feeling “closer to the dead than the living.”
Such closeness is taxing, considering the prevalence of human violence in her fiction, and Kang acknowledges that she exchanges “considerable portions of my personal life” to write these consuming novels.
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Despite its drawbacks, Kang champions this mode of living: “I have held life close, tight in my arms. (Through writing.) ... I met people. Very deeply. Intensely. (Through writing.)” Despite the demanding solitude, by “stripp[ing] bare” to fully immerse herself in imagined worlds, Kang’s novel writing process is interpersonal, in that it allows her to dive into other perspectives. By crossing a threshold beyond which “we slip out of our bodies”, and cross a “golden thread” from heart to heart, Kang’s dogged commitment to otherness in Light and Thread results in a collection full of meditations on the inner lives of treasured objects and the sustaining lives of her fictional characters, extending beyond the final page.
Light and Thread is an intriguing collection that does justice to its author’s singular voice.
It lacks stand-alone appeal, though, and Kang’s insistence on channelling other perspectives and rehashing the writer-as-medium cliche at times border on self-indulgent.
Colm McKenna is a freelance reviewer
