Don't say goodbye
 |
Description
Book Introduction
2023 France's Médicis Prize for Foreign Literature What can you bear to think about? If there is no fire burning in your heart. If you weren't there to come back and hug me. From those who lived here, from those who live here Memories of profound love seeping in like a dream Author Han Kang, who won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for The Vegetarian and was shortlisted for the same prize in 2018 for White, has published her first full-length novel in five years, No Farewell. It attracted a lot of attention when the first half was serialized in the quarterly magazine 『Munhakdongne』 from the winter of 2019 to the spring of the following year, and after a year of writing the second half and working hard to polish the entire work, it was finally completed. Originally conceived as the final work in the "Snow" trilogy, following "While a Snowflake Melts" (winner of the 2015 Hwang Sun-won Literary Award) and "Farewell" (winner of the 2018 Kim Yu-jeong Literary Award), it was compiled into a complete work in its own right, allowing us to grasp the special meaning of "No Farewell" in the literary trajectory of author Han Kang. With this, we can clearly see the dazzling present of Han Kang's literature, which has depicted the struggles and dignity of humans moving toward a ray of light even in the darkness through recent works such as "The Boy Comes" (2014), "White" (2016), and the "Snow" series (2015, 2017). Drawn from the memories of a tragic history not so long ago, this story of desperate and profound love that ultimately makes humans human is conveyed with stunningly vivid images and flowing, poetic prose, reaching audiences with overwhelming beauty. |
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Preview
index
Part 1 New
1 crystal
2 rooms
3 heavy snow
4 birds
5 remaining light
6 trees
Part 2 Night
1. No goodbye
2 Shadows
3 winds
4 static
5 drops
6 Under the Sea
Part 3 Fireworks
Author's Note
1 crystal
2 rooms
3 heavy snow
4 birds
5 remaining light
6 trees
Part 2 Night
1. No goodbye
2 Shadows
3 winds
4 static
5 drops
6 Under the Sea
Part 3 Fireworks
Author's Note
Detailed image
Into the book
That's when I realized how fragile life is.
How easily those flesh, organs, bones, and lives can be broken and torn apart.
With just one choice.
--- p.15
We know from experience that when some people leave, they take out the sharpest knife they have.
To cut the softest part of the opponent, knowing exactly where it is because they were close.
--- p.17
When I decided to write about massacre and torture, how could I have so naively—so shamelessly—hoped that one day I would be able to shake off the pain, that I would easily erase all traces?
--- p.23
There was a calming force in her voice and gestures that made us believe that all our actions have a purpose, that even if every effort we make fails, it will still have meaning.
--- p.44
The eyes almost always feel unreal.
Is it the speed or the beauty? As snowflakes fall through the air at what seems like an eternity, the distinction between important and unimportant suddenly becomes stark.
Some facts become frighteningly clear.
--- pp.44-45
Strange, the eyes.
Inseon said in a faint voice.
How can something like that come down from the sky?
--- p.55
I'm talking about people who were shot, / beaten with clubs, / and stabbed to death.
/ How much did it hurt? / It hurts this much to have two fingers cut off.
/ I'm talking about people who died like that, people whose bodies were pierced and cut off somewhere / to the point where their lives were cut off.
--- p.57
How much must a seventeen-year-old child hate himself and the world to hate a small person like that? He said he slept with his nails down.
He said that he had nightmares, ground his teeth, and shed tears.
He said his voice was small and his shoulders were hunched like a ball.
--- p.82
When it snows like this, I think of you.
There was a girl who wandered around the school playground until evening, even though I didn't see her myself.
A thirteen-year-old child who thought her seventeen-year-old sister was an adult and walked by hanging on to her arm, unable to open or close her eyes.
--- p.87
Patience and resignation, sadness and imperfect reconciliation, strength and loneliness sometimes seem similar.
I thought it would be difficult to distinguish those emotions from someone's face and gestures, and perhaps even the person himself might not be able to separate them accurately.
--- p.105
People say it's as light as snow.
But the eyes also have weight, like this drop of water.
It is also said to be as light as a bird.
But they also have weight.
--- p.109
It's strange, the feeling of being in contact with something alive.
It is not burned or injured, but it does not disappear from the skin.
No living thing I had ever touched before was as light as them.
--- p.109
What can you bear to think about?
If there is no fire burning in your heart.
If you weren't there to come back and hug me.
--- p.134
I don't know how birds sleep and die.
When the remaining light disappears, will life also end?
Does life, like an electric current, still flow until dawn?
--- p.135
Everything I experience becomes a decision.
Nothing hurts anymore.
Hundreds and thousands of moments, like snowflakes unfolding in elaborate shapes, twinkle simultaneously.
I don't know how this is possible.
All the pain and joy, the overwhelming sadness and love, shine together as one mass, like a gigantic nebula, without mixing with each other.
--- pp.137-138
I thought it didn't resemble anything.
There is nothing with such a delicate organization anywhere.
Something this cold and light.
Soft until the moment you melt and lose yourself.
--- p.186
I thought I wouldn't forget.
I will never forget this softness.
--- p.186
But it's not all over.
Inseon's voice spread through the heat.
We're not really broken up yet.
--- p.197
Dreams are scary things.
I say, lowering my voice.
No, it's shameful.
Because you reveal everything without even knowing it.
--- p.237
But can we be sure? After surviving that hell, would we still be the people we imagined making the choices we do?
--- p.291
I remember the warm feeling of love seeping through my skin.
My bones were sinking in and my heart was sinking… … That’s when I knew.
How terrible the pain of love is.
--- p.311
But can death be this vivid?
Can snow touching my cheek be so cold and smile?
How easily those flesh, organs, bones, and lives can be broken and torn apart.
With just one choice.
--- p.15
We know from experience that when some people leave, they take out the sharpest knife they have.
To cut the softest part of the opponent, knowing exactly where it is because they were close.
--- p.17
When I decided to write about massacre and torture, how could I have so naively—so shamelessly—hoped that one day I would be able to shake off the pain, that I would easily erase all traces?
--- p.23
There was a calming force in her voice and gestures that made us believe that all our actions have a purpose, that even if every effort we make fails, it will still have meaning.
--- p.44
The eyes almost always feel unreal.
Is it the speed or the beauty? As snowflakes fall through the air at what seems like an eternity, the distinction between important and unimportant suddenly becomes stark.
Some facts become frighteningly clear.
--- pp.44-45
Strange, the eyes.
Inseon said in a faint voice.
How can something like that come down from the sky?
--- p.55
I'm talking about people who were shot, / beaten with clubs, / and stabbed to death.
/ How much did it hurt? / It hurts this much to have two fingers cut off.
/ I'm talking about people who died like that, people whose bodies were pierced and cut off somewhere / to the point where their lives were cut off.
--- p.57
How much must a seventeen-year-old child hate himself and the world to hate a small person like that? He said he slept with his nails down.
He said that he had nightmares, ground his teeth, and shed tears.
He said his voice was small and his shoulders were hunched like a ball.
--- p.82
When it snows like this, I think of you.
There was a girl who wandered around the school playground until evening, even though I didn't see her myself.
A thirteen-year-old child who thought her seventeen-year-old sister was an adult and walked by hanging on to her arm, unable to open or close her eyes.
--- p.87
Patience and resignation, sadness and imperfect reconciliation, strength and loneliness sometimes seem similar.
I thought it would be difficult to distinguish those emotions from someone's face and gestures, and perhaps even the person himself might not be able to separate them accurately.
--- p.105
People say it's as light as snow.
But the eyes also have weight, like this drop of water.
It is also said to be as light as a bird.
But they also have weight.
--- p.109
It's strange, the feeling of being in contact with something alive.
It is not burned or injured, but it does not disappear from the skin.
No living thing I had ever touched before was as light as them.
--- p.109
What can you bear to think about?
If there is no fire burning in your heart.
If you weren't there to come back and hug me.
--- p.134
I don't know how birds sleep and die.
When the remaining light disappears, will life also end?
Does life, like an electric current, still flow until dawn?
--- p.135
Everything I experience becomes a decision.
Nothing hurts anymore.
Hundreds and thousands of moments, like snowflakes unfolding in elaborate shapes, twinkle simultaneously.
I don't know how this is possible.
All the pain and joy, the overwhelming sadness and love, shine together as one mass, like a gigantic nebula, without mixing with each other.
--- pp.137-138
I thought it didn't resemble anything.
There is nothing with such a delicate organization anywhere.
Something this cold and light.
Soft until the moment you melt and lose yourself.
--- p.186
I thought I wouldn't forget.
I will never forget this softness.
--- p.186
But it's not all over.
Inseon's voice spread through the heat.
We're not really broken up yet.
--- p.197
Dreams are scary things.
I say, lowering my voice.
No, it's shameful.
Because you reveal everything without even knowing it.
--- p.237
But can we be sure? After surviving that hell, would we still be the people we imagined making the choices we do?
--- p.291
I remember the warm feeling of love seeping through my skin.
My bones were sinking in and my heart was sinking… … That’s when I knew.
How terrible the pain of love is.
--- p.311
But can death be this vivid?
Can snow touching my cheek be so cold and smile?
--- p.323
Publisher's Review
Strange, the eyes.
How can something like that come down from the sky?
"I Don't Say Goodbye" begins with a dream scene from the protagonist, Kyung-ha, a novelist.
A snowy plain, thousands of black logs planted on the ridge like tombstones.
As he thinks about the graveyard, water rises beneath his feet, and he wakes up from his dream, thinking that he must move the bones before they are all washed away by the sea.
Kyung-ha thinks that it is a dream about the massacre discussed in the previous book, like other nightmares he had around that time, and he plans to make a video related to the dream with his friend In-seon, who used to work as a photographer and documentary filmmaker but went down to Jeju to take care of his mother and does carpentry work.
However, as he struggles through the next few years and barely manages to get his life back on track, the plan stalls, and Kyung-ha changes his mind, realizing he misunderstood the dream.
Then one winter day, Gyeong-ha receives an urgent call from In-seon at the hospital.
Inseon had an accident while working with logs and had two fingers cut off, requiring surgery.
In-seon suddenly asks Kyung-ha, who went straight to the hospital, to go to Jeju Island that day and rescue the bird that was left alone. Unable to refuse In-seon's earnest request, he hurries to Jeju Island.
However, Jeju was suddenly engulfed in heavy snow and strong winds, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead.
Suffering from chronic headaches that come and go in fits and starts, Gyeong-ha barely manages to catch the last bus to In-seon's village.
However, on the way up the mountain to Inseon's house, which is quite far from the bus stop, he gets caught in heavy snow and darkness and gets lost.
The eyes almost always feel unreal.
Is it the speed or the beauty? As snowflakes fall through the air at what seems like an eternity, the distinction between important and unimportant suddenly becomes stark.
Some facts become frighteningly clear (pp. 44-45)
My heart will beat again.
Yes, I will drink this water.
After much hardship, he arrives at Inseon's house and encounters Inseon's family history, which is intertwined with the massacre of civilians that occurred in Jeju seventy years ago.
The story of a father who lost his entire family and had to spend fifteen years in prison without even having time to grieve, and a mother who lost her parents and younger sibling on the same day and was left with her older sister without even knowing whether her older brother was alive or dead.
And with it, the quiet struggle of In-seon's mother, Jeong-shim, who lived through the aftermath of the massacre and dedicated decades to finding her brother's whereabouts, never giving up, comes to mind under the dim candlelight in the darkness of a remote house isolated by heavy snow.
Among the tens of thousands of indifferent snowflakes that descend slowly, as if forever, between light and darkness, a longing for someone who is no longer here seeps from Jeongsim to Inseon, and from Inseon to Gyeongha.
When it snows like this, I think of you.
There was a girl who wandered around the school playground until evening, even though I didn't see her myself.
A thirteen-year-old child, who thought her seventeen-year-old sister was an adult, hung on to her arm, unable to open or close her eyes, and walked. (Page 87)
But it's not all over.
We're not really broken up yet.
The author said that he hopes this novel will be “a novel about extreme love” (Author’s Note).
That love will first and foremost be in the heart of Inseon's mother, Jeongsim, who never lost faith in people and life until the very end.
It would have kept the light from being lost even in the vast darkness where one could not tell where the bottom was.
But we also learn that it's not just bright and warm.
The fact is that as much as that love is extreme and earnest, it is also a pain that is more terrifying than anything else.
I remember the warm feeling of love seeping through my skin.
My bones were sinking in and my heart was sinking… … That’s when I knew.
How terrible the pain of love is. (Page 311)
Just as In-seon's mother, Jeong-shim, has been like this all her life, In-seon cannot turn away from her mother's love even though she is in pain as her mother's life seeps into her, and Gyeong-ha also has a hard time as In-seon's heart overlaps with his own, but he cannot reject it.
The novel may be saying that the only way for humans to be human is to shake one's head and say, "I don't love that bird enough to go to her house tonight through this blizzard" (p. 88), and "I've never loved enough to feel this pain" (p. 152), but to reach out to that love and choose the pain.
That is the only way to save life from extinction.
Perhaps, in fact, the call has always been before us.
As if it were our job to recognize that love as love and hold its hand.
When you carefully reach out your hand in front of it, the place where your heart touches it is cold like a snowflake and at the same time hot like a flame, and is an experience that will never be forgotten. Isn't that an experience that only Han Kang's novels can convey?
In this way, Han Kang's novel comes before us.
I remember a few years ago when someone asked me, "What are you going to write next?" I answered that I hoped it would be a novel about love.
My feelings now are the same.
I hope this is a novel about ultimate love.
_From the author's note
How can something like that come down from the sky?
"I Don't Say Goodbye" begins with a dream scene from the protagonist, Kyung-ha, a novelist.
A snowy plain, thousands of black logs planted on the ridge like tombstones.
As he thinks about the graveyard, water rises beneath his feet, and he wakes up from his dream, thinking that he must move the bones before they are all washed away by the sea.
Kyung-ha thinks that it is a dream about the massacre discussed in the previous book, like other nightmares he had around that time, and he plans to make a video related to the dream with his friend In-seon, who used to work as a photographer and documentary filmmaker but went down to Jeju to take care of his mother and does carpentry work.
However, as he struggles through the next few years and barely manages to get his life back on track, the plan stalls, and Kyung-ha changes his mind, realizing he misunderstood the dream.
Then one winter day, Gyeong-ha receives an urgent call from In-seon at the hospital.
Inseon had an accident while working with logs and had two fingers cut off, requiring surgery.
In-seon suddenly asks Kyung-ha, who went straight to the hospital, to go to Jeju Island that day and rescue the bird that was left alone. Unable to refuse In-seon's earnest request, he hurries to Jeju Island.
However, Jeju was suddenly engulfed in heavy snow and strong winds, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead.
Suffering from chronic headaches that come and go in fits and starts, Gyeong-ha barely manages to catch the last bus to In-seon's village.
However, on the way up the mountain to Inseon's house, which is quite far from the bus stop, he gets caught in heavy snow and darkness and gets lost.
The eyes almost always feel unreal.
Is it the speed or the beauty? As snowflakes fall through the air at what seems like an eternity, the distinction between important and unimportant suddenly becomes stark.
Some facts become frighteningly clear (pp. 44-45)
My heart will beat again.
Yes, I will drink this water.
After much hardship, he arrives at Inseon's house and encounters Inseon's family history, which is intertwined with the massacre of civilians that occurred in Jeju seventy years ago.
The story of a father who lost his entire family and had to spend fifteen years in prison without even having time to grieve, and a mother who lost her parents and younger sibling on the same day and was left with her older sister without even knowing whether her older brother was alive or dead.
And with it, the quiet struggle of In-seon's mother, Jeong-shim, who lived through the aftermath of the massacre and dedicated decades to finding her brother's whereabouts, never giving up, comes to mind under the dim candlelight in the darkness of a remote house isolated by heavy snow.
Among the tens of thousands of indifferent snowflakes that descend slowly, as if forever, between light and darkness, a longing for someone who is no longer here seeps from Jeongsim to Inseon, and from Inseon to Gyeongha.
When it snows like this, I think of you.
There was a girl who wandered around the school playground until evening, even though I didn't see her myself.
A thirteen-year-old child, who thought her seventeen-year-old sister was an adult, hung on to her arm, unable to open or close her eyes, and walked. (Page 87)
But it's not all over.
We're not really broken up yet.
The author said that he hopes this novel will be “a novel about extreme love” (Author’s Note).
That love will first and foremost be in the heart of Inseon's mother, Jeongsim, who never lost faith in people and life until the very end.
It would have kept the light from being lost even in the vast darkness where one could not tell where the bottom was.
But we also learn that it's not just bright and warm.
The fact is that as much as that love is extreme and earnest, it is also a pain that is more terrifying than anything else.
I remember the warm feeling of love seeping through my skin.
My bones were sinking in and my heart was sinking… … That’s when I knew.
How terrible the pain of love is. (Page 311)
Just as In-seon's mother, Jeong-shim, has been like this all her life, In-seon cannot turn away from her mother's love even though she is in pain as her mother's life seeps into her, and Gyeong-ha also has a hard time as In-seon's heart overlaps with his own, but he cannot reject it.
The novel may be saying that the only way for humans to be human is to shake one's head and say, "I don't love that bird enough to go to her house tonight through this blizzard" (p. 88), and "I've never loved enough to feel this pain" (p. 152), but to reach out to that love and choose the pain.
That is the only way to save life from extinction.
Perhaps, in fact, the call has always been before us.
As if it were our job to recognize that love as love and hold its hand.
When you carefully reach out your hand in front of it, the place where your heart touches it is cold like a snowflake and at the same time hot like a flame, and is an experience that will never be forgotten. Isn't that an experience that only Han Kang's novels can convey?
In this way, Han Kang's novel comes before us.
I remember a few years ago when someone asked me, "What are you going to write next?" I answered that I hoped it would be a novel about love.
My feelings now are the same.
I hope this is a novel about ultimate love.
_From the author's note
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: September 9, 2021
- Page count, weight, size: 332 pages | 394g | 138*201*20mm
- ISBN13: 9788954682152
- ISBN10: 8954682154
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카테고리
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