The White Book

Hello Gentle Reader

The terms: grief, mourning, bereavement—these multifaceted expressions desperately attempt to describe the emotional, physical, and mental responses to loss. To be more precise: the loss of a living being—be it person or beast; human or animal. Grief is the act of: clamming up; biting down; gritting teeth; clenching fists; curling up; locking up; shutting down. After all, grief is a private affair. At least it should be. It is regrettable that the contrary is the norm. People stride and glide in with amiable faces. They offer their deepest sympathies, of course. Then they’ll deposit a casserole or other homemade commodity. During such a difficult time one is expected to be lost in a daze completely detached from the concerns of life. The housework ignored. Cooking disregarded. Everything should fall into a state of neglect. The food rots in the fridge. The dust settles. But the house is never empty. The last thing one should be in such a vulnerable time is alone. The door is rapped on with a continual chorus of interruptions. Stranger’s footsteps creak on offended floors. Hugs are generously dispersed. Sympathy is reduced to a new currency: pity. There is no difference between the two. Their sanctimonious airs are dispersed like incense at mass and in the same suffocating fashion. They offer their condolences, which now lie at ones feet. But who is this all for? Despite the interruptions the cooking is complete. The food is fresh. The dishes are clean and in their cupboards. The interruptive knocks intrude anyway. People come canting in with hurricane force, wearing the best good-natured and empathetic face they can muster. They inquire all the same. Their voices ring with musical disingenuity. However, the worst are those who behave with outright indignity. They fall apart; completely disheveled. They burst in to tears. They wail with dramatic flair. Their anger is nothing more than an untidy display of their complete lack of self-control. Have they no sense of dignity? Or does the notion of bereavement and grief provide the excuse in which others are to tolerate their campy style of behaviour? They fling obscenities with liberal ease. They’ve completely fallen apart. The cutlery is bound to go flying. The dishes smashed. They burst into tears when there’s knock on the door. They answer in sobs; their eyes red and puffy. The greedily accept the sympathies provided. Oh how those insincere saints pat them all the same with their heavy-handed pity: ‘poor dear, poor dear,’ they coo away.

The terms: grief, mourning, bereavement, are not expressions or definitions of the emotional, physical or mental responses to loss, but rather the permission for some to behave with a complete lack of control. Death provides them the validation to a long overdue season’s pass to disregard their inhibitions, at which point they fall apart. They completely crack. The veneer of the world shattered. It’s tattered. The shrapnel dispersed with explosive impact. Capricious fires alight. Who knew the sole expectation of life—the only certainty of it—comes as a surprise to an individual; at which point they behave with disregard to the simple values of grace and dignity. Death is the equalizer, the shared expectation, the guaranteed certainty that will affect everyone, and claim them in the end. It should not come as either shock or surprise. Yet apparently: it is. At least one would think so, considering how they choose to behave.

This age of extreme sensitivity has abolished the basic principles of dignity, grace, self-respect, proper social conventions, and established social protocols. In their absence and wake, people have turned to behaving in these exaggerated and dramatic reactive manners towards the ‘sudden,’ appearance of death and loss; and somehow this has now been deemed socially acceptable, because the world is supposed to be: ‘empathetic,’ or ‘sympathetic,’ or ‘understanding,’ to the individual who runs around in tears, red faced, wailing and crying at the top of their lungs. It’s a sad state of affairs in these situations. Death is easy to deal with. To be blunt it’s a straightforward matter; yet it is always other people who complicate an otherwise simple affair. From the superfluous interlopers who parade with canting goodwill gestures, homemade meals and other commodities, before depositing their ‘sympathy,’ or more precisely: ‘pity,’ at the door. Then of course there is the other party: sniveling, howling relatives running amok like an unbridled frantic chicken that escaped the butchers block, and now finds themselves in an existential crisis. What a spectacle they’ve made for the neighbours to gawk at. Meanwhile there is always the stoic and certain few; thankfully someone retains composure, as there is work to be done. Mortuary arrangements need to be drafted and finalized. Obituaries are written and published. Notices filed with banks. Creditors informed. Then there’s the bureaucracy of death itself; an animal on its own, a fastidious tiresome process of reviewing documents, completing the correct form, and disclosing the certificate where pertinent. Despite this, even after the raw reality has cooled and scabbed over, the humiliation continues. The impertinent howls and the insincere cooing condolences are replaced with the ghoulish and obsessive. Any moment; or any day—these cawing creatures find a reason to bring up the departed and their death in their usual patronizing manner. They pontificate with superintended annoyance, how the death casts a shadow over every thought, action that concerns the routine workings of life. Regardless of the weeks or months which have transpired and passed, one of them must be difficult. ‘It must be so hard,’ they begin. Afterwards they quickly take inventory of the room, or stock of the day, or the sense of the atmosphere, before commenting on the empty chair, or how quiet the house is, or some myopic detail which somehow must make the day difficult. They fail to see how the world has moved on. They fail to grasp how it’s been dealt with.  They grasp at anything to cling to, to state, to say; but: what’s left to say? There is no point to it at all. It’s sickening, this adamant obsession everyone has over the death. They drag it up with canting necrophilia, and turn their obsession to external parties—mainly the immediately affected—who in turn endure the pontificating ponders for they now have to be: ‘empathetic,’ ‘sympathetic,’ or ‘understanding,’ to those who routinely seek to bring up the topic continually. When in reality these cooing, cawing, creatures need to be told with unequivocal force: “Fuck Off.”  

Death is ever present in Hang Kang’s “The White Book.” It fogs up the pages, where the words remain economical and scant, surrounded by the swelling whiteness of the remaining page. What is absent is the distress, the impertinent, the emotional upwelling and outrage of others, who have become lost in the indignant waves of reds and blues. In its place remains the settled contemplative stillness of a survivor contemplating the absence of their predecessor. In this case: Han Kang reflects on her older sister, who died two hours after her premature birth. The death of her old sister appears to have hung over her family in relation to her parents, and her brother. However, rather than being a veil of mourning, or a gossamer curtain of alienation, the death of their sister became a candle that warmed the home, which ensured that the parents cherished and loved their children. Their births, their survival and subsequent lives, ensured they would be loved and appreciated. They were not replacements, but miraculous blessings. In this event, Han Kang does not approach the subject of her sister’s premature death with resentment. Nor does she review it with ghoulish and morbid curiosity. Instead Han Kang seeks to reflect, contemplate, and envision the life of her sister, while paying her due respect and thanks. As Kang put its best in “The White Book,”:

“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.”

Hang Kang reflects and records her recollection of death with exquisite dignity. Her style is understated and light. Throughout the book, there is never an inclination of falling to pieces, or dissolving into a puddle of tears. Han Kang retains the stalwart dignity of not only herself, but of the fleeting memory of her sister, and the pain endured by her parents. The quietness of “The White Book,” provides it the strength and weight that make it a affecting read. The book itself has been called a novel, despite Han Kang eschewing the other basic principles of format. It carries the depth of poetry, the honesty of an essay, while encompassing the imaginative powers of the novel, but defies literary classification. “The White Book,” though a personal narrative with, is a powerful testament in Han Kang’s growing literary oeuvre, and rising global recognition. “The White Book,” builds off of already established themes found in Han Kang’s work, such as: pain; the present as a healing reflex to the pain of the past; and the power of the living to atone and save the dead (at least their memory).

Despite the personal and autobiographical nature of the novel, Han Kang is able to adjust the lens to include a more panoramic reach that encompasses more global and historical moments, in metaphorical relation to the personal and quiet. It is in Warsaw on a writers retreat that Han Kang begins the process of recounting the reflections of her premature older sister. There she composes a list of white objects, which begins the novel. These objects range from salt, to swaddling bands, to the moon, to rice, to snow. In their unadulterated whiteness they remain pure, clean, and uninfected by the filth of life, the trials of survival, and the exhaustion of enduring. It there that Han Kang attempts to collect these white objects in order to provide them to her older sister, whose life was only narrated by the tragic circumstances of her birth, and the repeated narrative of the short hours of her life:

“For God’s sake please don’t die.”

Warsaw in winter becomes the grounds in which Han Kang decides to recount the narrative of her premature older sister. In “The White Book,” Han Kang comments on the ephemeral illusion of Warsaw, how no part of it is older than seventy years, thanks to the bombing blitz of the Second World War reduced the city to rubble. It is in these ruins now frosted with snow that Han Kang begins to recount as well as confront the reality of her sister’s death. The destruction of Warsaw and its ability to be rebuilt provided Han Kang with the necessary motivation to recount an otherwise private matter. The discussion turned to Warsaw’s tenacity and endurance allows the narrative to maintain an introspective tone, while branching out into interconnected relations. The idea of the sister also takes from and changes in itself. She is imagined and envisioned visiting Warsaw in Han Kang’s stead. She morphs into a flame for another, a candle for all those lost and the improperly mourned at home (a reference the Gwangju massacre). Despite the imaginings, and the attempts at creating an idea of what could have been, she remains absent. She remains dead. This gossamer absence and loss, becomes a member of the family itself; without her, neither Han nor her sibling would be present. Their survival slowly becomes their own burden, as if the transaction between the deaths prior was the only shot they had at life. Despite this internal sense of guilt, Han Kang never mentioned (be it in the book or in interviews) that her parents ever treated her or brother any different.

“The White Book,” is a slim book which defies rudimentary literary classification. The book itself deals with the concept of death and the pains of life, through the personal reflections, second hand memories, envisioning’s, and imaginings of Han Kang on the death of her premature older sister. Han Kang remains reticently impassioned on these topics. She never throws herself into a fit of histrionics. “The White Book,” is a personal and strange piece of work. If a reader is searching for a story or plot they won’t find it here. On the contrary if someone searches out “The White Book,” as a as a manual of proper steps in grieving, they will once again be left disappointed. “The White Book,” is a literary work of poetic poignancy, carring the honesty of the essay, and the imaginings of the novel. It blends these forms seamlessly, with little to no interruption. The economical force, in which the work was written surrounded by the vast fog of the remaining white page, becomes a showcase of how Han Kang sought to respect the absence, while breathing life into the memory of the individual, despite the minute amount of time they spent on the world. The style and delicacy of Han Kang’s work is greatest achievement. Han Kang masterfully writes without emotional exasperation. “The White Book,” is a careful meditation free from the melodramatics. It pays careful respect to the parties involved; while imaging a non-linear time frame in which by happenstance the two can meet. After a recent death in the previous spring, it is refreshing to see someone handle the inevitable with grace and ease. The reticent regality in which Han Kang writes is a refresher, in comparison to senseless wailing distraught spectacle witnessed during this past spring, and the irritating slow burn of the continual ghoulish necrophilia obsession of others, whose fixation on the death continue to coo. Han Kang is not obsessive over the notion of the death of her sister. Yet her short two hour life is celebrated, which affirms the life of Han Kang and her brother, and thickens the familiar bonds within the family.

If one were to part with a pearl of wisdom when it comes to life, here it is: no one comes out alive. Death is inevitable. It is the only certainty. Now stop the howling, wailing, and cooing about the needless fact. Death is not sad. It is the end. It is not a difficult fact to comprehend. Furthermore death should not be seen or deemed a sad affair. It is what it is—regardless of the form taken. Death is never difficult to manage or to deal with. It is other people. People who fail to understand the idea of mortality. The mortal coil tightens, and in the end we all suffocate at some point. Despite this, death ensures life is worth the effort. It gives life its purpose, its meaning. The threat or the shadow hanging over the actions ensures proper care is administered in attempting to manage this mess called life.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary