"Glass is transparent, right? And fragile. That’s the fundamental nature of glass. And that’s why objects that are made of glass have to be handled with care. After all, if they end up smashed or cracked or chipped then they’re good for nothing, right, you just have to chuck them away. Before, we used to have a kind of glass that couldn’t be broken. A truth so hard and clear it might as well have been made of glass. So when you think about it, it was only when we were shattered that we proved we had souls. That what we really were was humans made of glass. "

"Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves this single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, damaged, slaughtered – is this the essential fate of humankind, one which history has confirmed as inevitable?"

Bodies are a central theme in this utterly sublime novel, revealing the ongoing, reverberating impact of the 1980 Gwangju massacre. When we meet the novel's central figure, the fifteen year old Dong-ho, he is surrounded by bodies, working in the uprising's makeshift morgue on the night before the city is retaken by the army. Dong-ho is already skilled at managing the bloating and decomposition, the weight - physical and otherwise, the reality of needing to create ever more space as more victims are dropped off. The second chapter is narrated by a ghost, tethered to his corpse which has not made it to the morgue, and instead is heaped with hundreds of others by the army. Each chapter jumps forward in time, detailing torture, including sexual assault, but mostly overwhelming grief and trauma.
Han avoids treating the suffering as entertainment, wisely focusing not on grand events, but rather the small, personal experiences of a handful of characters. We see the rebellion and the aftermath only through their scattered memories, ensuring their emotions are centred. The writing, including the translation, is gorgeously evocative, wistful, sorrowful, often funny, and always descriptive.
Despite the content, this is somehow such a gentle book. Han brings tenderness to her portrayal of the characters, who are bound together by their care for Dong-ho. She lets us see the moments of hope and rebuilding, while never falling into a simple redemption narrative. Han lets her characters fail without losing their humanity, no matter how much they fear that.