The Melancholy of Untold History
Minsoo Kang
Hardcover / Ebook
ISBN: 9780063337503
William Morrow, July 2024, 240 pgs

The Melancholy of Untold History, Minsoo Kang’s debut novel, crafts the imagined history and myths of Dragon Child, a land built on stories, gods, and the death of thousands of people. The central character is the land itself with each of the characters, human or god, acting as players on a stage. While it could be easy to lose the people in a story that spans thousands and thousands of years, each of the characters plays a major role in the unfolding myth and history of Dragon Child.

The heart of the story is that of the Historian grieving the loss of his wife. Without that heart, the novel could have easily been just a fun romp through myth and history. Instead, Kang gives repeated glimpses into the history of the couple’s relationship. These moments are mixed in with chapters about the genocide of a people, the squabbles of gods, and the rise and fall of empires. So, the love shared, grown, and lost between the Historian and his late wife never appear in chronological order. And yet, they follow an emotional order that makes each new memory hold greater weight throughout the story as Kang explores their intimate history.

My personal favorite characters throughout the novel are the four mountain gods: Yellow Mountain Goddess, Red Mountain God, Blue Mountain God, and Green Mountain Goddess. When we first meet these deities, they are simply relaxing in their sky homes, drinking wine, farting, and having a good time getting drunk. But by the end of the hundred or potentially thousand-year hang-out, disorder has broken out between the friends, setting off continuous wars that ripple through history and plague the land.

The Melancholy of Untold History is often funny with dark humor, sarcastic storytellers, and petulant gods. It could even be considered a fun read if it weren’t for the genocide, death, and loss of a national idea and history. Instead, Kang creates an intriguing book that challenges the notion of history. What really is it, except the fabrication of accounts left behind by people long dead? And who is to say those accounts aren’t also fabrications of other accounts from other dead or even imagined people?

In Melancholy of Untold History, stories are meticulously stacked, wrapped, and unraveled, creating a complex yet coherent narrative where tales nest within each other. Characters live through memories that become stories, binding into a larger historical tapestry, reinforcing that history is a collection of myths believed by its narrators. Kang seamlessly time-hops across millennia without ever losing the thread or emotional intensity of the story. As a reader, you are never present in one time too long. When you jump forward or backward in history, everything you learned before comes into play. Finishing the novel offers that satisfying sense of pieces falling into place.