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The Melancholy of Untold History

By Minsoo Kang

Horace Walpole wrote that “history is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.” Minsoo Kang’s THE MELANCHOLY OF UNTOLD HISTORY (Morrow, 228 pp., $28) engages with that tension, unfolding in three distinct registers: a horror-inflected narrative of a raconteur about to be killed by his emperor, a mythic tale of discord between the gods, and a story of a recently bereaved present-day history professor. The braiding of these narrative strands invites us to question who, in the grand scheme of things, is telling stories about whom.