LOVE IN WINTER

by Kim Yong Ik ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 24, 1969

These are thirteen quietly inflected short stories of Korea, of Pusan and of the villages, with occasional reverberations of the war (""nothing, nothing left in this land"") and of change tenaciously resisted. Thus ""The Wedding-Shoes"" of brocade and silk become superfluous in a world of workers' shoes, Western shoes and rubber shoes while the daughter of the wedding shoemaker is sent away to work as a maid and to die rather than marry a butcher's son. ""Nowadays few men live out their ages"" and certainly the livelihoods are hard come by -- for the man who weaves horsehair hats or the woman who earns a little ""Seed Money"" for her cow in the rain. The monochromatic pathos of ""Love in Winter,"" the title story, is echoed through the love of a boy with a harelip for a consumptive girl in a tearoom. Here and there -- small moments of reward and redemption: the beggared father who returns home ""After Seventeen Years""; or for the son of the bean-sprout woman, an unworthy suitor, who is accepted after he buys a winning bull. Some of the stories have appeared in Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, Mademoiselle, and their appeal is universal while representing a particularized world with gentle care and concern.

Pub Date: Oct. 24, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION