A rare glimpse into an insular world.
A renowned North Korean novelist writes about marriage, family, and responsibility.
Now a best-selling author, Paek (b. 1949) began his working life in a steel factory. Reading and writing in his spare time, he enrolled in college, taking mostly long-distance courses, and, in 1976, graduated with a degree in Korean literature. To contribute to the Three Revolutions campaign that urged citizens to enhance their understanding of political ideology, technical skills, and culture, Paek chose a career in writing, soon attaining national popularity. Published in 1988, this novel, deftly translated and with an informative afterword by Kim (Rewriting Revolution: Women, Sexuality, and Memory in North Korean Fiction, 2018), is set during a period of social and cultural transition, “the Hidden Hero campaign of the 1980s, which sought to recognize the extraordinary achievements of otherwise ordinary citizens” as well as continuing to promote self-improvement through education. To highlight the tensions involved in changing times, Paek focuses on a divorce: a couple seeking to dissolve their marriage and a judge who must decide on their case after a thorough investigation. The judge’s examination of the wife, Sun Hee, a popular and esteemed singer, and the husband, Seok Chun, a lathe worker in a factory, reveals intricate relationships between individuals and the collective. Sun Hee and Seok Chun are driven apart by conflicting perceptions of their roles in society: Sun Hee developed her talents and was rewarded; but Seok Chun, despite his wife’s goading, refused “to fulfill his true national duty—the duty to progress and advance in his social position.” Merely being a devoted worker is no longer enough: “Life’s true meaning is swimming upstream.” In a society that “is actively progressing toward becoming intellectualized in scientific technology and the arts,” marriage and family are at risk by individuals who refuse to move forward. Paek weaves themes of greed, corruption, and self-sacrifice into a subtle, restrained narrative that becomes nothing less than a paean to the family: society’s most valued unit, “where the love of humanity dwells.”
A rare glimpse into an insular world.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-231-19560-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
"This soil," concludes the young narrator of this quiet chronicle of garrotted innocence, "is bad for all kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear." And among the exclusions of white rural Ohio, echoed by black respectability, is ugly, black, loveless, twelve-year-old Pecola. But in a world where blue-eyed gifts are clucked over and admired, and the Pecolas are simply not seen, there is always the possibility of the dream and wish—for blue eyes. Born of a mother who adjusted her life to the clarity and serenity of white households and "acquired virtues that were easy to maintain" and a father, Cholly, stunted by early rejections and humiliations, Pecola just might have been loved—for in raping his daughter Cholly did at least touch her. But "Love is never better than the lover," and with the death of her baby, the child herself, accepting absolutely the gift of blue eyes from a faith healer (whose perverse interest in little girls does not preclude understanding), inches over into madness. A skillful understated tribute to the fall of a sparrow for whose small tragedy there was no watching eye.
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1970
ISBN: 0375411550
Page Count: -
Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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