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Paek Nam-Nyong,

Immanuel Kim (Translator)

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Mar 21, 2022 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it really liked it

Shelves: author-man, 4-star, a-reviewed, genre-fiction, z-read-gelesen-2022, author-ofcolour, transl-korean, world-northkorea, zchallenge-readtheworld22

Three stars for content, one star to me for reading it. A novel from North Korea by an officially-sanctioned North Korean author who sounds lovely (judging from the remarks in the afterword by the translator Immanuel Kim). I felt quite accomplished in having discovered this. Also encompassed in that one star is the excellent afterword from which I learned a lot about the North Korean literary scene.

This novel was written in the 1980s, an era where the emphasis shifted from revolutionary heroes t Three stars for content, one star to me for reading it. A novel from North Korea by an officially-sanctioned North Korean author who sounds lovely (judging from the remarks in the afterword by the translator Immanuel Kim). I felt quite accomplished in having discovered this. Also encompassed in that one star is the excellent afterword from which I learned a lot about the North Korean literary scene.

This novel was written in the 1980s, an era where the emphasis shifted from revolutionary heroes to the ordinary people. The main characters in this novel are a judge, an agricultural researcher, a steel worker, a singer, a teacher, a schoolboy and a coal miner. The story interweaves their different marriages to each other. Each marriage is beset with its own difficulties. The importance of marriage as going beyond one's individual comfort and happiness was, to me, a novel and interesting strand which goes entirely against the thrust of the individualist romances I also consume. Also very interesting was the celebration of all kinds of labour. I am assuming that the importance of cultural workers, like the singer and her troupe, as important for the people's welfare was also part of the new 1980s focus on ordinary people.

Interspersed with the exploration of the marriages and ideological pronouncements were softly lyrical passages about nature, flowers, the wind, the night sky. The prose is sparse and very understated; emotions are restrained.

The novel struck me as being what a novel is if cut off from the general development of the novel since 1950. No creative writing school structure here, and to me this was refreshing and interesting.

One can't help but divine breaths of hidden dissent but the enthusiasm for ideological positions seems genuinely felt. It's even easy to sympathise with the hard line taken against corruption, the honouring of work in the service of the nation, the Party as the bringer of equality and purpose.

I enjoyed reading this a lot, and it will resonate with me, I suspect. We are used to thinking of North Korea as a hidden land of cult of personality, oppression and misery. In times of war like the present times, it was salutary to be reminded of people everywhere writing books and endeavouring to convey something of the nuances and subtleties of human beings.

Thank you to the instagram bookstagrammers who run #marchinkorea and introduced me to the existence of Paek Nam-Nyong's novel, and thank you to Columbia University Press, the Pushkin Fund and the Richard W. Weatherhead Publications Fund of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute for getting it out there.

Format: paperback with creamy paper, clear typeface, good line-spacing, and one of those currently fashionable horrible 'ultramatte' covers with its faux-velvet texture and general tackiness. ...more

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May 19, 2020 Jen marked it as wish-around_the_world

Jan 18, 2021 Kristin marked it as to-read

Shelves: north-korea

Apr 18, 2024 Curlysue marked it as to-read

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