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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
I've read a lot of books, but never anything like this. Instantly a new all-time favorite, Sun Moon and Commander Ga have all but been tattooed onto my heart by this story. Its brutal and magnificent, like that delicate, lovely white flower at the peak of an ice-cold mountain.
Fascinating glimpse of North Korea with a super endearing protagonist. Read it obsessively and can't stop talking about it.
A masterful telling of a young man's navigation through the harrowing world dictated by Kim Jong Il. I appreciated it for opening my eyes to the reality of life in North Korea. It was at times harrowing, funny and touching. One star off for the confusing structure. I didn't always understand where we were or who was who, although it didn't take away from the central story. And maybe the confusion created was entirely appropriate as surely this is a continual experience in this nightmarish world.
Irriitated me early into the read, until I concluded the novel is a kind of scam. Remind's me of Kozinski's The Painted Bird. That novel was a best seller and fashionably 'in' with The New Yorker type readership. When you unravel The Painted Bird, it was the literary equivalent of a snuff film. The author, Kosinski, pretended it was a memoir of his childhood. He made it up and understood he could write a literary veneer over a series of very crude scenes, e.g. Soldiers gang rape a teenager with a bottle, and sell a lot of copies.
Johnson's mix is different, and i'm not accusing him of fabrication, but it reads, to me, like a calculated attempt to mix several checklist items to attract a large readership, and concurrently brand it as 'acceptable to literary circles' as well as providing a new view into North Korea.
If you want to read about the atrocities of North Korea, there are numerous excellent nonfiction works. the orphan masters son takes this backdrop and inserts characters that act 'american cynical'. Am I supposed to believe that characters who could fit right in the world of joseph heller's Catch 22 are accurate for north korea?
At times darkly funny and always deeply disturbing, This was a compelling book.
Captivating. I need to learn more about North Korea and Korean culture. The time and character shifts were a little confusing, but I liked the twists and mysteriousness of the story.
I was confused the whole time reading this. It was too much of a puzzle for me.. also way too gruesome to enjoy. 450 pages that were not enjoyable for me. Not my kinda book
I liked this book, especially the first 100 pages or so. But the more of it I read, the more it seemed to be a YA distopian with adult characters. And yet it won a Pulitzer. There were portions of the book where I couldn't put it down, but since it's a work of fiction, I really can't say I have an understanding of life in North Korea, other than I can say it does give a good illustration of "cult of personality." Off to read the non-fiction North Korea book that is mentioned in the pan reviews.
W0w. I've read several non fiction books on North Korea but this is the first novel, the first sense I've gotten of how it really is to live in that country. What a nightmarish hellscape... there is a special place in Hell reserved for the Kim family, that's for sure. Great book despite the terrible title.