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arirang's review
3.0
"All trees are incarnations of frustrated love"
식물들의 사생활 by 이승우 (Lee Seung-u) was translated into English as The Private Live of Plants (a literal translation of the title) by the husband and wife team of Louis and Inrae You Vinciguerra.
I have previously read, and enjoyed, 이승우's Reverse Side of Life (link). That was a very literary novel, indeed a novel about literature, but The Private Live of Plants is rather different. It's ultimately a (dysfunctional) family drama and poetic love story, albeit a very off-beat one.
The novel has an intriguing opening:
"'Why are you laughing?' asked the lady of the night, wide-eyed."
And the first half of the novel sets up the rather involved story. From the blurb on the back of the novel:
"We meet amputee sons whose mothers cart them from brothel to brothel; we meet brothers who love their brothers' lover, and whose lovers in turn are stolen away by the husband of their sisters.". And one could add that we meet a son who is hired as a private detective to tail his own mother; a waitress in a upscale restaurant cum Gentleman's club who ends up as the owner; a husband who is more of a guardian angel to his wife than a lover as she, with his knowledge, has always loved someone else; a photographer who causes his friends to be arrested and tortured; and a powerful man separated from his lover when his brother-in-law accuses him of pro-communist agitation and forces him into political exile overseas.
The grammar of the blurb, with the plurals ("brother who ") is misleading as it would suggest a collection of multiple stories rather than, what we have, which is one coherent, albeit complex, tale.
The novel is narrated by Ki-hyeon, who runs a rather unsuccessful private detective agency, until he receives his first big assignment:
"one day a man, without identifying himself (I didn't yet know who he was), called in response to one of my flyers. He wanted to hire me as an investigator and the person he wanted me to report on was my own mother...it sounds ridiculous but it's true."
As the novel progresses, both in flash back and forward in time, we discover who exactly the hirer was and why and much more besides. Indeed at first it feels that one is reading a detective mystery tale.
But as it progresses, the novel also evolves to a sentimental, albeit still quirky and highly entangled, love story.
The symbolism of plants for human emotions features heavily, indeed entanglement is key to that. At a pivotal moment in the tale, Ki-Hyeon's father ignores a direct question about Ki-Hyeon's mother and her love life and instead:
"Father said in a calm voice, 'Trees have emotions. Touch this leaf'
...
'Plants can read human minds,' he explained, as serious as if he were giving a science lesson. 'It's inexplicable, but I've heard that plants have keen awareness, beyond the five senses. I once read an article about oak trees trembling in fear as a woodman approached and about red radishes becoming pale with terror as a rabbit neared. Yes, plants are alive with emotions. They feel pain, sadness and happiness. And they know by instinct whether a person lies or speaks the truth. A feigned love doesn't provoke a reaction from them. As with people, you should be truthful when communicating with plants.'"
And towards the novels end the love stories of Ki-Hyeon's father, mother and her lover, and of Ki-Hyeon, his brother Woo-hyeon and his ex-girlfriend Soon-mee, become increasingly parallel, interlinked and symbolic. Ki-Hyeon takes Soon-mee to a key place in his mother's life, a real physical scene that directly echoes a dream she had just had, and tells her:
"That palm tree, its seed washed up on the shore about thirty-five years ago. When it reached this spot, after its long journey across the ocean, a man and a women were staying here. They loved each other but they knew their love could not survive in the real world. And so they wanted to leave that world. And this was their place of refuge. But their love was thwarted. What grew in this place instead of their love was the seed of the tropical tree they had planted. And you're looking at it. You're looking at the aspirations and dreams that they planted along with the seed. You're looking at their frustrated love, transformed into a tree."
A song that Soon-mee wrote for Woo-hyeon also features heavily throughout the novel:
"I gave me heart to you. But here I've stood for such a long time without even a glance from you. How much longer will I stand here waiting for you? Before I melt away, like snow without a trace, take my heart, my photographer."
Overall, an interesting and at times powerful novel but one that didn't quite cohere for me. The quirky mystery side of the tale sat a little uneasily with the mythical love story, and the plant symbolism was laid on a little too thickly at times.
식물들의 사생활 by 이승우 (Lee Seung-u) was translated into English as The Private Live of Plants (a literal translation of the title) by the husband and wife team of Louis and Inrae You Vinciguerra.
I have previously read, and enjoyed, 이승우's Reverse Side of Life (link). That was a very literary novel, indeed a novel about literature, but The Private Live of Plants is rather different. It's ultimately a (dysfunctional) family drama and poetic love story, albeit a very off-beat one.
The novel has an intriguing opening:
"'Why are you laughing?' asked the lady of the night, wide-eyed."
And the first half of the novel sets up the rather involved story. From the blurb on the back of the novel:
"We meet amputee sons whose mothers cart them from brothel to brothel; we meet brothers who love their brothers' lover, and whose lovers in turn are stolen away by the husband of their sisters.". And one could add that we meet a son who is hired as a private detective to tail his own mother; a waitress in a upscale restaurant cum Gentleman's club who ends up as the owner; a husband who is more of a guardian angel to his wife than a lover as she, with his knowledge, has always loved someone else; a photographer who causes his friends to be arrested and tortured; and a powerful man separated from his lover when his brother-in-law accuses him of pro-communist agitation and forces him into political exile overseas.
The grammar of the blurb, with the plurals ("brother who ") is misleading as it would suggest a collection of multiple stories rather than, what we have, which is one coherent, albeit complex, tale.
The novel is narrated by Ki-hyeon, who runs a rather unsuccessful private detective agency, until he receives his first big assignment:
"one day a man, without identifying himself (I didn't yet know who he was), called in response to one of my flyers. He wanted to hire me as an investigator and the person he wanted me to report on was my own mother...it sounds ridiculous but it's true."
As the novel progresses, both in flash back and forward in time, we discover who exactly the hirer was and why and much more besides. Indeed at first it feels that one is reading a detective mystery tale.
But as it progresses, the novel also evolves to a sentimental, albeit still quirky and highly entangled, love story.
The symbolism of plants for human emotions features heavily, indeed entanglement is key to that. At a pivotal moment in the tale, Ki-Hyeon's father ignores a direct question about Ki-Hyeon's mother and her love life and instead:
"Father said in a calm voice, 'Trees have emotions. Touch this leaf'
...
'Plants can read human minds,' he explained, as serious as if he were giving a science lesson. 'It's inexplicable, but I've heard that plants have keen awareness, beyond the five senses. I once read an article about oak trees trembling in fear as a woodman approached and about red radishes becoming pale with terror as a rabbit neared. Yes, plants are alive with emotions. They feel pain, sadness and happiness. And they know by instinct whether a person lies or speaks the truth. A feigned love doesn't provoke a reaction from them. As with people, you should be truthful when communicating with plants.'"
And towards the novels end the love stories of Ki-Hyeon's father, mother and her lover, and of Ki-Hyeon, his brother Woo-hyeon and his ex-girlfriend Soon-mee, become increasingly parallel, interlinked and symbolic. Ki-Hyeon takes Soon-mee to a key place in his mother's life, a real physical scene that directly echoes a dream she had just had, and tells her:
"That palm tree, its seed washed up on the shore about thirty-five years ago. When it reached this spot, after its long journey across the ocean, a man and a women were staying here. They loved each other but they knew their love could not survive in the real world. And so they wanted to leave that world. And this was their place of refuge. But their love was thwarted. What grew in this place instead of their love was the seed of the tropical tree they had planted. And you're looking at it. You're looking at the aspirations and dreams that they planted along with the seed. You're looking at their frustrated love, transformed into a tree."
A song that Soon-mee wrote for Woo-hyeon also features heavily throughout the novel:
"I gave me heart to you. But here I've stood for such a long time without even a glance from you. How much longer will I stand here waiting for you? Before I melt away, like snow without a trace, take my heart, my photographer."
Overall, an interesting and at times powerful novel but one that didn't quite cohere for me. The quirky mystery side of the tale sat a little uneasily with the mythical love story, and the plant symbolism was laid on a little too thickly at times.
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