emma_victorian 's review for:

Please Look After Mother by Kyung-sook Shin

3.0

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Very sweet Korean novel about an ever self-sacrificing mother who goes missing from her family. Slowly through the recollections of her distracted children and wayward husband, her life is told. It was fascinating for what it reveals of the changes in Korean society in the post war years - from intense hardship & starvation, being married off very young to avoid being raped by stray soldiers to a modern consumer society. It was moving, especially the perspectives of the different characters and the insights into the nature of loss and regret and the gradual revealing of a life that was also very private & hidden (a secret passion, the shame of illiteracy). However it felt like a work on a single note here of sentimental nostalgia & while moving, I'm not sure it took me any place new intellectually.