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A review by kamila79
There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch'oe Yun by Ch'oe Yun
5.0
Ch’oe Yun wrote her debut collection of three novellas “There a Petal Silently Falls” at the age of 40 and soon after became recognised as one of the most important and influential South Korean authors. I am not surprised as these stories are spellbinding. The title first one, exploring the violence of the Gwangju Uprising and the resulting trauma, and told from three perspectives, is a very mature, heart-wrenching piece of literature. Having recently read “Human Acts” by Han Kang I cannot shake off the feeling that Han Kang must have been strongly influenced by Ch’oe Yun. “Whisper Yet” is a gorgeously, poetically written story about a leftist intellectual tending to an apple orchard. “The Thirteen-Scent Flower” tells a deeply moving story of a couple creating a new kind of chrysanthemum with unique scents, thus developing an unhealthy demand for it and the competition among academics to write papers about the flower.
Ch’oe’s stories, always with a political background, are also sharp commentaries and criticisms on Korean patriarchal society (though I read only these stories and can’t yet tell whether her writing could be called ‘feminist’), consumerism, fragile social fabric and the difficulty of developing intimacy and trust between people. She never fails to highlight the pressure existing in the Korean society to not stand out, yet it is clear, knowing a little about the political turmoil of the second half of the 20th century, that a lot of people stood out against their will. What enchants me so much in her writing is the tenderness she feels towards her characters and the gentleness with which she creates their personae, which reminds me a bit of the style of Kyung-sook Shin. Reading this collection, however, I was thinking more in cinematic terms. The topics of violence, broken human relationships, and the notion of a moral compass brought films by Lee Chang-dong to mind, especially when it comes to the lyricism of the way the stories are told.
I understand well why Ch’oe Yun is so revered and I wish more of her books were translated into English.
Ch’oe’s stories, always with a political background, are also sharp commentaries and criticisms on Korean patriarchal society (though I read only these stories and can’t yet tell whether her writing could be called ‘feminist’), consumerism, fragile social fabric and the difficulty of developing intimacy and trust between people. She never fails to highlight the pressure existing in the Korean society to not stand out, yet it is clear, knowing a little about the political turmoil of the second half of the 20th century, that a lot of people stood out against their will. What enchants me so much in her writing is the tenderness she feels towards her characters and the gentleness with which she creates their personae, which reminds me a bit of the style of Kyung-sook Shin. Reading this collection, however, I was thinking more in cinematic terms. The topics of violence, broken human relationships, and the notion of a moral compass brought films by Lee Chang-dong to mind, especially when it comes to the lyricism of the way the stories are told.
I understand well why Ch’oe Yun is so revered and I wish more of her books were translated into English.