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A review by gadicohen93
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
2.0
Uch: Like the shark whose fins were sliced off, this novel begins as a ferocious creature, its skin gleaming richly on the surface of the literary ocean – endlessly charming, linguistically succulent – only to slowly sink away into the dead darkness of mediocrity. There are many things that had turned me off this book as I’d reached the last page, and you could find them if you read the other 1-, 2-, 3-star reviews, some of which I'll repeat below.
There were so many broken, interchanging plotlines that I’d begun to break off my connection with the protagonist Jun Do pretty early on. Johnson’s depiction of North Korea, of Kim Jong Il, of Sun Moon – of almost everything, really – feels too hyperbolic, not grounded in what feels real. The language – which had seemed so inspired and interesting in the beginning – loses its luster by the 100th page.
Perhaps all of these are tied to what I think is one of the main strengths of the book: It’s so ridiculous and so ridiculously self-righteous that it’s funny. Jun Do’s ridiculously, epically changing nature is not meant to seem realistic – it’s meant to be laughed at. Those flashing interludes of loudspeaker propaganda – that’s not meant to be good writing: It’s satire. In fact, this entire book read like a satire to me, and in that way, it worked – a bombastic homage to a bombastic nation.
That doesn’t mean that I liked it. In fact, I didn’t. I was frustrated by almost everything about it. It was entertaining, but not to the point where I wanted to continue reading once I put the book down. It made me intensely curious about North Korea, but only so I could actually learn how much of this book was bullshit. The only part I truly loved was the beginning, which opened the novel in an intricate, fascinating way that hooked me onto Jun Do and his story (the kidnappings, the boat... I loved those parts.) Too bad Johnson didn’t propel that kind of writing deeper into the rest of his ridiculous creature-book.
There were so many broken, interchanging plotlines that I’d begun to break off my connection with the protagonist Jun Do pretty early on. Johnson’s depiction of North Korea, of Kim Jong Il, of Sun Moon – of almost everything, really – feels too hyperbolic, not grounded in what feels real. The language – which had seemed so inspired and interesting in the beginning – loses its luster by the 100th page.
Perhaps all of these are tied to what I think is one of the main strengths of the book: It’s so ridiculous and so ridiculously self-righteous that it’s funny. Jun Do’s ridiculously, epically changing nature is not meant to seem realistic – it’s meant to be laughed at. Those flashing interludes of loudspeaker propaganda – that’s not meant to be good writing: It’s satire. In fact, this entire book read like a satire to me, and in that way, it worked – a bombastic homage to a bombastic nation.
That doesn’t mean that I liked it. In fact, I didn’t. I was frustrated by almost everything about it. It was entertaining, but not to the point where I wanted to continue reading once I put the book down. It made me intensely curious about North Korea, but only so I could actually learn how much of this book was bullshit. The only part I truly loved was the beginning, which opened the novel in an intricate, fascinating way that hooked me onto Jun Do and his story (the kidnappings, the boat... I loved those parts.) Too bad Johnson didn’t propel that kind of writing deeper into the rest of his ridiculous creature-book.