Scan barcode
A review by asterope
The End of August by Yu Miri
slow-paced
2.5
There's a great multi-generational family drama in here, but it's somewhat held back by the writing. The details of life in Korea during the Japanese occupation were fascinating and heart-wrenching. However, the story would have truly flourished without all the onomatopoeia and confusing POV switches.
The story is centred around what I believe is a fictionalised history of Yu Miri's grandfather. The character is named Lee Woo-cheol - he has a talent for running and was born under the Japanese occupation of Korea. The book is mostly set in Miryang, following Woo-cheol, many different members of his family, and other associated characters. The last quarter rushes through to when Yu Miri herself was born.
The choices in style frustrated me. Large sections of the chapters are written as streams on consciousness with lots of repeated onomatopoeia. So it's broken thoughts with "inhale, exhale" or such repeated throughout. I found this difficult to follow, and it doesn't get easier.
The romanised Korean bothered me too. To be clear, I'm happy to see untranslated Korean, but not when a non-speaker can't translate it for themselves. If it remained in hangul at least we could have run it through a translator app or something. It meant that I couldn't understand a decent portion of the text, unless I re-typed it all out in hangul first, but who has the time. This may not bother everyone but it bothered me. I learned a few words from context, but I don't get why they put the effort into romanising it.
In the first half of the book, I felt the dark treatment of women was glossed over by the narrative. It seemed romantic rather than disturbing. The book leans too hard into sympathising with a misogynistic character who had children with three different women, especially after we see his mother's anguish during his father's infidelity. I'm not sure how much is fictional though, considering the character is based on Yu's grandfather. It's an odd read because of this, but if the author had anything further than this to say about her grandfather, I didn't get it from the text.
The scope expands after Woo-cheol leaves Korea. Then we follow his brother Woo-gun and a young girl who is tricked into becoming a comfort woman. This part of the book is beyond harrowing. A massive warning to anyone thinking of reading this book - it contains very graphic details of the experiences of a comfort woman, so be warned. This book is deeply disturbing at times.
The chapters following this girl are broken up by smaller ones of ajummas gossiping back in Miryang. This is what I mean about random POV switches. The flow is so uneven, it felt like an odd choice when the main topic is something so serious.
In the second half, I started to lose the narrative. It's less family history and more Korean history, but not written in way that makes sense following what's already happened. Long passages about Korean anti- colonial heroes are inserted into the narrative, also breaking up the flow. It seemed like the author was adding things that are part of a different non-fiction book about Korea during the occupation. I get her overall point, but a story about Woo-cheol and his family would have been enough to portray this time period. This book could have been like 300 pages shorter and still been great.
The last 30% has so many different POVs of people related to Kim Won-bong (a real historical figure) and/or Lee Woo-cheol, and they just dive right into it without explanation of who they are. It's very confusing. Plus this last part of the book, after Japan exits Korea, is rushed. Through all these random POVs, we zip through the rest of Woo-cheol's family line to reach Yu Miri's birth. But it's a blur and mostly in that stream of consciousness style, so I didn't take in much here. I do like that it ended with another ritual though. That was the one stylistic choice I enjoyed - the literal script of Yu participating in the shaman ritual.
The emotions here are incredibly intense, and I get the general picture, but many of the details included in this story escaped my understanding. Much of the style didn't agree with me, which led to skimming. It was a frustrating experience because I can see there's a great historical story here, but it was so muddled by the writing.
The story is centred around what I believe is a fictionalised history of Yu Miri's grandfather. The character is named Lee Woo-cheol - he has a talent for running and was born under the Japanese occupation of Korea. The book is mostly set in Miryang, following Woo-cheol, many different members of his family, and other associated characters. The last quarter rushes through to when Yu Miri herself was born.
The choices in style frustrated me. Large sections of the chapters are written as streams on consciousness with lots of repeated onomatopoeia. So it's broken thoughts with "inhale, exhale" or such repeated throughout. I found this difficult to follow, and it doesn't get easier.
The romanised Korean bothered me too. To be clear, I'm happy to see untranslated Korean, but not when a non-speaker can't translate it for themselves. If it remained in hangul at least we could have run it through a translator app or something. It meant that I couldn't understand a decent portion of the text, unless I re-typed it all out in hangul first, but who has the time. This may not bother everyone but it bothered me. I learned a few words from context, but I don't get why they put the effort into romanising it.
In the first half of the book, I felt the dark treatment of women was glossed over by the narrative. It seemed romantic rather than disturbing. The book leans too hard into sympathising with a misogynistic character who had children with three different women, especially after we see his mother's anguish during his father's infidelity. I'm not sure how much is fictional though, considering the character is based on Yu's grandfather. It's an odd read because of this, but if the author had anything further than this to say about her grandfather, I didn't get it from the text.
The scope expands after Woo-cheol leaves Korea. Then we follow his brother Woo-gun and a young girl who is tricked into becoming a comfort woman. This part of the book is beyond harrowing. A massive warning to anyone thinking of reading this book - it contains very graphic details of the experiences of a comfort woman, so be warned. This book is deeply disturbing at times.
The chapters following this girl are broken up by smaller ones of ajummas gossiping back in Miryang. This is what I mean about random POV switches. The flow is so uneven, it felt like an odd choice when the main topic is something so serious.
In the second half, I started to lose the narrative. It's less family history and more Korean history, but not written in way that makes sense following what's already happened. Long passages about Korean anti- colonial heroes are inserted into the narrative, also breaking up the flow. It seemed like the author was adding things that are part of a different non-fiction book about Korea during the occupation. I get her overall point, but a story about Woo-cheol and his family would have been enough to portray this time period. This book could have been like 300 pages shorter and still been great.
The last 30% has so many different POVs of people related to Kim Won-bong (a real historical figure) and/or Lee Woo-cheol, and they just dive right into it without explanation of who they are. It's very confusing. Plus this last part of the book, after Japan exits Korea, is rushed. Through all these random POVs, we zip through the rest of Woo-cheol's family line to reach Yu Miri's birth. But it's a blur and mostly in that stream of consciousness style, so I didn't take in much here. I do like that it ended with another ritual though. That was the one stylistic choice I enjoyed - the literal script of Yu participating in the shaman ritual.
The emotions here are incredibly intense, and I get the general picture, but many of the details included in this story escaped my understanding. Much of the style didn't agree with me, which led to skimming. It was a frustrating experience because I can see there's a great historical story here, but it was so muddled by the writing.