How could the world fit so many lives, so many iterations? It couldn't be that big, it couldn't fit so much. We're only given one life, and it's the one we live, she had thought; how painful now, to realize that wasn't true, that you would have different lives, depending on how brave you were, and how ready.
This little nugget was excerpted from Samuel Park's This Burns My Heart. Three of us got to read the novel, we received advanced copies for free, and here is what we thought:
Mary:
This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park tells the story of Soo-Ja Choi's life in South Korea in the 1960's. I've never read a book quite like it. Set in Korea during a period that I can imagine (I was born in the 70's) and written in English from the perspective of a woman, I should have been able to relate to this book a whole lot. And while I could related to Soo-Ja in some ways, I also found myself being somewhat distracted by what I thought were unrealistic dialogues between her and the other characters of the book such as her Father-in-law, her husband, and her parents. I found Soo-Ja to be a somewhat likable character. Her husband, Min, seemed unreal. Did men seriously fool women into marrying them? Despite these distractions, I found myself drawn to the book and into the story of Soo-ja's life. I wanted things to work out for her and for her to finally be happy. I also wanted to shake her and tell her to just speak the truth about her feelings. Why is it that Koreans say the opposite of what they want?
On a side note, I loved the art cover and found myself staring at that shadowy figure.
Angie:
Was the yearn and understanding of a "what if" life there for me as a reader? Of course it was. "The saddest words of tongue or pen are what could have been . . . " But in what I think was Park's intent to make Soo-Ja's plan clever - I found only manipulation and cunning - and the consequences for those choices.
Throughout the narrative, I wanted to like Soo-ja. I wanted to feel bad about the decisions she made and the perceived tragedy of her life . . . but I couldn't. We all make decisions in life - some people regret, others move on, others are forever frozen in place.
Here was a woman who in youth was beautiful, educated, well taken care of and practically revered/loved by her family and yet none of it was enough. Instead she plays chess with the very people who care for and about her - treating them as her pieces. Does she make up some of her trangressions in judgement with her best friend? Yes, but much later in life.
Soo-Ja's relationship with her daughter, Hannah, could have been better developed. I did not get from the text a sense of a special bond or particularly deep relationship. (Semi spoiler alert!) I was also a little perplexed about how at the end of the novel Hannah could so freely forgive her mother and her relationship - it felt like a loose thread in a blanket that failed to warm my heart.
Julie:
I for one fell in love with Soo-ja. Soo-ja really reminds me of my own mother...both women grew up in boy-less households in the post-war south. Both were high-maintenance, coy, intelligent young girls, with their little world their oyster. However, a series of decisions (sometimes their own, usually not) led them into an adulthood that was quite the opposite: the vivacious girls had to quickly morph into respectable, honorable wives. Their lives once seemingly so open, now uni-dimensional, full of stubborn self-denial, servitude to their husband's families, and buried regrets. My mom found some amount of relief by emigrating to the US, but Soo-ja's invisible shackles prove to be much stronger.
To me, this novel is an allegory of the state of womanhood in Korea. Females can be quite treasured in their youth and encouraged to dream (if those dreams do not overshadow their brothers' dreams), but once they grow up, those dreams are almost always an impossibility. The institutions of marriage and motherhood have very well-defined rules (backed by history and by the law) that must be followed in order to maintain honor, and those rules do not leave time for individual pursuits or personalities. Even today, employment, inheritance, and divorce laws in Korea are seemingly equitable, but they are not fully enforced. This kind of repression is most clearly reflected in the fact that Soo-ja's most original, most relatable thoughts are merely inner dialog and never spoken aloud. That must be the most frustrating part about that life, because it certainly was the most frustrating part reading about it. Where does empowerment begin: from the woman who finally says what she really means, or from the society that allows her to do so?
I don't want to give away the ending, but I hope that the Soo-jas of today can find themselves a similar one. I highly recommend this book to people who would like to see the Korea our parents grew up in come alive.
From the publisher:
Set in South Korea in the 1960s, THIS BURNS MY HEART (Simon & Schuster; July 12, 2011; $25.00) centers on Soo-Ja Choi, an ambitious young woman who finds herself trapped in an unhappy marriage. Faced with adversity and oppression, she struggles to protect her daughter and to fulfill her own dreams—all against the backdrop of a postwar society caught between tradition and modernity. Samuel Park based the character Soo-Ja Choi on his mother, who grew up in South Korea. Park says, “The book is based on my mother’s life, but it is ultimately a work of fiction. I was inspired by all the stories my mother told me about her life.”
Learn more about THIS BURNS MY HEART at www.samuelpark.com.
You can buy the novel on Amazon.com.
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