by Cho Nam-ju
I think this is the very first book I’ve ever read by a Korean author – and I read a lot. I suppose if 2020 is good for anything, it should be diversifying my reading list.
The book begins with Kim Ji-young mysteriously mimicking everyone around her. She lays with her baby and cries, and she speaks to her mother-in-law as if she is her own mother, confounding her husband. The story then cuts away to Kim Ji-young’s birth and follows her growing up. Along the way, every time the main character is confronted with sexism, the author provides statistics to show how rampant the issue is in Korean society. We learn how many female children are aborted compared to males, how many girls get into get schools and how often they are called on to answer questions, and how many get jobs at the best companies after graduation. The author uses her character as a human touchpoint in what could otherwise have been a scholastic political science document.
I have complicated feelings about this book. Without spoiling the ending, I will say that I wasn’t satisfied with it. I felt like the original mystery of the opening pages was a lure to encourage readers through the rest of the (quite tame) plot, rather than a central part of the novel, and the way it was concluded felt more like an afterthought than a conclusion. In addition, the statistics throughout the book were distracting at times. On the other hand, this book exposed me to Korean culture and issues of sexism in a human, complicated way that didn’t feel like a white savior reading about issues unrelated to themselves. So honestly, I don’t really know what to make of this book. You might have to try it yourself.
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