Winner of The Man Asian Literary Prize: Please Look After Mom
Kyung Sook-shin is one of Korea’s most well-known and popular contemporary female writers. The English translation of her bestseller Please Look After Mom had been waiting patiently on my bookshelf for 3 years! So with her latest book,The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness, recently released, I decided that it was time I read Please Look After Mom. It won the Man Asian Literary Prize way back in 2012.
Please Look After Mom Plot
An elderly couple come up from the countryside to Seoul to visit their children. But on a crowded subway train, they get separated and Mom goes missing.
The rest of the story is written from the points of view of different family members as they reflect over their relationship with Mom. There’s guilt and remorse over how they neglected her and took her for granted. And now, after she has done so much for them, they are powerless to do anything for her.
The family also realise that there are things about Mom that they don’t know. And so the question is raised: How well do we really know our own parents and loved ones?
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Appreciate your loved ones
I read this book easily in a couple of sittings and was drawn into the story with its emotional characters. It’s a sad and poignant story, full of angst. I didn’t cry, but I was moved. And I enjoyed reading about the lives of the characters, even if they were pretty selfish.
I also like the message of the story. We are invited to reflect on our own families and how we treat them. We should appreciate the people we love while they are still around and find out about them before it’s too late.
A changing Society
The story shows the changing values of Korean society. As the country has become more economically developed and urbanised, all the children have moved away to Seoul preferring fast-paced city life where there are more opportunities.
Urbanisation has created more opportunities for women. The elder daughter is a writer whilst her mother is illiterate and can’t even read the books that her daughter writes.
sacrifice
However, I started to feel a bit worn down as I got towards the end of the book.
This was because the sorrowful tone remains constant throughout the story. Like the intense and sombre mood of a scandi crime drama, there is no humour. I started hoping for just one moment where I could at least smile at a family memory or anecdote. But that moment never came.
I have noticed this lack of humour in other Korean literature and have started asking people to introduce me to some humorous Korean literature. But so far nobody has been able to come up with anything! I am told that all the literature studied at school in Korea is pretty serious. So I feel a cultural difference – even Shakespearean tragedies have a comic interlude.
Confucian Values
From my western, female perspective, I tried to understand the Mom. But I found myself getting frustrated with her stoic and rather passive acceptance of the often unacceptable behaviour of family members towards her. For instance, her husband leaves her for another woman and then comes back months later. Her reaction is to carry on as though nothing happened.
The mother in the story certainly reflects how Confucianism valued women who sacrificed for their families. But there’s a sense in the book that with the changing times, women like Mom will soon no longer exist. It’s incredible to think how much has changed in such a short space of time.
It’s a thought-provoking and moving story. And different.
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Read more book reviews:
The Calligrapher’s Daughter – novel set during the Occupation
What is the most important post war Korean novel?
What’s a good book on Korean Buddhism?
The Confucian Kingship of Korea: Yongjo and the politics of Sagacity
The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyeong – wife of Prince Sado who died in the rice chest.
