“Life is sweeping away the dust that keeps piling up, as she mopped the floor with a rag, and sometimes she would add, Death is nothing more than dust piling up.”
As the story begins, we meet twenty-seven-year-old Chunhui as she returns to the ruins of her village after a stint in prison for a crime she did not commit. As she looks round her, she sees the ruins of the mountain village of Pyeongdae, a village once made prosperous through the industriousness of her mother Geumbok – a woman who rose from an impoverished life to become a wealthy entrepreneur in a predominantly patriarchal society. Chunhui, Geumbok’s mute daughter with a large build and uncanny strength, is more than often treated with neglect and indifference by her mother. Chunhui, though mute, was capable of communicating with an elephant named Jumbo she had known since she was a child and who was her only friend. The lives of mother and daughter are impacted by the legacy of an “old crone” and her one-eyed daughter whose stories are directly to Geumbok’s good fortune and ultimate downfall and tragic death in Pyeongdae. The story continues as we flow Chunhui as struggles to survive a solitary life among the ruins of her mother’s legacy, striving to make a living on her own using and improving on the skills she learned when was younger.
The narrative switches between past
and present as we follow the stories of these different characters and the
people and events that impact their lives. The author incorporates themes of ambition, loss, gender identity and politics, motherhood, and found family into this rich and engrossing narrative. Though Geumbok’s story dominates the larger part of the narrative and we follow her struggles as she overcomes seemingly insurmountable obstacles to carve a niche to herself in a hostile world dominated by the will of men, I found Chunhui’s story to be the most emotionally impactful. Despite its fairy tale like quality and moments of humor, Whale by Myeong-kwan Cheon (translated by Chi-Young Kim) story is drenched in tragedy, violence and abuse, mostly directed toward women. The symbolism of the whale - an animal Geumbok sees for the first time in a harbor city which leaves a lasting impression – and the impact of the same on her life and her action in different stages of Geumbok’s life are well constructed. A significant change Geumbok exacts in her life toward the end of her life is particularly significant in summing up her disillusionment with the way women were perceived that era and how she viewed the men in her life in terms of power and influence.
The tone of the narrative varies between satirical and humorous to dark and disturbing, often detached and matter of fact. As we follow the stories of these women , the author takes us through the changing social, economic and political landscape of South Korea spanning the Korean War, communism and its aftermath and the emergence of capitalism, modernization and economic prosperity as well issues pertaining to gender roles and politics. Initially I found the different threads of the story a tad disjointed but the author skillfully weaves it all together together in a fantastical story steeped with magical realism and folklore, larger than life characters, and vivid imagery. The non-linear narrative and somewhat inconsistent pacing takes a while to get used to but does not detract from the overall reading experience.
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