An Amazing Book of Magical Realism

[00:00:00][music] >> Hello. One of my biggest early literary inspirations was 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read this when I was a teenager. It felt like one of the first fully adult novels that I had ever read, and it kind of opened my mind to the possibilities of what literature can do, that it can show history and politics and culture and family in a way which is so imaginative and vibrant that brings it alive in such creative and different way. I felt like I didn't know literature could do this until I read that book. And just recently, I read a new book of magical realism that captured that same spirit of inspiration and creativity and showing how the human spirit isn't confined by the constrictions of our reality. And that novel is Honey in the Wound by Han Kang, and this story is so I I was drawn to this because of this this novel was likened to 100 Years of Solitude, but also obviously because of the really vibrant and beautiful cover of this novel. But also, when I opened up on the inside and I saw this family tree. And whenever I open up a novel and I see a family tree, I get so excited because I love a good family saga. But also I was really encouraged by this endorsement on the back from the great translator and author Anton Hur, who says, "Unspeakable history given the power of myth and fable." And yes, this novel follows a family over the course of almost a century through multiple generations and through a long period of Japanese imperial rule over Korea. And it does something so clever at the very beginning of this novel in chapter 1 where it says, "It's an unnamed mountain in the empire of Korea in 1902." But then when it gets to chapter 2, we see it says, "Unnamed mountain in Chosen, empire of Japan 1915." Because in the intervening years, Korea has come under fully under the rule of Japan. And Japan was imposing its its rule over the entire country, even in these relatively rural out-of-the-way areas, and affecting so many people's lives. And the way that magical realism is incorporated into this story, so there are a number of individuals with kind of fantastical abilities where a girl turns into a tiger, and a woman is able to divine the truth out of anyone just from the sound of her voice, and another individual feels such a sense of sorrow and trauma that when she cooks, she embeds in the food that she makes at this sense of sorrow. So, whoever consumes it, they are forced to reflect upon all of their grief and the guilt that they have tried to submerge in their life. It just comes up welling up to the surface.

[00:04:18]And another individual is just able to see people's pasts and hidden parts of their identity just by meeting them and interacting with them. And [snorts] all of these are instances of quiet subversion about the imperial rulers that are imposing themselves over the culture and homes and towns and communities and families in Korea. And we follow one family in particular over the course of many generations and how they come into conflict with the the Japanese Imperial Army as they are occupying and imposing their will and force upon the population. And it is such an epic and sweeping story. There are so many heartbreaking moments, so many moments of adventure and wonder and really tender family feeling and sense of families being torn apart and communities being torn apart, but also moments of insurrection and fighting against these forces that have colonized not only their land and their community, but their minds and so following the story of this this family is really quite a journey and each member of the the family across the generations has their own special qualities to them and I got so involved in their many different stories, but also there are many fascinating peripheral characters in this story as well. There's a madam of a tea room who in many ways is quite a severe and cruel [snorts] individual, but also she is a revolutionary and and has a very steely will. She will not be taken control of by the the forces that have [clears throat] entered into their community. There's also a really fascinating trans man in this story and following his journey I thought that was such a fascinating uh side character in this story alongside the tale of this family and it eventually leads up to one of the the members of this family being taken away and she becomes a comfort woman for the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. And if you aren't already familiar with this history, this is an example of what is estimated to be around 200,000 women who were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in the early 20th century and they were kept in what were known as comfort houses and these women were imprisoned and exclusively for the sexual use of soldiers and this was a military tactic on the part of the Japanese where they felt if they created these comfort houses where soldiers could sexually relieve themselves that they would not go out into the communities and rape women or but also not form romantic connections with women in the communities of Korea and China the occupied part of China and other parts of Eastern Asia and just thinking about that number of women that were kept in these comfort houses and not only repeatedly raped day after day but also forced to work and continuously humiliated and this novel doesn't shy from depicting the horror of this reality so of course it is incredibly upsetting and horrifying [snorts] but also is showing a part of history that is just not that well known especially in the West and in Eastern Asia it's still a point of contention and it is taken so long and so many individuals have have worked to try to resurrect the truth about this past because so much of it was covered up in the towards the end of the war many of these comfort houses were destroyed and many of the occupants the the women that were slaves there that the houses might have been burned and they might have been burned inside and a lot of the records surrounding these comfort houses were destroyed. So a lot of it was covered up but there were survivors some survivors from these comfort houses who spoke their truth and which was obviously an incredibly difficult thing to do because anyone who survived such a situation probably their first impulse would be to try to forget it and repress it because of the absolute trauma of that incident and so following that story but also how the truth gradually emerges from this and examples of individuals who really heroically fought to to bring this truth into the light and following the story a very personal family story of how this affected one individual family and a woman who was kept in one of these comfort houses and it is it is really giving me insight into a period of history yeah that I just didn't know all that much about and so I've been reading up more about it and reading different articles about it and of course it is absolutely horrific but also it feels really important to be uh aware of the horrors of history and the uh abuse and subjugation of women during wartime because this is something that has happened in many wars and many different instances of history, but this is also a really extreme and highly organized example of this and the way it is carried out. Yeah, it it just uh it it gave me so much insight uh into this and uh coincidentally I'd read another book earlier this year, another recent novel called A Thousand Ships Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yeo and this novel also deals with a a family history uh and specifically a woman from the past of this family in China who was kept in one of these comfort houses and the effects of that. And it's also a novel that incorporates magical realism to tell this this family story and give a different perspective on the past, but uh and I thought that was a very good novel and there were lots of great elements to it, though not all of it worked for me, but this novel I I thought was incredible in how it incorporated this element of magical realism to tell the the story and to show the the truth about this horrifying past in uh a way which is so uh original and creative that it just brought it uh alive for me and made me want to find out a lot more about the facts of the past and because I felt so connected with the characters in this story and what they went through and how their spirit shined through the circumstances of what they had to endure and the hardships and horrors that they faced and so yeah, I thought this was a really powerful novel and story that completely engrossed me and yeah, so I just would highly recommend this book and I'd be so curious to hear from anyone else who has read it what did you think about it or if you're interested in reading this novel now or have you read any other novels or books that you felt really incorporated an element of magical realism that was so effective. Yeah, I would love to hear about that but yeah, thank you for watching me discuss this book and I hope you're doing well and reading good things and I will speak to you again soon. Bye-bye.