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| Winter in Sokcho / Elisa Shua Dusapin; trans. from the French by Aneesa Higgins Rochester, NY: Open Letter Press, 2021, c2016. 160 p. |
I love the cover of this book, and I've been wanting to read it since it was mentioned last #WIT Month. I finally got a copy, and it was a quick read. It's fairly short, and the writing style isn't too complicated.
The unnamed narrator is a French-Korean young woman who is working at a B-grade guest house in Sokcho, a small tourist town on the border of North and South Korea. She seems to be suffering from anomie; the town is cold and mostly deserted, her boyfriend is off to the big city for plastic surgery and a bright career in modelling, and her mother wants her to come home every minute she has off work.
A guest arrives -- the guest house is only half full so she notices this large, quiet French man, who goes to his room and doesn't eat what she offers or engage with the other guests. He turns out to be an illustrator/graphic novel writer, and he wants her to show him the "real" Korea. Not such a great mix, as he is laconic and she's withdrawn. There's talk about the state of life in Korea with a war that's never really ended; echoes of colonialism in their relationship, and a strange sexual tension that isn't really straightforward.
So many people have loved this book. Sadly, I'm not one of them. I thought it was an interesting set up, and well structured, but I just didn't connect with either character or their dilemmas. I found them both unpleasant and self-absorbed, and just wasn't sure what the point of the book was in the end. The ending was cleverly done, and with the edge of danger that seemed to exist in our narrator, for sure. But I guess it just wasn't the book for me right now - I didn't even try to figure out that ending once I'd finished. I hope if you pick it up, it will be better timing for you!
Too bad it isn't a better book. I got excited when I saw your photo of the cover, because it's that old-fashioned postcard font, like on the front of my book, Postcard Poems!
ReplyDeleteLots of people have really loved it! It just didn't click with me. And that amazing cover is what caught my eye first, too :)
DeleteFor the most part, I felt the same way about this book, except that I was more affected by it, in the end, so I think there's something there, even if I'm not sure what. Chatting about it briefly with Jacqui at JacquiWine's Journal, I said that I really don't know WHY I was still thinking about the characters weeks later, but I found something about their situations (and the similarities between their situations, which don't seem to be similar at first) took hold and they've stayed in my mind, even though page-wise (such a short book), I really didn't "know" either of them very well at all. Curious...
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