![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugged heartstrings
Jul. 2nd, 2021 10:59 amPlease Look After Mom
by Shin Kyung-Sook
→ Genres: Contemporary Fiction
→ Rating: ♦♦♦.5
→ Date Finished: July 1, 2021
The book in three sentences
1. Often times we regret more than we relish in the memories we hold of people we love.
2. Love can be held in conversations over food, in the making of errands, in the cooking & the eating.
3. There is a feeling so bittersweet that could be filled with what if's & should have been's.
For discussion, based on the novel's Reading Group Guide
► I agree that the second-person narration is uncommon & not as used as other points of view in stories, but the effect it had on the long run of reading Please Look After Mom is effective in regards to enhancing the reader's bond with the characters, especially when it was leading up to the Mother's POV at the end. This preferred style of narrating, I think, also enforces the character's feelings about Mom towards us. I suspect the reason why Mom is the only character who tells her story in first person is to build a feeling of confrontation, creating a sort of duality: the characters (which you embody with the second-person view), & Mom herself. It is subtle but powerful.
► Chi-hon and her mother's relationship is a complex one, I think; a bond that stretches & folds itself throughout the story, with numerous layers laid atop of another, particularly that of their developmental stages from childhood towards adulthood. Opposing emotions like tension or resentment between them can be found in the smallest, realistic bits: during phone calls, in collisions of opinions & decisions, especially during Chi-hon's point of view. I presume that Chi-hon's words of "Maybe I'm being punished" said towards her brother is due to the truth that she felt regretful of her attitude towards her Mother. Not that this is the only reaction we get from her, but it says a lot about the love she has with her Mother. She is being "punished" of not showing love & appreciation towards Mom 'enough' that she feels like something is lacking now, being alone.
► My idea about this is the mother felt a sort of boundary becoming all the more present with Chi-hon then becoming a successful writer. It's like your daughter is still the same, of course, but not really. I know that her mother admires & loves her, but she's become conscious & cautious, thinking inadequate of herself, when in reality this is not the case. It means all the more to their mother-daughter relationship because Chi-hon's mother is illiterate.
► I know that life was hard back then, before my generation. My grandmother had to sell fishes along the streets & the boulevard to pay my mother's university tuition while simultaneously running a small store for everyday expenses. Even today, life is still hard. Our family has never gone three days of not asking what our next meal would be because we were always short on money. This is why I felt heartbroken when I read Chi-hon's mother's reply. "I am not in the kitchen because I like to; I am here because I have to." Something like that has layers deep within, rooted in one's standing. Today's generation is more open than before & so is our perception. I feel like it includes that.
► I think this bond of them is special, unlike those of the mother's other children because Hyong-chol is the eldest out of all of them. And there's a lot of things to keep in mind when you're the eldest. I know because I am one. You are your parent's first try. Trial. Expectations are laid before you, but also love. It's a knotted, tangled, rope between the two.
Top three quotes from the book
1. "The word “Mom” is familiar and it hides a plea: Please look after me. Please stop yelling at me and stroke my head; please be on my side, whether I’m right or wrong."
2. "To you, Mom was always Mom. It never occurred to you that she had once taken her first step, or had once been three or twelve or twenty years old. Mom was Mom. She was born as Mom. Until you saw her running to your uncle like that, it hadn’t dawned on you that she was a human being who harbored the exact same feeling you had for your own brothers, and this realization led to the awareness that she, too, had had a childhood. From then on, you sometimes thought of Mom as a child, as a girl, as a young woman, as a newlywed, as a mother who had just given birth to you."
3. "A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it."
by Shin Kyung-Sook
→ Genres: Contemporary Fiction
→ Rating: ♦♦♦.5
→ Date Finished: July 1, 2021
The book in three sentences
1. Often times we regret more than we relish in the memories we hold of people we love.
2. Love can be held in conversations over food, in the making of errands, in the cooking & the eating.
3. There is a feeling so bittersweet that could be filled with what if's & should have been's.
For discussion, based on the novel's Reading Group Guide
► I agree that the second-person narration is uncommon & not as used as other points of view in stories, but the effect it had on the long run of reading Please Look After Mom is effective in regards to enhancing the reader's bond with the characters, especially when it was leading up to the Mother's POV at the end. This preferred style of narrating, I think, also enforces the character's feelings about Mom towards us. I suspect the reason why Mom is the only character who tells her story in first person is to build a feeling of confrontation, creating a sort of duality: the characters (which you embody with the second-person view), & Mom herself. It is subtle but powerful.
► Chi-hon and her mother's relationship is a complex one, I think; a bond that stretches & folds itself throughout the story, with numerous layers laid atop of another, particularly that of their developmental stages from childhood towards adulthood. Opposing emotions like tension or resentment between them can be found in the smallest, realistic bits: during phone calls, in collisions of opinions & decisions, especially during Chi-hon's point of view. I presume that Chi-hon's words of "Maybe I'm being punished" said towards her brother is due to the truth that she felt regretful of her attitude towards her Mother. Not that this is the only reaction we get from her, but it says a lot about the love she has with her Mother. She is being "punished" of not showing love & appreciation towards Mom 'enough' that she feels like something is lacking now, being alone.
► My idea about this is the mother felt a sort of boundary becoming all the more present with Chi-hon then becoming a successful writer. It's like your daughter is still the same, of course, but not really. I know that her mother admires & loves her, but she's become conscious & cautious, thinking inadequate of herself, when in reality this is not the case. It means all the more to their mother-daughter relationship because Chi-hon's mother is illiterate.
► I know that life was hard back then, before my generation. My grandmother had to sell fishes along the streets & the boulevard to pay my mother's university tuition while simultaneously running a small store for everyday expenses. Even today, life is still hard. Our family has never gone three days of not asking what our next meal would be because we were always short on money. This is why I felt heartbroken when I read Chi-hon's mother's reply. "I am not in the kitchen because I like to; I am here because I have to." Something like that has layers deep within, rooted in one's standing. Today's generation is more open than before & so is our perception. I feel like it includes that.
► I think this bond of them is special, unlike those of the mother's other children because Hyong-chol is the eldest out of all of them. And there's a lot of things to keep in mind when you're the eldest. I know because I am one. You are your parent's first try. Trial. Expectations are laid before you, but also love. It's a knotted, tangled, rope between the two.
Top three quotes from the book
1. "The word “Mom” is familiar and it hides a plea: Please look after me. Please stop yelling at me and stroke my head; please be on my side, whether I’m right or wrong."
2. "To you, Mom was always Mom. It never occurred to you that she had once taken her first step, or had once been three or twelve or twenty years old. Mom was Mom. She was born as Mom. Until you saw her running to your uncle like that, it hadn’t dawned on you that she was a human being who harbored the exact same feeling you had for your own brothers, and this realization led to the awareness that she, too, had had a childhood. From then on, you sometimes thought of Mom as a child, as a girl, as a young woman, as a newlywed, as a mother who had just given birth to you."
3. "A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it."
