Orphan Masters Son (edition 2012)

Maybe I expect too much. I was ecstatic when I found out my library had this Pulitzer prize winning book available immediately. I couldn't start reading it fast enough. This book is divided in two parts. Book I was very intriguing and I read through it pretty rapidly. Book II almost made me send this book back to the library ahead of schedule.

The Oprhan Master's Son is a story of survival and love all while living under a brutal government regime. Pak Jun Do is simply trying to survive in North Korea. He does a pretty good job at doing so and at times it seems as if he is invincible. There is a certain peacefulness about Pak Jun Do's character even though he lives in the midst of pure wickedness. Suddenly, Pak Jun Do assumes another identity and when this change is made the story becomes quite erratic.

Honestly, it seemed like Johnson was writing just to be writing no main objective. This story never came together for me. There was so much torture and gruesome survival methods described until it felt like those were the author's main focus. In the midst of all this, there was the most unlikely love story that blossomed which began with a random tattoo. Another highlight of the story was when Pak Jun Do got a chance to visit Texas of all places. As crazy as a North Korean citizen visiting Texas may sound the author made it fit in pretty well. In Book II the author introduced an interrogator of the state whose story felt "thrown" into the narrative but it was very interesting and kept me reading.

I would describe this book as tedious. Johnson could have thrown away 150pgs easily. Being that this was a fictional account of North Korean society I did not put much thought into all the propaganda and prison camps described. The ending was vague as was about half of the book. ( )

I was looking forward to reading this book given the wonderful reviews that it got as well as my ongoing interest in North Korea. Unfortunately I only got about half-way through this book before I decided to give up. On the up side the quality of the writing is very easy to read and the book flows smoothly. On the down side after about the first third of the book, which is fairly easy to follow, the author switches gears entirely and moves on to an entirely different plot. I may just be rather dense but I couldn't figure out what that had to with the first part of the book. ( )

This is not an easy read...Unfortunately, I started reading it while on vacation in Hawaii and after getting about halfway through it, I had to abandon it for something much lighter. I managed to get back into it once I was back home, by which time the "bluster" from North Korea had died down. The book is not for the faint of heart... ( )

The story of Pak Jun Do and his life under communist North Korea, where he begins as a supervisor of orphan labour at his father’s orphanage, then leading combat in tunnels, followed by his learning of English and serving as an intelligence sweeper on a camouflaged fishing boat, to his mining camp imprisonment and then final exposure to freedom in the US. The book reveals the cruelty and lack of compassion of Jun Do, in most part because of his subjugation to propaganda, confinement and lack of freedom of ideas and action. While dark in theme, the story itself is fascinating, and the abrupt changes in style correspond well with the action. ( )

There were times during the reading of this book that I was fully in love with it, other times when it merely held my interest, and still other times when I cocked a dubious eyebrow in the book's general direction. The first half of the book is a straightforward picaresque narrative... our protagonist is pretty much a cipher at the beginning, but as his personality is formed by his experiences, he becomes a more lively and engaging presence.

Then, at about the halfway mark, everything shifts, the story fractures, subjectivity and identity are exploded, the whole concept of narrative is destabilized. This is, naturally enough, where I fell in love. The genius here is that it isn't postmodern showboating for its own sake, which can leave the reader cold. Johnson has you deeply and emotionally invested in these characters and their story before he starts messing with it, and the trickiness is entirely in the service of the story. It's dazzling, how well it all comes together.

Then came the ending [SPOILERS], with its weirdly jingoistic flourish. USA! USA! It was hard for me to read that straight, but it served to highlight the most problematic aspects of the text... the appropriation of non-white, non-western suffering for amusement/critique at the hands of a largely western audience. I wanted to believe Johnson would be able to pull this trick off -- make the story universal, make it as much about us as about North Korea. Look, no one is questioning that North Korea is a messed up place, and I don't doubt people's desire to leave it. But that doesn't mean I'm totally comfortable with America being held up uncritically as a beacon of freedom and happiness. ( )