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The Guest: A Novel
 
 
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The Guest: A Novel [Hardcover]

Hwang Sok-Yong (Author), Kyung-Ja Chun (Translator), Maya West (Translator)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Book Description

November 1, 2005
Based on actual events, The Guest is a profound portrait of a divided people haunted by a painful past, and a generation's search for reconciliation.
During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from malicious battling between Christian and Communist Koreans. Forty years later, Ryu Yosop, a minister living in America returns to his home village, where his older brother once played a notorious role in the bloodshed. Besieged by vivid memories and visited by the troubled spirits of the deceased, Yosop must face the survivors of the tragedy and lay his brother's soul to rest.
Faulkner-like in its intense interweaving narratives, The Guest is a daring and ambitious novel from a major figure in world literature.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Vivid snapshots from the Korean War and surreal encounters with ghosts intersect in this first major U.S. release by award-winning Korean novelist Sok-Yong. The result—threaded with gritty religious and political undertones—is an ambitious exploration of a postwar survivor's chaotic psyche. Rev. Ryu Yosop, an elderly minister living in New Jersey, is stalked by memories of the horrific 52-day massacre he witnessed 40 years ago in North Korea's Hwanghae Province, where his older brother Yohan played a leading role in the carnage. To confront his past, Yosop returns to his hometown of Ch'ansaemgol for the first time since he immigrated to America 20 years earlier. Drifting between the past and the present, among the living and the dead, Yosop yearns to appease and exorcise the spirits that haunt him. Yosop's struggle becomes truly gripping as he reunites with long-lost family members in North Korea. Chaperoned by Communist Party members who resolutely blame past atrocities on the American military, Yosop remembers all too well that it was his own Christian and Communist neighbors who committed the bloodshed. Though the time-traveling prose takes some getting used to, Sok-Yong eloquently chronicles Yosop's odyssey through guilt, fear, faith and forgiveness.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

One of Korea's foremost writers presents a moving family saga juxtaposed against the horrors of the Korean War. Barely a week after Ryu Yosop's brother, Yohan, dies in New Jersey, Yosop leaves his Brooklyn home to travel to North Korea's Hwanghae Province, where they both grew up. Their village was the setting of a massacre over 40 years earlier, gruesome killings at first attributed to the American military but which in reality resulted from the violent conflict between Christian and communist Koreans. Upon his return, Yosup is visited by the spirits of family members, murdered villagers, and those who participated in the killings. He learns that his brother, Yohan, actively took part in the massacre--torturing and killing at least 10 people in their own village. Hwang has brilliantly crafted a novel that serves as an exorcism that allows the dead and the living to share, in alternating voices, their stories and memories. By combining lyrical prose with painful subject matter--atrocities committed in the name of ideological superiority--Hwang achieves stunning results. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Seven Stories Press (November 1, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1583226931
  • ISBN-13: 978-1583226933
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.8 x 9.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #249,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book for serious students of Korea, November 7, 2006
This review is from: The Guest: A Novel (Hardcover)
North Korea has long accused American troups of a horrible slaughter of innocent civilians in Sincheon during the Korean War. Korean author Hwang Sok-yong tells a different story, reportedly based on interviews and a personal visit to North Korea. As told in this book, bitter fighting between communists and anti-communist "Christians" was the cause.

This book is moving but difficult to read. It is written in the style of a 12-step exorcism with frequent appearances by ghosts. The narration abruptly jumps from character to character, from the living to the dead, and from past to present, without transition or explanation, leaving the reader struggling to discover who is speaking. It reads much like a disconnected dream, done deliberately as a literary device.

Some familiarity with Korean culture and modern Korean history is a help, but a reader is left with a constant sense of uncertainty about what is happening.

The language is harsh and occasionally vulgar, especially coming from the main character who is a Christian minister. Violent acts are frequently and graphically described.

I would recommend this book to serious students of Korea, but not as a casual or light read. It is a window into the darkness that has divided Korea for 50 years, and raises the sobering possibility that this darkness was in part self-inflicted.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars backstory of the problems facing Korea, March 5, 2011
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This review is from: The Guest: A Novel (Paperback)
If Americans are going to re entangle themselves with North Korea, maybe this book should be read first. Not only is it compelling reading, it presents a view of the North which rarely reaches us, since it is labeled "communist propaganda" by the powers that be. Does minimize the human rights aspect, but does open up the back stories of family conflicts and religious conflicts that play such a role in both Koreas, and dissuade true rapproachment. Especially if there are US influences. Wonder if Hillary C. has even heard about it?? Heres a question. Why is Teddy Rooseveldt not a hero for Koreans?? Hint...Japanese occupation.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
REVEREND RYU YOSOP had a strangely distinctive dream a few days ago. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
county hall, female guide, funeral house
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Reverend Ryu, All Back, Uncle Sunnam, Uncle Some, Hwanghae Province, Youth Corps, Ryu Yohan, People's Committee, People's Army, Democratic Youth League, Mount Kuwöl, Women's League, Big Grandma, Christian Youth, Pak Myöngsön, General Sherman, Reverend Thomas, Kwangmyöng Church, Democratic Party, Oriental Development Company, Unification Corps, Cho Pansök, Cho Sangho, Christian League, Comrade Pak Illang
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