Customer Reviews

The Rainy Spell and Other Korean Stories (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works: European)

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this collection surely contains quintessential works in Korean modern literature, thanks to a very committed translator! especially the title work "the rainy spell" epitomizes a vivid reality of korean situation after the civil war. also, it would be interesting to read this work from the perspective of ideology allegorized in family relation, esp. mother/son relationship. in one of the two families, (s)mothering son seems to be responsible for the devastated and deviant youth who "wrongly" seeks his way in communism (to be exact, in playing partisan). this portrait replicates the distorted image of communism sustained by capitalist ideology, which is ironically approved by the ostensible reconciliation through the tradtional shamanism at the end (when the prodigal son returns home in the body of a snake). but remember, this is only one way to read it. by and large, the tragedy that swirls all over the korean peninsula is bittersweetly chrystalized in a small house which is temporarily crowded by two families and again finitely confined by the rainy season. this story of ominous density and suffocating humidity is told, but beautifully, from first person perspective of a boy who is awkwardly situated in the middle of feud.