Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman: Of Tales and the Telling of Tales [Paperback]

Laurel Kendall (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following her ethnographic survey of Korean women (Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits), Kendall returned to her field notes to quarry this book devoted to a single person. The aging, garrulous shaman whom Kendall calls Yongsu's Mother recounts her life and times in a flock of rehearsed, windy tales, the events now distilled and dramatized. The pattern is not exotic: denied an education by the need to help support her family; given no love by a philandering father; bearing an illegitimate child after her lover left her; pressured into a bad marriage; jailed briefly during the Korean War, etc. Even her description of her religious calling is circumspect (she refers to gods as grandfathers), and the prosaic, familiar complaints of social injustice give this a universal but impersonal air. Kendall tries for something more by acknowledging that, as observer, she has an effect on her subject. So she mixes personal with professional comments and balances her affection for Yongsu's Mother with her doubts about certain tales' truthfulness. Finally, the faithful anthropologist, hanging on the words of a lonely old woman, stands in for the shaman's absent children. The premise is not uninteresting, but nothing in the book comes alive.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press (December 12, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824811453
• ISBN-13: 978-0824811457
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #894,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting study of folk culture, June 6, 2002

By 

Charles E. Stevens - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman: Of Tales and the Telling of Tales (Paperback)

The story of "Yongsu's Mother" is compelling, informative, and thought-provoking at the same time. Yongsu's Mother clearly enjoys telling her stories, and has developed a flair for the dramatic (at the expense of accuracy from time to time it appears). I read this book for a class on East Asian folklore, and while I realize Yongsu's Mother is not the archetypal shaman, her experiences shed light on not only Korean shamans, but Koreans in general.

The most interesting part of the book, besides the stories, is Kendall's struggle to ascertain the accuracy of Yongsu's Mother's stories. Yongsu's Mother is presumably not deliberately lying to Kendall, but instead exhibiting a fundamental human paradox: the past, presumably done with and set in stone, is made fluid by the human mind and memory. The point is not that Yongsu's Mother's variations destroy her credibility, but rather that the variations give insight into her, and presumably her culture's, psyche.

This was a wonderful book ... don't be scared off by the title: this is not a book specifically about religion, but a biography about a woman who happens to be a shaman. 5 out of 5 stars.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Reading Material, but not comprehensive, February 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman: Of Tales and the Telling of Tales (Paperback)

This is an exhiliarating account of the life of a Korean Shaman, and her interesting life in modern Korea. It is fun to read just for pleasure and it's interesting. Because it is a case study, it does not necessarily purport to be representative of all Korean Shamans, but nevertheless it teaches a lot about Korea in this century.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a good sample of life in Korea, November 19, 2005

By 

Wyote (Seoul) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman: Of Tales and the Telling of Tales (Paperback)

I've lived in Korea for 3 years, and recently read this book as part of my exploration of the culture here. I consider this one of the better books I've read for this purpose.

Everyday I see these old people, and my Korean isn't good enough to have a conversation of any substance with them. I can communicate well enough to know that they have fascinating stories of another world, one I can barely imagine. And then, I can't understand any of the details!

Well, this is one of the stories they'd have to tell me.

As another reviewer pointed out, it's a biography, not an exploration of Korean shamanism; Kendall has written a good book on that topic, however.

The subject, called "Youngsu's Mother," was a young girl at the time of the war, so her memories are quite fascinating. Her perspectives of the family dynamics, jealousies among siblings, relationships between first and second wives, and between a new wife and her in-laws are quite revealing.

A Korean friend told me about her mother, whose mother secretly threw her school books to her over a fence so that the grandfather wouldn't know the girl was going to school. Youngsu's Mother tells a similar story.

In other ways as well I sense that Youngu's Mother's story is not too remarkable for women of her generation. But it's not a summary of Korean history or anything, just one woman's story. And it's a good one, thanks to the story-telling talents of Youngsu's Mother and Laurel Kendall.