Violets Book Review: I won't recommend it but I rate it highly
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- Hi Everyone
In this video I discuss one of the four Books I read this August for Women in Translation Month: Violets by Kyung Sook Shin. This book looks at the 'invisible woman' in South Korea during the 1970s and gets us to reflect on how much has changed or not changed for women over time. There are a number of triggers I mention in the video.
MORE VIDEOS
🎬Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro (Women in Translation) How do we lose control of our bodies?
• Elena Knows looks at h...
🎬 Talking Books: Aya Life in Yop City by Marguerite Abouet; Growing up in a neighbourhood rife with misogyny and homophobia
• Aya Life in Yop City h...
🎬Talking Books: Orcs, Regency Rakes, Seoul Factory Girls, Wealthy Architects, and Social Decline
• Book Talk: At Dusk, Th...
SOCIAL LINKS 👇
📖 app.thestorygr...
📸 Instagram: katja.r.weinert
🌍 Website: katjaweinert.com/
📖 Goodreads: / katja-weinert
Happy reading! 📚📖
#WITmonth #womenintranslation #womenintintranslationmonth
This was great Katja! I love those little details about flowers and symbols. Afterwords are so nice to have. I don’t know if I want to read it or not but I enjoyed hearing your thoughts!
Thank you so much :)
Understand you being unsure about whether you'd want to read this.
Very good!! 😎👍
Thank you! 😊
Hm, interesting book. I really struggle with symbolism in books, but the plot does sound difficult but intriguing.
It was definitely a heavy read 😅
You had some heavy, not fun reads for WIT! I'm so sorry.
I DNFd one because it was horror stories, but all my others were nice. the last one was a bit odd and I felt detached from it the whole time, but it wasn't that heavy or depressing.
I hope the next one is lovely!
Thank you! The last two were the ones with the toughest themes 😅
It's always so interesting when you rate a book highly but still wouldn't recommend it. I read a couple of books like that too and it's really not easy. *lol* It was really nice to hear about the symbolism and the flower. =) Great review!
Thanks V! Guess who's still walking around with an addressed book parcel just her bag 🤣. I'll message you when I go the post office 💛
@@PageTurnersWithKatja Haha! Well, I guess it might be you? 😂I rarely go to the post office as well so I can relate. *lol*
I just finished this book and love this review. I liked my reading experience of it but this is definitely one of the saddest books I've ever read!
Thank you 😊
One of the bleaker books I've read so far this year but, similar to you, I liked my reading experience of it.
I had no idea this was written so long ago and so it makes sense perhaps that it’s not as smooth. I love the sound of the plant details and am usually more interested in the journey than the destination but I’ve only read The Court Dancer so far and wonder if I should read another of her works before attempting this one.
I'm looking forward to reading her book Please Look After Mother (hopefully in Oct/Nov). It's meant to be her best translated work. Let me know if you'd be up for a buddyread.
That would be great! End of October or November would work for me.
Super 😁 a
Are you on Voxer/Discord or do you want ro use Goodreads messaging when we start reading?
Please Look After Mother is more polished than Violets. It was translated before Violets from the original Korean, but Violets is older.
I understand why Please Look After Mother is more popular in Korea and was therefore translated first. Between the two PLAM is a good one to start next.
Personally, my favourite of hers is The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness. It covers key events in Korean Modern history, and while still dealing with heavy themes, it is less heavy than the other two. It's semi autobiographical so it was a little strange having characters referred to as First Brother and Third Brother and Cousin, but once I got used to that I found them to be the most relatable of all her characters ( compared to Violets/PLAM/The Court Dancer)
Plot-wise, I liked all the non-fic facts dotted throughout the book as things many middle-aged South Koreans would have experienced over the decades.
Just remembered, when I shared my thoughts on The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness last August, I mentioned reading it at the same time as Hwang Sok-Yong's At Dusk. Two very different stories but similar historical events shape the lives of the characters. I think they compliment each other well.
Wow this sounds like such a heavy read.
Very!
What kind of ending would you have preferred?
⚠️SPOILER ALERT ⚠️
It's where we see her the final time amidst the construction equipment that I wanted to end differently. I'm not sure I was even looking for something happier because I understand why the author continued down this path. I think it was the graphic nature that jarred at the time that I read it.
@@PageTurnersWithKatja
🚧MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD,
CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK.🚧
Yes the ending was surprisingly violent, I was not expecting it. I almost think of it as intentionally extreme and somewhat unbelievable. In my opinion, San represented all the people in the world that have been cast aside, and the grave and deadly lifelong consequences it can bring, starting in that first heartbreaking paragraph describing her rejection immediately at her birth for simply a being a girl. I don't know if it is even possible for someone to actually kill themselves in the way that she did by just throwing their body at a big piece of machinery like that. The scene in the first chapter where her friend seemingly challenges San to prove her love for her by killing the chicken was pretty shocking. She did it, but she was still rejected.
I was blown away by the book. Did you read the few pages at the end by the author, she explains a lot about her thought process when she wrote the book?
Yes, I thought the epilogue was brilliant. It's where she explained that while English readers will see this as a new book from her, it's actually older than some of her other translated works.
I don’t think I talked about this in the video, but it's stuck with me since reading the book. The scene with the police man feels so current for how the police force in the UK is currently viewed. Seeing an authority figure, she puts her trust in him and risks her life by not listening to her own concerns.
@@PageTurnersWithKatja Yes, that part with the motorcycle was interesting, I think by that point she had already stopped caring about her own safety and well-being, to just jump on the back of a strangers motorcycle even if they are dressed like a cop is beyond stupid.
I was reading about Kyung-Sook-Shin, she unfortunately had a plagiarism scandal with her first book, but thankfully it didn't really damage her career.
Yes, I was shocked when I first heard as i wondered if it was one I'd read, but it's not a book that had been translated into English.
In 2015 another writer told The Huffington Post Korea they noticed Kyung-Sook Shin had plagiarized sentences from Yukio Mishima's short story Patriotism in her book Legend (1996) which I think the publisher pulled from shelves after her apology.