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superborbTwo girls grow up as best friends and become haenyeo during Jeju under Japanese rule. Young-sook is the daughter of the chief of their collective of divers, while Mi-ja is the orphaned daughter of Japanese collaborators, a despised background. Heartbreak comes from the dangers of the sea, but even more from the unrest that followed from war and rebellion.
I've always been leery of Lisa See due to the rather western gaze of the marketing around her books. Ungenerously, her tendency towards over-explaining when applied to this setting frames things as exotic to the reader, as if in some way it is foreign to the narrator. It was only when a truly weird scene with a (modern day-ish) doctor occurs and the doctor spends pages speculating out loud about what could be causing the problems only to conclude that it was the bends that I realized it was... See's style instead of low key Orientalist. So it merely is VERY ANNOYING and off-putting.
It does reveal the importance of marketing though: her audience probably does want that over-explaining even if it's out of place, and it certainly shows off her research into the setting. (It did not even occur to other members of the book club I read it with until I pointed it out, but they were Asians a generation older than me, which I think really makes a difference in expectation of Asian American literature.)
My other complaint is that it's sometimes tonally inconsistent, varying wildly between plain and formal description/speech, but that's more minor. Other reviews online seem to take umbrage in the chores descriptions (but that's what they would have been pre-occupied with?) or the depiction of violence (WHY read anything set in this time period/location?) but I don't agree.
But! what she does well really reveals why she is a bestseller: her female friendship and disagreeable women portrayals ranged from good to incandescent. Those complicated characters! I was not super pleased about the origin of the crack in their relationship (a boy, really), but it was turned deftly enough into an interweaving with the traumatic experiences of the time and of women in that time, that it is more accurately, a boy and the secrets and trauma around him, which at least is not trite.
I can't say I'll be seeking out more of her work, but-- I'm sad about it, if that makes sense? Good female friendship in a non-Western setting in English is hard to find, but I simply have a very low tolerance for over-explanation.
CW: If you know anything about this era of history... violence, massacre, rape, domestic violence, death of major characters.
I've always been leery of Lisa See due to the rather western gaze of the marketing around her books. Ungenerously, her tendency towards over-explaining when applied to this setting frames things as exotic to the reader, as if in some way it is foreign to the narrator. It was only when a truly weird scene with a (modern day-ish) doctor occurs and the doctor spends pages speculating out loud about what could be causing the problems only to conclude that it was the bends that I realized it was... See's style instead of low key Orientalist. So it merely is VERY ANNOYING and off-putting.
It does reveal the importance of marketing though: her audience probably does want that over-explaining even if it's out of place, and it certainly shows off her research into the setting. (It did not even occur to other members of the book club I read it with until I pointed it out, but they were Asians a generation older than me, which I think really makes a difference in expectation of Asian American literature.)
My other complaint is that it's sometimes tonally inconsistent, varying wildly between plain and formal description/speech, but that's more minor. Other reviews online seem to take umbrage in the chores descriptions (but that's what they would have been pre-occupied with?) or the depiction of violence (WHY read anything set in this time period/location?) but I don't agree.
But! what she does well really reveals why she is a bestseller: her female friendship and disagreeable women portrayals ranged from good to incandescent. Those complicated characters! I was not super pleased about the origin of the crack in their relationship (a boy, really), but it was turned deftly enough into an interweaving with the traumatic experiences of the time and of women in that time, that it is more accurately, a boy and the secrets and trauma around him, which at least is not trite.
I can't say I'll be seeking out more of her work, but-- I'm sad about it, if that makes sense? Good female friendship in a non-Western setting in English is hard to find, but I simply have a very low tolerance for over-explanation.
CW: If you know anything about this era of history... violence, massacre, rape, domestic violence, death of major characters.
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