Book review: Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin

PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER by Kyung-Sook Shin. Hachette India Books.

Alright, I`ll confess: I picked this book up only because of the buzz that has surrounded it ever since it released a decade ago. Written by one of South Korea`s most widely read writers, a million-copy bestseller, winner of the Man Asian literary prize, the book has been published in 26 countries and sold 1.5 million copies in South Korea alone. And then, there`s the plot: a mother goes missing from Seoul Station Subway.

Well, to cut a long story short, the book more than lives up to its hype. Employing an even tone that somehow contains in it a world of pain, regrets, wistful memories, Ms Shin starts the story on a startling note: It`s been one week since Mother went missing.

What follows is a collation of mostly sparse memories of Mother (Park So-nyo) by her negligent and not- too- faithful husband, her pride and joy her eldest son, a second son, and her two daughters. After she goes missing, and the family mounts a desperate hunt for her, distributing flyers, following any and every lead they get, it turns out that Mother has been taken for granted by everyone, for more years than they care to count.

The woman inside Mother

Now, propelled by a residual guilt, they start to piece together their memories, their impressions of Mother and what we get is the peeling of an onion but in reverse. As each family member thinks hard and adds to his/her Mother memorabilia, what emerges is the portrait of a woman of substance. A woman who begat children, lost some of them at birth, but picked up the pieces and carried on. A woman who was left by her husband for a brief while but who picked up the pieces and carried on. A woman who was always at work in the fields, a soiled towel wrapped about her head. A woman who starts to suffer memory loss and the most debilitating headaches but still carried on. A woman whose eldest daughter becomes a noted novelist but whose works she herself cannot read because she is illiterate.

What shines through is how Mother perseveres, rises above everything life throws at her, and manages to live with dignity and equanimity.

If there isn’t a lump in your throat by the time you reach the end of the book, I`d be very surprised. It`s that kind of a book.