Winter in Sokcho
Author: Elisa Shua Dusapin
Translated by: Aneesa Abbas Higgins
Published by: Daunt Books Originals
Pages: 154
Format: Paperback
My Rating ★★★★
Translated by: Aneesa Abbas Higgins
Published by: Daunt Books Originals
Pages: 154
Format: Paperback
My Rating ★★★★
It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border of South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous; beyond the beach guns point out from the North’s watchtowers.
A young French-Korean woman works as a receptionist in a run-down guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French graphic novelist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.
The two form an uneasy relationship. She agrees to accompany him on his trips to discover an ‘authentic’ Korea and they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls. But he takes no interest in the real Sokcho she knows: the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she is pulled into his drawings, she is troubled by his vision of her – until she strikes upon a way to finally be seen.
A young French-Korean woman works as a receptionist in a run-down guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French graphic novelist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.
The two form an uneasy relationship. She agrees to accompany him on his trips to discover an ‘authentic’ Korea and they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls. But he takes no interest in the real Sokcho she knows: the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she is pulled into his drawings, she is troubled by his vision of her – until she strikes upon a way to finally be seen.
My thoughts:
A beautiful, unexpected, quirky, and compelling novel from a debut French Korean author, Winter in Sokcho is broodingly atmospheric.
The book is set in Sokcho, a place so close to South Korea’s impenetrable northern counterpart that it is possible to take a day trip over the border.
Winter has encased Sokcho like a snow globe, and Dusapin’s unnamed narrator has returned to her hometown from university in Seoul. She is now working as a live-in receptionist and cook at a dead-end guesthouse in the tourist town.
The unexpected arrival at the hotel of a guest from France, a comic-book artist called Kerrand, stirs a frenzy in the young woman, in whom he takes a sporadic but keen interest. Kerrand is old enough to be her unknown French father. While he invites the narrator to assist him in his search for ‘authentic’ Korea, he is curiously resistant to her offers of local cuisine, preferring western takeaways, and constantly citing an aversion to spicy foods. He also does not seem to value the differences between France and Korea, and this troubles the narrator. While walking alone Korean beaches fenced in by barbed wire with North Korean gun turrets visible on the horizon, he reflects on the beaches of Normandy as still bearing ‘scars from the war’ and that ‘you’ll still find bones and blood in the sand.’ The narrator recoils at this, reminding him it was ‘a war that finished a long time ago’ and not a constant threat like they experience in South Korea. Despite this, we witness their slow-burn growing friendship as he continues asking her to show him around.
Like the town in winter, the whole novel reads like a breath held and waiting. The prose is clear and lovely, the setting fascinating, and themes of home and motherhood and beauty standards are woven in effortlessly.
The author creates a narrator who has very little regard for herself, but who is also never sorry for herself or her situation. She lives in a world where nothing ever changes, and yet she describes her world so vividly that it feels charged with beauty and possibility. The relentless stream of detail - colours, smells, temperature - make the argument on the page that even simple, mundane acts can be filled with intention and beauty. Most of the novel focuses on the interactions between her and Kerrand.
All in all, I loved experience of reading this short fiction novel, an aimless story full of so much atmosphere and of course the tense and mysterious aura around the characters and their relationship. I really liked this quiet book. I felt completely transported to Sokcho, the perfect setting for such an enigmatic exploration of emotions. The sense of isolation and loneliness were hauntingly beautiful. So much is left unsaid in this quiet work, which is full of wistfulness, yearning, and hope. Filled with a brooding tension that never dissipates, Winter in Sokcho is a poetic, ambient and tender debut novel from Elisa Shua Dusapin.
Overall reaction:
A beautiful, unexpected, quirky, and compelling novel from a debut French Korean author, Winter in Sokcho is broodingly atmospheric.
The book is set in Sokcho, a place so close to South Korea’s impenetrable northern counterpart that it is possible to take a day trip over the border.
Winter has encased Sokcho like a snow globe, and Dusapin’s unnamed narrator has returned to her hometown from university in Seoul. She is now working as a live-in receptionist and cook at a dead-end guesthouse in the tourist town.
The unexpected arrival at the hotel of a guest from France, a comic-book artist called Kerrand, stirs a frenzy in the young woman, in whom he takes a sporadic but keen interest. Kerrand is old enough to be her unknown French father. While he invites the narrator to assist him in his search for ‘authentic’ Korea, he is curiously resistant to her offers of local cuisine, preferring western takeaways, and constantly citing an aversion to spicy foods. He also does not seem to value the differences between France and Korea, and this troubles the narrator. While walking alone Korean beaches fenced in by barbed wire with North Korean gun turrets visible on the horizon, he reflects on the beaches of Normandy as still bearing ‘scars from the war’ and that ‘you’ll still find bones and blood in the sand.’ The narrator recoils at this, reminding him it was ‘a war that finished a long time ago’ and not a constant threat like they experience in South Korea. Despite this, we witness their slow-burn growing friendship as he continues asking her to show him around.
Like the town in winter, the whole novel reads like a breath held and waiting. The prose is clear and lovely, the setting fascinating, and themes of home and motherhood and beauty standards are woven in effortlessly.
The author creates a narrator who has very little regard for herself, but who is also never sorry for herself or her situation. She lives in a world where nothing ever changes, and yet she describes her world so vividly that it feels charged with beauty and possibility. The relentless stream of detail - colours, smells, temperature - make the argument on the page that even simple, mundane acts can be filled with intention and beauty. Most of the novel focuses on the interactions between her and Kerrand.
All in all, I loved experience of reading this short fiction novel, an aimless story full of so much atmosphere and of course the tense and mysterious aura around the characters and their relationship. I really liked this quiet book. I felt completely transported to Sokcho, the perfect setting for such an enigmatic exploration of emotions. The sense of isolation and loneliness were hauntingly beautiful. So much is left unsaid in this quiet work, which is full of wistfulness, yearning, and hope. Filled with a brooding tension that never dissipates, Winter in Sokcho is a poetic, ambient and tender debut novel from Elisa Shua Dusapin.
Overall reaction: