The Orphan Master's Son

One sentence synopsis... An imaginative portrait of a world hidden from us and the casual violence inflicted upon it's inhabitants: a North Korea rife with torture, propaganda, and innocence lost. .

Read it if you like... the writing is pretty Dickensian but the adventures are pure Fleming. .

Dream casting... Obviously Song Kang-ho as Pak Jun Do/“Commander Ga”. Let him play every character.

A book of 2 halves both equally good. A more concrete first half of life growing up, and most of all of time on the sea, followed by a more “absurdist” second half where everybody accepts the change in characted uf Jun Do, and where the writing blends Party propaganda with narrative. Both halves add up to a powerful book. I do have to remind myself that this is a work of fiction, but one thinks with a grain of truth

As a one-time resident of South Korea, I was keen to read this novel set in North Korea, and these days we all owe it to ourselves to learn more about that country and its leadership. But the first thing to remember about this book is that it is a work of fiction that takes advantage of the peculiarities of its setting. It's not strictly ABOUT North Korea. Instead, it's about one man who is trying to tell his own story and discover who he is. The pain that he endures, both physical and mental, are, in the book, real. The mental anguish would be just as real if the story were set elsewhere. So I think we have to look at the book as being one about the themes of the book: family, impostors, facades, deprivation, the lies we tell ourselves and others. And let's not worry about what the book may or may not be saying about the country of North Korea.

Ah jeeze. I know it's not cool to write about the book you wish the author had written, but man, I wish I had read a nonfiction book about contemporary life in North Korea instead. Does anyone have any good recommendations for a book like that??

That said, Adam Johnson has traveled in North Korea and has a lot of very vivid details about the surreal, Catch-22-y dystopia that is North Korea. (I kept doing Google fact checks because I wanted to see if weird shit in here was true or not. I KNOW I'M MISSING THE POINT BUT I CAN'T HELP IT.)

The plot is interesting. Some of the threads about identity seemed a little heavy handed... is that the point? Is that his technique? Maybe for me, this is a 3 star novel with a 4 star concept??