Kleenex fiction

“Please Look After Mom,” a novel written by Korean novelist Shin Kyung-sook, is 21st on the New York Times bestseller list, the first from Korea to make the list. In an April 5 review, the newspaper said, “Shin’s prose, intimate and hauntingly spare in this translation by Chi-young Kim, moves from first to second and third person, and powerfully conveys grief’s bewildering immediacy.”

To the disappointment of Korean readers proud to see a Korean literary work succeed in the U.S. market, however, book critic Maureen Corrigan, a professor of literature at Georgetown University, criticized the book. She is an influential critic who won the Edgar Award for Criticism from Mystery Writers of America in 1999. In her review entitled, “A Guilt Trip to the Big City,” she wrote, “If there`s a literary genre in Korean that translates into ‘manipulative sob sister melodrama,’ ‘Please Look After Mom’ is surely its reigning queen.” She ends the criticism by advising readers not to reach for “the cheap consolations of kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction.”

While maternity is humankind’s universal sentiment, the East and West have different perspectives and approaches to it. Americans do not think of their mothers as sacrificing everything for the sake of family. Corrigan said, “The weird fascination of ‘Please Look After Mom’ is its message — completely alien to our own therapeutic culture — that if one`s mother is miserable, it is indeed, the fault of her husband and her ungrateful children.” Whereas many Koreans are familiar with American materials and values, Americans have limited exposure to Korean culture.

It is not pleasing to see a Korean novel that sold 1.5 million copies in Korea branded as “Kleenex fiction.” But a critique is just a critique. Those familiar with Korean-style complimentary critiques might be perplexed by Corrigan’s comments. Such acrimonious criticisms are quite common in the U.S., however. If Internet users’ childish demand that Corrigan apologize for her “racist” comments, however, it could become a hot topic in the U.S. In no country do critics’ views agree with those of readers. What is important is that the English-language version of Shin’s novel is selling well in the American market.

Editorial Writer Chung Sung-hee (shchung@donga.com)