About book Silver Stallion: A Novel Of Korea (2003)
I must admit I have to scratch my head at the rating of this book. It has a lot of two star ratings, but with only two reviews total, it's hard to know why. So I hit Amazon.com, and it has seven reviews and a four star average. Not sure why the lower ratings here.That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It does deal with some very stark, harsh realities like rape and prostitution as well as a portrayal of UN soldiers that may not set well with Western readers. However, the whole point of the story is how the small village of Kumsan changes when the UN forces setup Camp Omaha across the river from them. Soon, many events begin unfolding that lead to the main character, Mansik, and his mother, Ollye, being ostracized by the villagers. It deals with how they cope and adapt and how the village refuses to do the same. It also delves into the deep Confucian foundation of the village with Old Hwang and how it slowly begins deteriorating over a period of months.The book did finish with what I believe is a direction of hope, although I can see where some reviewers might feel like it left the reader hanging. Interpreting what happens next is the reader's responsibility, and I chose to see it as a transition and chance to reboot and restart.Definitely recommended for all adults and older teens who won't be shocked by language or sex talk. It's absolutely not a book for tweens, as it deals with sex in an open but not graphic nature. If you love Korean or Asian fiction, you should also love this novel.
Books arrive in my hand through many different routes, a great review, a forboding list of classics to be endured (often endurance turns into a revel as long as Henry James has nothing to do with it), a friends recommendations, but most serendipitously and happily are those who is some random bookshop snuggled their way into your hands. Silver Stallion arrived in the last way, and while I am not sure if it was some kind of mistaken curiosity of whether this was Korea`s answer to black beauty or if it was the rather grand a Novel of Korea which made me think this was Koreas answer to the Great American Novel i really cannot remember. The book languished on my shelves for three years before I finally got around to it and now very much wish I trusted my first impulse sooner. Its a good book and in the original may well be a very good book. The book takes place in rural Korea in the 60s where life is once again shattered by war, this time the UN army fighting North Korea and then the Chinese. Written from the perspective of an young boy whose mother after an almost casual rape by two predatory UN soldiers is shunned by her village. With little to lose and no other way of earning a living she becomes a "yankee lady" selling herself to the soldiers in a nearby camp. Its all very grim and depressing, but the unflinching no apologies examination of how wars ruins the lives of those caught in its slipstream is fascinating.
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