By William Roger Jones
Shin Kyung-sook's book's title ``Please Look After Mom" threw me as I read the novel because it certainly did seem that no one ― siblings, husband, or relatives ― was overly concerned about ``Mom."
However, that is not to say that each didn't remember her in their own way and love her in their own way. It was not until the last page read that the title was revealed as a prayer uttered at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.
The author's work transcends culture and is touching in a universal manner, because most know the irreplaceable preciousness of a mom. Most of the English-speaking world could never receive Shin's story within their hearts were it not for the brilliance of Kim Chi-young’s translation.
Although the novel appeared in slightly different form as ``Eommareul Butakhae" in 2008, a division of Random House rendered Shin's first book to appear in English' in this present year. Her work mixes present and past history and village and city culture and depicts universal human nature shaped by a hierarchy of needs.
This novel has come forth timely in my life as my own ``Mom” approached the older sister of sleep who escorted her to her wake in the latter days of this June. Our immediate and extended family conjured up similar memories as Shin's characters did.
We feel the guilt of accepting sacrifices of our own ``Moms' without providing appropriate returns. Thinking they were ``born as Moms." Forgetting that they did have and do have dreams as well. Forgetting that they are human, requiring exactly what we require. And, some of us accept blame and some of us do not. Shin's story alerts us and warns us about those unwanted attributes of indifference and selfishness. Her story shares a sense of inadequacy. Her story awakens us to love.
Their mom went missing on a Saturday afternoon at the ever-crowded Seoul Subway Station approaching 8 million passengers daily during the summer of 2007. She was pushed and shoved and jostled loose from her husband during the off-boarding and on-boarding of rushing passengers. The train departed without her and by the time her husband was able to return to the spot where they separated, she was gone.
This led to an immediate and all-out search (for Park So-nyo the Mom) which by the passing of nine months had abated as acceptance and realization set in that she no longer existed in this world. Paired with a weak and ungovernable spouse she became the matriarch of the family. It was also so with my mother that she became head and ruler of our family and descendants. Of course, as time went by, siblings neither deferred nor relented to Mom's wishes and scolding. Thus, Mom relinquished her crown and yielded ground unhappily as siblings consumed happiness without producing any.
With the loss of one's Mom, a great deal of soul-searching comes into play. Memories are revisited accompanied with the attached behaviors and decisions forever unchangeable.
Perhaps now, after reflective and considered evaluation and estimation of Mom's discernments, one may see that her judgments for guidance were coupled with love. One's motives and values can be realigned so that all is not lost, then Mom's purpose will not have been in vain.
We never seem to know what anything means until we have lost it. The wealth of meaning that lies in the word ``Mom," we never know until she is gone. Shin's characters' lives parallel with that of my own family. Each and every account she gives occurred in my own family.
It is as though she had some sort of extrasensory perception to see into the future and write what most commonly befalls all men and women. The attending circumstances of the actions and events in her story are generic and representative of the faults, flaws, and frailties of the human condition.
In producing this good read leading to her broader success, what Shin realized was that ``People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice." Mom!
William Roger Jones has taught English in Korea for five years. He presently teaches with the English Program in Korea (EPIK). He has written a novella with his Korean wife entitled ``Beyond Harvard.'' He can be reached at billjones47@hotmail.com.