asianamlitfans | Feb. 26th, 2010

A Review of Sonya Chung’s Long for this World

It is perhaps appropriate to begin this review of Sonya Chung’s debut novel, Long for this World, by discussing the importance of the title. One major thematic thread that runs throughout the narrative is survivorship, so the question becomes: who is long for this world and who is not? Because so many of the characters face such challenging circumstances, mortality is not something that any of them can simply take for granted. The novel’s opening makes this very clear as we are situated in the post-war Korean terrain where the future is cloudy and the economic situation grim. We understand then the motivation of one of the main characters Han Hyun-kyu who “escapes” from a provincial island community and ends up immigrating to the United States, finding his own footing and attempting to pin down the oft-desired “American Dream.” While in the United States Hyun-Kyu ends up marrying Lee Woo-in, a brilliant, if not troubled psychiatrist, who is the relative of a woman that Hyun-Kyu was very fond of. The strain that develops between Hyun-Kyu and his wife is evidenced by the way in which Woo-in is eventually referenced by her honorary title, Dr. Lee. They have two children, an older daughter, Jane, who ends up developing a much stronger bond with her father, and the younger son, Henry, who is favored by Dr. Lee. The novel begins its upward arc as soon as Hyun-kyu basically abandons Dr. Lee and travels to Korea, seeking to reconnect with the brother he left behind. This brother, Han Jae-kyu, has built quite a life in Korea, along with his wife, Han Jung-joo, and their seemingly picture perfect family, which includes two sons, happily married, as well as one daughter. However, this familial stability has been ruptured in part the daughter’s pregnancy and apparent depression, which has cast a certain pall over the family’s immediate circumstances. When Hyun-kyu arrives in Korea in the midst of these tensions, we begin to see the way in which individual characters must negotiate new trajectories, find new footing, and confront internal struggles and long-buried rifts. Jane, being the one closest to her father, immediately travels to Korea, seeking him out. Jane’s brother, Henry, remains in the United States, still dealing with time spent in rehab due to alcoholism, an addiction, in part, developed in tandem with his relationship with his eccentric mother.

In some senses, the most riveting characters within the novel are the artist-figures. Here, Jane, Hyun-kyu’s daughter, has developed a career was a war photographer and photojournalist. This dangerous work has led her to various areas around the globe, including Darfur, Sudan, as we all Iraq, where she is almost mortally wounded. The question that Jane’s work does bring up is the ethics behind depictions of war and what part photographs have in the documentation of such politically fraught situations, where human rights violations continually occur. One question that Chung seems interested in asking is how one negotiates the challenge of aestheticizing war terrains as an art form. This conundrum certainly dovetails with the form of fiction itself: at what point does one understand the representation of war and trauma as simply an “art”? Jane’s own positionality is refracted through that of Min-Suk, the beloved brother of her uncle’s wife, Han Jung-joo Hyun-kyu’s sister-in-kaw). Whereas Min-suk has already achieved a level of success as a painter in Korea, he finds himself losing any sort of inspiration in his art form. Min-Suk’s ennui seems to be exist in the relative detachment of his artwork from reference and politics. While his art is popular and commercial, he cannot seem to find a “belief” in his work. Consequently, when Min-suk and Jane meet, we know this connection is going be both important and transformative.

What I appreciated most from Chung’s Long for this World is the narrative ellipticality. We have many different perspectives and subplots, none of which are presented simply nor wrapped up in neat and tidy ways. For instance, the very intriguing and marginal character Choi Jin-Sook, a sort of maid figure, who works in Han Jae-kyu’s household, is given important narrative space despite the fact that she figures relatively unimportantly in the major plot. Chung’s choice to include Jin-Sook’s observations and nuanced subject position as a laboring class Korean woman is vital in establishing the incredible texture to the novel’s terrain. And of course, Jane’s point-of-view as the central protagonist solidly grounds the novel. One can’t think of the irony related to Han Hyun-kyu’s own experiences as a survivor of the Korean War when he discovers that his daughter’s career interests will lead her constantly into war zones. Finally, the novel is truly a global one, rather than transnationally configured. It is not simply a story of Korea and the United States. Jane’s photojournalistic work reminds the readers of a continuing need to contextualize mobility, trauma, and intergenerational divides through the conflicts and violence that uproot families in so many different locations.

Long for this World is a wise and multifaceted work, one that contextualizes the domestic dramas of one Korean/American family within a larger global terrain!