A novel set in North Korea.
The first half follows the life of the main character, Jun Do, with bits from childhood to early adulthood. The book presents a frightening picture of life in North Korea - poverty, desperation, paranoia, the ever present Big Brother, the tenuousness of everyone's existence, from the bottom to the elite, other bizarre practices - building replicas of the the Wild West, luxury autos, kidnapping scientists and artists from other countries, the bizarre loudspeaker broadcasts that are apparently part of every environment. If this book is accurate, North Korea has gone much further than even Stalin.
The second half bends towards the demands of the American publishing industry, and introduces a convoluted love story. You learn some interesting facts about life in this section, but not as much.
For me, there is something particularly horrifying about this type of all-present, overwhelming system. (Stalin's system, also.) A ruling elite, a "government" can not care about you, can ignore you, can use you, but still you have yourself and your life that you lead; you have your reality, as miserable as it may be. In the Korean and Russian intrusive state model, you don't even get to keep your reality. You have your experience of misery, of struggle but it cannot be acknowledged. The State narrative of paradise, of caring, of the idealistic struggle must be internalized somehow or you die. Your tormentor, your exploiter must be called your Great Leader, must be thanked, must be worhipped. I can't imagine how dislocating, how disturbing at a fundamental level, that must be. Society and all human relations themselves become unreal. How do you recover from that?
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