What’s the last book that made you really angry? For me, it’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.
Summary:
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is the all too familiar story of a young woman whose ambition and hard-work is slowly crushed by institutional oppression and inescapable misogyny. This slim novel narrates Kim Jiyoung’s experiences growing up in South Korea, taking us through her school years, university, her first job, marriage and the birth of her first child, life events which are intrinsically tied up with society’s misogyny and the expectations of women.
My Review:
For such a short book, Cho Nam-Joo’s words have monumental impact and this book will resonate with women worldwide. Although fiction, the footnotes throughout the story which gave us facts and figures about gender inequality in South Korea contextualised the book and firmly grounded Kim Jiyoung’s story in reality; the reader is constantly pulled out of the story and confronted with the startling truth that Kim Jiyoung’s story could be any of our own.
Kim Jiyoung is quite a cool and detached protagonist and her story is told in a dry manner, even more so as she gets older and her fight for equality becomes evermore passive. Whilst this is a feminist text which had me boiling with rage on many occasions, it is one which aims to create unease without ever being too fierce. The simplicity of the narrative is not a criticism, however, and is actually one of the qualities of the novel which I most admired; Kim Jiyoung’s story does not get lost beneath flowery prose and lyricism, but rather it is stripped back to the bare bones of the subject matter.
Some of the most shocking and powerful moments came when Kim Jiyoung was applying for her first job and, later, her treatment when she began her career. Two key moments which stand out are the incident when Kim Jiyoung is invited to her first ever job interview and her chances are thwarted by a loaded question asked by a male interviewer about sexual harassment in the workplace, and, in the latter half of the novel, when she is pregnant with her first child and it is implicitly advised that she give up her career. The double standards in these incidents made for an incredibly stark read.
The only thing that I wasn’t entirely keen on with this book was the ending; I suppose it’s indicative of the attitudes towards mental health in South Korea, but I wasn’t too keen on the shift in perspective. I wasn’t expecting the change in narrator so I initially had to re-read the ending to understand what had just happened, but once I did, I was frustrated that Kim Jiyoung’s story had been taken out of her own hands. Nonetheless, this is a must-read for those who are keen to learn about gender inequality in South Korea and those who want a straight-forward feminist novel which isn’t overly-complicated.
Star Rating: 4/5
Hoặc