What I read this «January»
Feb. 1st, 2024 16:45![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elidelioWith all the holiday hubbub I didn't read anything in December, so straight to January it is! I read two books, one in english and one in spanish (hello 2024 goal i'm doing great hahaha)
The Ginseng Hunter by Jeff Talarigo
This was honestly a gorgeous narration for a very depressing story lol. Spoilers for the entire plot ahead.
The book is mainly focused on the first-person narration of the Ginseng Hunter (whose name I don't believe we actually get in the book?), a half-chinese half-korean man living in the Chinese side of the border between China and North Korea during the time of the Cultural Revolution, iirc. While he spends most of his time in the mountains "hunting" ginseng (and those parts of the story focusing on his craft were my absolute favourite I wish there'd been more), he also goes down to the nearby village on occasion to trade and visit the brothel (man gets lonely out in the wilderness, understandable). It is during one of those visits that he meets and forms a special connection with a woman who is a North Korean defector. Obviously this makes it so that she is constantly in danger of being turned over back to NK and killed, and she has been through some shit (as we see in the parts of the narrative that focus on her story). The Ginseng Hunter then becomes infatuated with the woman, visiting her constantly and even considering buying her out of the brothel, but gets cold feet at the last minute and decides against it. Then he meets a North Korean child that keeps crossing the border near his house to get food and gets an idea in his head that he can convince her (the child) to stay on this side of the border and he'll raise her and free her from her sad life, the child does actually stay with him for a bit but then he's like wait i don't actually know how to raise a child... ah, i know, the woman at the brothel must know how to raise children, i'll go bring her back and we'll be a happy family :). As anyone could probably guess, everything goes to shit from there. The woman is no longer in the brothel, and it is implied that they got rid of her, i think by turning her over to NK?, and when he goes back to his house he discovers that the little girl is gone back across the border. She tries to come back at some point but is shot dead by one of the two guards stationed at that part of the border, and the Ginseng Hunter takes her body back to his shed. Winter comes, ginseng hunter has to go out to his house and gets lost in the blizzard, but gets rescued and brought back home by one of the NK guards who tells him he's trying to defect because of what they did to the little girl (though he is adamant that he was not the one who shot the fatal shot). Ginseng hunter lets the guard stay in his shed during winter, and come spring he will take him to a hut in the forest so he can live there. Once spring comes, ginseng hunter is fully planning on betraying the guard and selling him back to a man who trades in returning defectors back to NK, but changes his mind due to regret (because we find out that the reason the little girl went back was because a group of defectors who came to his house in search for food convinced her to, so he went and offered them to take them to safety only to sell them to the trafficker man in revenge).
Anyway I really liked the narration, especially the parts taking place in nature and when the ginseng hunter reflects back on his childhood. The story was bleak af, though, and it really just felt like nothing the hunter did could have a significant effect around him (sensing a theme here tbh). Like, the girl he does decide to save ends up dying anyway, the defectors he helps by giving food to end up screwing him over, and his desire for revenge (if you could even call it that) falls through anyway. He is subject to the whims of the world and people around him, the sparrows his family uses to hunt ginseng disappear due to Mao's decree, his prize ginseng root is ruined by a refugee, the mountain itself is indifferent to his life or the life of anyone on it, but all he can do is keep trucking on, barely scraping by. He doesn't know how to do anything else, all he knows is the mountain and the ginseng, and even that is clearly not going to last forever. There is no sense of closure, but you know how everything ends eventually. 7/10 because the book truly did a good job of sucking me in even as I wanted to stop reading from the bleakness all around.
This was honestly a gorgeous narration for a very depressing story lol. Spoilers for the entire plot ahead.
The book is mainly focused on the first-person narration of the Ginseng Hunter (whose name I don't believe we actually get in the book?), a half-chinese half-korean man living in the Chinese side of the border between China and North Korea during the time of the Cultural Revolution, iirc. While he spends most of his time in the mountains "hunting" ginseng (and those parts of the story focusing on his craft were my absolute favourite I wish there'd been more), he also goes down to the nearby village on occasion to trade and visit the brothel (man gets lonely out in the wilderness, understandable). It is during one of those visits that he meets and forms a special connection with a woman who is a North Korean defector. Obviously this makes it so that she is constantly in danger of being turned over back to NK and killed, and she has been through some shit (as we see in the parts of the narrative that focus on her story). The Ginseng Hunter then becomes infatuated with the woman, visiting her constantly and even considering buying her out of the brothel, but gets cold feet at the last minute and decides against it. Then he meets a North Korean child that keeps crossing the border near his house to get food and gets an idea in his head that he can convince her (the child) to stay on this side of the border and he'll raise her and free her from her sad life, the child does actually stay with him for a bit but then he's like wait i don't actually know how to raise a child... ah, i know, the woman at the brothel must know how to raise children, i'll go bring her back and we'll be a happy family :). As anyone could probably guess, everything goes to shit from there. The woman is no longer in the brothel, and it is implied that they got rid of her, i think by turning her over to NK?, and when he goes back to his house he discovers that the little girl is gone back across the border. She tries to come back at some point but is shot dead by one of the two guards stationed at that part of the border, and the Ginseng Hunter takes her body back to his shed. Winter comes, ginseng hunter has to go out to his house and gets lost in the blizzard, but gets rescued and brought back home by one of the NK guards who tells him he's trying to defect because of what they did to the little girl (though he is adamant that he was not the one who shot the fatal shot). Ginseng hunter lets the guard stay in his shed during winter, and come spring he will take him to a hut in the forest so he can live there. Once spring comes, ginseng hunter is fully planning on betraying the guard and selling him back to a man who trades in returning defectors back to NK, but changes his mind due to regret (because we find out that the reason the little girl went back was because a group of defectors who came to his house in search for food convinced her to, so he went and offered them to take them to safety only to sell them to the trafficker man in revenge).
Anyway I really liked the narration, especially the parts taking place in nature and when the ginseng hunter reflects back on his childhood. The story was bleak af, though, and it really just felt like nothing the hunter did could have a significant effect around him (sensing a theme here tbh). Like, the girl he does decide to save ends up dying anyway, the defectors he helps by giving food to end up screwing him over, and his desire for revenge (if you could even call it that) falls through anyway. He is subject to the whims of the world and people around him, the sparrows his family uses to hunt ginseng disappear due to Mao's decree, his prize ginseng root is ruined by a refugee, the mountain itself is indifferent to his life or the life of anyone on it, but all he can do is keep trucking on, barely scraping by. He doesn't know how to do anything else, all he knows is the mountain and the ginseng, and even that is clearly not going to last forever. There is no sense of closure, but you know how everything ends eventually. 7/10 because the book truly did a good job of sucking me in even as I wanted to stop reading from the bleakness all around.
Papeles de Ítaca y otros destinos by Luis Bernardo Pérez
Another short story anthology, I'm starting to find that I really like those! Short stories ranging from the utterly mundane to the absurdly fantastical. My favourites were Miriam, the story of a narrator, a girl, and a house with infinite possibilities; De Paso, a tale about an antique hotel bell that brings a man some unexpected visitors in his dreams; and the one about the man who dreams he has found a hat, or the hat that dreams that its been found by a man (whose name escapes me rn and I already returned the book to the library so I can't look for it). Anyway some of the stories were weird, some were a little uncomfortable, and some were purely delightful, but they succeeded in bringing out a sense of curiosity and wonder as to what the destination would be, or whether the journey was what mattered most. This series also mixes reality and fantasy so that you can't tell if what you're reading is "really" happening most of the time, but in the end, does it really matter?
I have less to say about this one because a) the stories were so short, and b) I just generally have good feelings about it, and I would definitely recommend it for someone looking to hop aboard a few flights of fancy.
Another short story anthology, I'm starting to find that I really like those! Short stories ranging from the utterly mundane to the absurdly fantastical. My favourites were Miriam, the story of a narrator, a girl, and a house with infinite possibilities; De Paso, a tale about an antique hotel bell that brings a man some unexpected visitors in his dreams; and the one about the man who dreams he has found a hat, or the hat that dreams that its been found by a man (whose name escapes me rn and I already returned the book to the library so I can't look for it). Anyway some of the stories were weird, some were a little uncomfortable, and some were purely delightful, but they succeeded in bringing out a sense of curiosity and wonder as to what the destination would be, or whether the journey was what mattered most. This series also mixes reality and fantasy so that you can't tell if what you're reading is "really" happening most of the time, but in the end, does it really matter?
I have less to say about this one because a) the stories were so short, and b) I just generally have good feelings about it, and I would definitely recommend it for someone looking to hop aboard a few flights of fancy.
