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Please Look After Mother [Paperback]

Kyung-Sook Shin
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Book Description

15 Mar 2012

PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER is the story of So-nyo, a wife and mother, who has lived a life of sacrifice and compromise. In the past she suffered a stroke, leaving her vulnerable and often confused. Now, travelling from the Korean countryside to the Seoul of her grown-up children, So-nyo is separated from her husband when the doors close on a packed train.

As her children and husband search the streets, they recall So-nyo's life, and all they have left unsaid. Through their piercing voices, we begin to discover the desires, heartaches, and secrets she harboured within. And as the mystery of her disappearance unravels, we uncover a larger mystery, that of all mothers and children: how affection, exasperation, hope and guilt add up to love. Compassionate, redemptive and beautifully written, PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER will reconnect you to the story of your own family, and to the forgotten sacrifices that lie at its heart.


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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Phoenix (15 Mar 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0753828189
  • ISBN-13: 978-0753828182
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 134,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

This story about family, hope and guilt has universal reach. (Big Issue in the North 20120312)

Tender, thoughtful and well-crafted... (Boyd Tonkin The Independent 20120323)

I found what is in one sense a terribly sad book, life-affirming, portraying the sorrows and joys of the parent-child relationship, familiar whether you live in rural South Korea, or South London (THE TIMES )

Full of emotion, this beautifully written book is like nothing I have ever read before and I thoroughly recommend it. (South Wales Argus 20120421)

a captivating story, written with an understanding of the shortcomings of traditional ways and modern life. It is nostalgic but unsentimental, brutally well observed and, in this flawlessly smooth translation by Chi-Young Kim, it offers a sobering account of a vanished past... We must hope there are more translations to follow. (THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 20110429)

The universal resonance of family life lifts a novel rooted in the experience of Korean modernity to international success. A best-seller in her native South Korea, Shin's Please Look After Mom tells the story of Park So-nyo, a devoted, do-all wife and mother who mysteriously goes missing... the book-Shin's first to be translated into English- is a moving portrayal of the surprising nature, sudden sacrifices, and secret reveries of motherhood. (Lisa Shea Elle )

An enormous publishing success in South Korea, this simple portrait of a family shocked into acknowledging the strength and heroic self-sacrifice of the woman at its center is both universal and socially specific... Partly a metaphor for Korea's social shift from rural to urban, partly an elegy to the intensity of family bonds as constructed and maintained by self-denying women, this is tender writing. (Kirkus Reviews )

ndelible... Shin's breathtaking novel is an acute reminder of how easily a family can fracture, how little we truly know one another, and how desperate need can sometimes overshadow even the deepest love.... Already a prominent writer in Korea, Shin makes her English-language debut with what will appeal to all readers who appreciate compelling, page-turning prose. Stay tuned: [Please Look After Mother] should be one of this year's most deserving bestsellers. (Terry Hong Library Journal )

what the characters and readers of... South Korean author Kyung-sook Shin discover is that in the mother's absence she is only more powerfully present. (REUTERS 20110531)

Kyung-Sook Shin's tale.. has hit a nerve.. it certainlytaps the universal tendency to take one's mother for granted. (THE GUARDIAN 20120505)

Book Description

Combining a unique setting with universal themes, PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER is a beautifully rendered novel about sacrifice, guilt, and the ties of family love.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 34 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Tender and Tragic Tale of Family in Korea 18 Mar 2011
By Feanor
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
Splintered narratives are in vogue in Korea, and this bestseller is a doozy. Four narrators describe their relationships over their lifetimes with Mother, an almost archetypal figure of self-abnegation and love. Towards the twilight of her life, she is separated in a train station from her husband and goes missing. The narrators, veering between despair, panic and utter callousness, recall their experiences of her.

The title in English misses the nuance of the Korean, which translates directly as 'I entrust Mum to you'. Mother is of humble origins but not without pride. She sacrifices herself for her eldest boy who remains the apple of her eye well into her old age. She is illiterate, and can't read the books that have made her elder daughter famous. The son is suffused with guilt at not necessarily having achieved all Mother wanted him to. The daughter, increasingly sophisticated with age, is irritated by her mother's superstition and stubborness, and then regrets the distance that not even love can easily bridge. Father, too, has his reasons for despair - he didn't help Mother as she spiralled into illness, both physical and mental, and he became increasingly more self-indulgent, intolerant of his wife. The family strains and creaks under these revelations, both introspective and narrative. How little they cherished Mother when she stood as their bedrock, and how much they miss her when she is lost, alone and defenceless. The little tragedies of life come to roost, and - unlike in most redemptive fiction - there are no easy answers in this tender and tragic tale.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars This novel makes us look inwards and feel guilty 30 Aug 2011
By Puskas
Format:Hardcover
Although I should have no reason to feel guilty about my own relationship with my elderly parents, the skill of this book is that it causes us to question the roles of the generations, and our treatment of elderly relatives when we ourselves reach adulthood. The 'mother' of the title is Son-yo who has, like many others of her generation, sacrificed self and sanity for the betterment of her husband and five children, disregarding her own views, desires and even health to promote theirs.

The book tells the story of the elderly, confused peasant mother, Son-yo, who goes missing when she fails to board a train in Seoul, Korea, with her husband on a visit to one of their children. The story is told from the perspective of the mother, her children and her husband. Did any of them really know her? Did they realise that she had been illiterate? Could they even remember the colour of the sandals she wore around her septic toe?

The use of 'you', mentioned by other reviewers, could be just the result of translation irregularities.

As generations evolve and change, they try to judge previous generations from their own standpoints, which is what we should never do! Thus the adult children fail to value the world and work of their mother, and do not appreciate her role in their lives until she is no longer there for them.

It wasn't a pleasant read because it forced me to confront generational differences, but I think its power will stay with me for a long time.
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27 of 31 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Regret and Loss 15 Mar 2011
By lovemurakami TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
Please Look After Mother is a novel about regret and how we wish we could go back and change how we relate to the people we love.

A mother goes missing in Seoul and her family are left trying to find her by producting flyers and searching for her. As you read this Korean novel you find out how the mother becomes lost in Seoul and you are given an insight into her life through the eyes of her daughter, son and husband, and how her going missing makes them review their attitude towards her, making them realise how they never fully appreciated her and how they never told her how much she meant to each of them.

This is a quietly, compelling novel dealing with motherhood and family, and is well worth a read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars certainly different
I quite liked this rare kind of story.The drama in this plot was nicely wrote and beliveable. I believe this is a special author to keep a look out for in the future.
Published 1 month ago by bookmoviefanatic
4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely story with a slightly confusing narrative
The book begins with a group of siblings and their father searching for their mother who is lost during a visit to Seoul. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Philip
3.0 out of 5 stars Please look after Mother
I found this an unusual book but it did seem to be very repetitive. I was not too keen to pick it up after a while just wanted to finish it.
Published 3 months ago by Sylvia Elliott
4.0 out of 5 stars A moving read
I thought this book was delicately written and inexplicably touching. I found some sections so moving that I stopped reading them if I was on the tube because I was afraid I might... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Maria Corominas
1.0 out of 5 stars not recommended
A sad and depressing book. It's written in a confusing style (or maybe that's the fault of the translation), with different narrators, using "you" instead of the first... Read more
Published 5 months ago by myra smart
4.0 out of 5 stars A poignant book
Enjoyed this book which had been recommended to me. At first I was irritated by the use of "you" but once I'd got used to that, it was ok. Read more
Published 6 months ago by C. Ledingham
5.0 out of 5 stars Worthy of six stars
A masterpiece. Honestly I could sum up this review by using just these two words. If there was a book that made me feel lucky to be alive in order to read it, in 2011 was Sebastian... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Lakis Fourouklas
5.0 out of 5 stars Please Look After Mother
There was a lot of hype about this book due to the fact that it won the Man Asian Literary Prize. Not only was Shin Kyung-Sook the first South Korean to win this prize, but she was... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Laura Besley
5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking
A delicate and beautiful book = became totally engrossed in the family lives and
cried almost all the way through it - and I am not sentimental! Read more
Published 9 months ago by Ms. W. L. Plim
5.0 out of 5 stars Love it
A thought- provoking, moving book, set in Korea about an elderly lady who goes missing one day in a busy train station in Seoul. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Butterfly
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