Please Look After Mom

I was slightly dreading reading Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, having no desire to plow through yet another book for a class amidst  my one hundred and one other obligations. I knew nothing about Korean culture nor did I desire to know anything. Although I assumed it was a pleasant book, Please Look After Mom did not seem worth my time and energy. I, however, was wrong. Please Look After Mom is a beautifully crafted story, intertwining characters, time, and lives.  

The layered, differentiating form of Kyung-Sook’s tale is the first thing that captivated my interest. Please Look After Mom is divided into four sections, each told from an individual character’s perspective. The elder daughter’s and the husband’s sections are told in the second person, while the eldest son’s is told in third person and the final section is told in first person by the mother.  This is the first novel I have ever read which drastically intertwines varying point of views from several characters to add to an overall image. Each section wove the present: where Mom is lost somewhere in the Seoul subway station, the recent past: where Mom is older and having chronic headaches, and the past: where Park So-Nyo is raising and sustaining her family, creating a layered effect. Each of the family members as they flashback with regret or fondness add another piece to the puzzle of who “Mom” is as they questioned whether they ever really knew Mom. In the words of her eldest daughter “Mom was Mom” (27) a firm tree, unchanging. Only when their mother is lost does she truly become found in the minds and lives of her family.  I now reflect on my mother; do I know who she is? Her hopes, dreams, pains, and battles? So now, let us truly find the ones we love before they are lost.