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Cho Nam-joo (author), Jamie Chang (translator), Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Liveright, 2021. 176 pgs.
Everyone who has read Cho Nam-jooโs debut novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 seems to agree that it is a feminist novel. And indeed it is. Where there is disagreement concerns its literary merit. I side with those who believe in the story and its artistic significance.
Published in South Korea in 2016, the novel, like its title, takes the form of a psychiatric case history. This may explain the misgivings of those who arenโt exactly happy with its stylistic merit. However, it seems to have served its purpose, as it has sold over a million copies and has been adapted as a film. It has since been translated into at least 18 languages and has been an international success.
One of the introductions to the book goes like this:
Kim Jiyeong is 33 years old and has a normal life, a loving husband and an adorable little daughter. She lives in a modern apartment in a new residential neighborhood in Seoul. She was born in an era when girls were given the right to go to school, to college, to have a career. She should be happy. And yet, one day, the young woman starts acting strange. At first, her husband thinks sheโs joking, imitating her mother or her old college friends. But soon Jiyeong ends up in a psychiatristโs office, and the clinical coldness of the specialistโs notes reveals a drama that is not just personal. Like so many girls, Kim Jiyeong should never have been born. As a girl, she disappointed her parents the moment she was born. Because she was a girl, she was treated differently than her peers at school and college, just as she was treated differently after graduation when she got a job. Later she took on the role of mother and dedicated herself to her child, sacrificing her career. So is Kim Jiyeongโs โmadnessโ an exaggerated expression of what all other women feel?
The bookโs author is also a television scriptwriter and has said in an interview that she wrote the book in two months, because her own life basically gave her all the background she needed. The main characterโs story is the story of countless women in South Korea. The book struck a chord in her home country, but not only there.
As you can see from the short introduction above, the book tells the story of a young housewife undergoing a nervous breakdown and extreme depression, and Cho Nam-joo relates in a minimalist style. The theme is everyday misogyny, still prevalent in South Korean society, which has psychological and even physical implications for women. Because for a long time the position of women in South Korea has been an inferior one, with all that that implies. Starting from birth and going throughout their life in all aspects.
The story is written in impassive, almost clinical, language, which makes it all the more moving. As with many other Korean novels, the style is different from Western literature, and the point is not to give in to the urge to give up, because you have to get to the end to get the full perspective of the message.
I saw a review somewhere where someone said she was a bit disappointed in the character, because she doesnโt really fight. Iโll admit that it intrigued me too, but I canโt speak to disappointment. Because you have to look at things from the cultural perspective of the country the story comes from. And thatโs precisely what the book is trying to say, that in modern-day South Korea there is still no real escape from a patriarchal system that has dominated society for so long and so relentlessly. Besides, you canโt turn a South Korean character into an American one. Quite simply, the cultural and mentality differences are vast, and you have to make an effort to understand them.
The story in the novel begins in 2015, its heroine a 32-year-old housewife, married with one daughter. She prepares for a family visit to in-laws family on the occasion of Chuseok, the Korean mid-autumn harvest festival. That visit becomes the moment when Jiyoung breaks down and has her first seizure. She mockingly imitates her mother, impersonating her in a most unexpected, shocking way, and also insulting her in-laws. Her stunned husband takes her home, struggling to understand what is going on.
After this first episode of revoltโbecause it is a rebellion of sorts on Jiyoungโs part, albeit an unconventional oneโwe are brought back in time to see how she got to this point. Childhood, school, her brief professional career and then her family life. During this time-travel we see taking shape the limited life of a woman always on the margins of society, because it is a world in which women must accept a certain status and the roles pertaining to it.
At the risk of repeating myself, stylistically, the story seems bland. But it must be said that it is a style the author readily assumes. She does this precisely to convey the idea that discrimination against women in Korean society is banal, in the sense it is so well embedded in the mechanisms of society and family life that you end up not seeing it. We are not talking about physical aggression or violence, but about unseen everyday abuse. An unseen but very effective abuser. Nor are the men in the book presented as aggressors of any kind. Because, in essence, they are not. They just live according to the privileges that society affords them. This time, the theme is not the toxic misogyny present in other writings, but rather gender discrimination.
The name chosen by the author for the main character, Kim Jiyoung, could be the Korean equivalent of Jane Doe. That is why it has been said that many Korean womenโand not only themโcan identify with her. Itโs not just her story, itโs the story of millions of women around the world. Because of the numerous footnotes, in which the author explains various things necessary for a complete picture of the story that she doesnโt want to include in the narrative, the book reads like an essay in places. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a story worth reading and perhaps even re-reading, for a slightly more assumed perspective, so to speak. I myself felt that need.
How to cite:ย Tataran, Dorina. โThe Limited Life of a Woman: Cho Nam-jooโs Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.โย Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 8 Jul. 2024,ย chajournal.blog/2024/07/08/born-1982.
Dorina Tataran is from Bucharest, Romania. After being a journalist for several years, she has returned to her first love: books. She has been translating books from English into Romanian for over ten years now and from Asian literature she translated Weina Dal Randelโs The Empress of Bright Moon. She is also one of the editors of the online cultural magazine Semnebune.ro. She has published a few short stories in a local magazine and some excerpts from a novel-in-progress in a few others. She is passionate about Asian culture in general, and she is currently learning Korean and discovering more about South Korean culture, especially its literature and films. Dorina loves jazz, coffee and she thinks there is nothing more exciting than being a spectator of this ever-changing world, especially through its stories. [All contributions by Dorina Tataran.]