The Naked Tree

A coming-of-age novel set during the Korean War, by Pak Wan-Suh, one of Korea's
leading contemporary writers. The award-winning author of more than twenty novels, and
numerous short stories and essays, Park often deals with the themes of Korean War
tragedies, middle-class values, and women's issues. The novel is rich with scenes of
cultural clashes, racial prejudice, and the kinds of misunderstandings that many American
soldiers and Koreans experienced during the war years
https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Tree-Cornell-East-Asia/dp/1885445830

korean
The Naked Tree (2 Vols.)

 By Park Wansuh
Edited by Ho Wonsook
 150☓225mm 1 권 468 면, 2 권 152 면pp 2012.9.20 35,000KRW ISBN 978-89-301-0429-6
This publication commemorates the first anniversary of the author’s death. Park was one of the most
prominent writers in Korean literary history. The Naked Treewon her a prize in a literary contest for
full-length novels hosted by Women’s Donga magazine in 1970 when she was already forty years old. It
was her debut work that started her writing career. The author herself once confessed that she had
special affection for The Naked Treeand that it was her favorite among her numerous literary works.
Narrated from the perspective of a 26-year-old woman, the novel vividly portrays an artist and his life as
he lives in an age of uncertainty against the backdrop of war-torn and desolate Seoul in the post-Korean
War era. The novel is based on an actual account of Park Sukeun, one of the most prominent painters in
Korea, whom the novelist met when she was 26 years old.|
The publisher is reissuing the earlier Youlhwadang edition of The Naked Tree–the first edition of the
novel was published in 1976–essentially in its original form. At the same time, the publisher has
experimented with editing and design in terms of paper, and printing method, and it has revived the
vertical writing style. Also, in order to facilitate a better understanding of the work, Discussing The Naked
Tree, a companion book to the novel, contains various materials related to the novel, including the
paintings of Park Sukeun, on whom the novel is based.

Media reviews and press release

“The green leaves are sprouting from the naked tree.” Chosun Ilbo, January 9, 2012
“It casts a new perspective on The Naked Tree, the first novel by Park Wansuh.” Yeonhap News,
January 25, 2012
“The Naked Tree– Park Wansuh’s favorite among her works–is being republished.” Maeil Economic
Daily, January 25, 2012

Park Wan Suh

 Park Wan Suh (1931~2011) graduated from Sookmyung Women’s High School and attended Seoul
National University to study Korean literature. However, her studies were disrupted by the Korean War
and she did not return to college. After getting married, she lived the life of an ordinary housewife until her
full-length novel The Naked Tree was selected for a prize in a literary contest hosted by Women’s Donga
magazine in 1970; thus began her writing career. Her works include the short-story collections It Is Spring
Outside the Window and Mother’s Pike, and the novels A Woman Standing, Sweet Dream, and That
Man’s House. She received the Lee Sang Literature Award, Korea Literature Award, Manhae Literature
Award, Hwang Soonwon Literature Award, and other literary accolades.

Ho Wonsook

Park Wansuh’s first daughter Ho Wonsook (1954~) is currently a member of the management committee
at Gyeongwoon Museum.

http://youlhwadang.co.kr/en/the-naked-tree-2-vols/

Bouquet : Anthology of Women’s Poetry from the Chosun Dynasty

 by You Seongho
Translated by Kim Eok
 12.3×17.5cm 228pp 2013.1.1 50,000KRW ISBN 978-89-301-0434-0 Set ISBN
978-89-301-0398-5
The third volume of the Youlhwadang Korean Modern Library New Edition Anthology
Series contains Bouquet, a collection of women’s poetry from the Chosun dynasty. It was edited by poet
Kim Eok and published in 1944 by Bakmunseogwan. This anthology features poems from 66 female
poets, beginning with Kim Samuidang, the most prolific female poet of her time. Others include
Gyesaeng (Real name: Maechang), Nanseolheon, Uncho (Real name: Kim Buyong), Jeong Ildang,
Hwang Jini, and Shin Saimdang. A unique feature of this anthology is its structure: the original poem is
preceded by a translation that is consistent with the format of julgu(Chinese quatrain), and is followed by
a modern translation in sijo (Korean poetic form). Kim Eok’s translation into sijo is a manifestation of his
Korean aestheticism. As readers experience the original poems written in classic Chinese, paired with
Kim Eok’s adaptation, they will experience the unique status and structure of this anthology.

Kim Eok
 Kim Eok was born in Jeongju, Pyeonganbuk-do (North Korea) in 1896. He graduated from Osan School
and studied English Literature at Keio University in Japan. He began publishing his own poems in 1912
and published several translated poetry collections, including Korea’s first poetry translation collection
Dance of Anguish (1921), along with The Lost Pearl, and Gardener. Kim later expanded his sphere to
classic Korean, Chinese, and Japanese poems, and published Tiger Lily, Dongsimcho, One Hundred
Patriotic Poems, and Bouquet. He also published Korea’s first modern poetry collection Ballad of Jellyfish
in 1923. He was a member of the literary coterie magazines Changjo (Creation) and Pyeheo (Ruin).

Hawon Sicho, A Collection of Poems by Jung Su-Dong

 By Jeong Su-Dong
Translated by Lee Sangwon
 150☓230mm 336pp 2012.4.1 30,000KRW ISBN 978-89-301-0419-7
Hawon Sicho, a collection of poems by Jung Su-Dong, an eccentric poet genius from the Chosun
Dynasty, has been translated for the first time. This is a compendium of his poetry and contains 103
poems filled with humor and wit.
Meanwhile, the preface to this translated edition contains the translator’s introduction to Jung Soodong’s
character, life, literary world and anecdotes. . The book contains 700 footnotes, and in the back of the
book are critical essays and pictures of the original Hawon’s Book of Poetry. This is a great resource for
research on Jung Soodong and Hawon’s Book of Poetry.
This is the first volume in the Youlhwadang Knowledge Seeker’s Compendiumseries, the goal of which is
to discover unknown scholars who passionately seek knowledge and to publish their achievements in
research.

Media Reviews
“’Poems in a state of insobriety’ by Jung Soodong, an eccentric poet of late Chosun Dynasty.” The
Hangyoreh, April 20, 2012

Jeong Su-Dong

Jeong Su-Dong (1808-1858) was a “street poet” of the Chosun Dynasty, and his real name was Jung
Jiyoon. With Kim Byungyeon, more famously known as “Kim Satgat” the wandering poet, he is
considered one of the most eccentric artists from the Chosun period. Jung Jiyoon not only was a poet,
but also worked as an official interpreter for the royal court and engaged in many episodes of eccentric
behavior. He also once served as an administrative official in the Ministry of Interpretation and
Translation, where he was responsible for interpreting and translating the Japanese language.

Lee Sang Won

 Lee Sang Won (1954- ) earned a master’s degree in management from the Graduate School at
Gyeongsang University. He also studied at the National Archive Science Institute. He is currently a
teacher at Dodong Seodang School.

Korean Zen Poems

 Compiled and translated by Kim Daljin

 A5 508pp 1985.2.10 15,000KRW ISBN 89-301-0940-3
 100 Books from Korea
English right sold
Korean Zen Poems contains Zen poems written by thirty-eight Buddhist monks in old Korea. Some of the
well-known writers include Master Won-gwang (圓光), Wonhyo (元曉), Hyecho (慧超), Uicheon (義天),
Bo-u (普愚), and Taeneung (太能). It took more than two years for Kim Daljin to compile and translate the
poems selected for this book.

Over the past hundred years Korean history has produced an array of high-standard literary works. Of
the various genres poetry is the finest example; this is seen in the creativity and originality of the Korean
people. Traditional Korean poems were the quintessence of Korean literature written in Chinese
characters.

Some of the most important contributors to Korea’s brilliant cultural heritage were Buddhist monks who
produced unique poems based on Zen Buddhism. The poetry written or recited by master monks related
to religion and contained philosophical depth. The poetry of master monks has a transcendental quality.
They usually wrote their poems only after long periods of mental and physical training. In this book Kim
Daljin conveys the philosophical essence of Buddhist teaching, which contains a deep understanding of
humanity and embodies the principle of enlightenment. Readers of this compilation of Zen poems will
understand that the religion is closely related to literature and philosophy.

Kim Daljin

Born in Changwon in Gyeongsangnam-do Province, Kim Daljin (1907-1989) graduated from Buddhism
Junior College in 1939 and once practiced Buddhism at Yujeomsa temple in Mount Geumgang now
located in North Korea. He made his literary debut by publishing his poems in the Literary Journal. He
has translated several books including Zhuang Zi and Poetry of Hansan. His books include Songs of an
Owl, a compilation of his poems.

korean
Hyangga, Songs of Silla
 By Park No-joon
 A5 변형84pp 1991.5.1 4,000KRW ISBN 89-301-0724-9
 Series : The Cultural History of Korea 4
Hyangga (鄕歌)—Silla songs written in hyangchal (鄕札)—which began to be produced in the first
century A.D., can be said to be the matrix of Korean literature which expanded the horizon of Korean
poetry. Hence it has been the subject of research among specialists in the field. But in fact, it is difficult
for the laymen to approach and understand with ease. This book is a guide to hyangga for general
readers.

First, the name and concept of hyangga, and its origin and process of development are examined. Each
of 14 hyangga contained in the ancient historiography, Samgukyusa (三國遺事, Memorabilia of the Three
Kingdoms) is translated and interpreted into modern Korean. In terms of content, the hyangga covers
various themes from the ancient people’s view of the world after death to everyday experiences. In terms
of form, its verses tend to increase to contain more contents. The background legends relating to the 14
hyangga added in the rear part facilitate the understanding of each hyangga. Unlike other classical
poetry, as the hyanggawas handed down together with the records relating to it, one can understand it
comprehensively. Through this book the reader can look into the poetic sentiments and consciousness of
the ancient Korean people, which have so far been unfamiliar.

Park No-joon

Park No-joon (1938- ) graduated from Department of Korean Language and Literature and the
postgraduate school at Korea University, and was Professor of Korean Language and Literature at
Hanyang University. He has published a number of books relating to Korean ancient poetry.

향가

 저자박노준

 판형A5 변형 장정 반양장발행일1991 년 5 월 1 일면수84 면가격4,000 원도판컬러 흑백

26 컷ISBN 89-301-0724-9

 분류한국전통문화, 교양 한국문화사


 1991 년 문화부 추천도서

이 책에서는 먼저 향가의 개념과 기원, 향가의 내용과 형식 등에 관해 설명해 준다. 그리고 역사서 삼국유사에 실린 향가
14 수를 자세하게 해설하고 있다. 여기에는 각종 고문헌 자료와 향가와 관련된 유적지 사진 등이 일반인들도 쉽게 이해할 수
있도록 돕고 있다.

 도서소개
 저자소개
 차례
 향가는 한국문학의 뿌리라고 할 수 있다. 1 세기초에 처음으로 지어지기 시작한 향가는 한국 최초의 정형시로서 오늘날엔 소수의

작품들만 전해져 오고 있다. 하지만, 그 작품들로도 향가의 다양하고 풍부한 세계를 알기에 충분하다. 향가의 내용은 내세를

지향하며 부른 노래롭터 일상생활의 체험을 담은 노래에 이르기까지 다양하다.

이 책에서는 먼저 향가의 개념과 기원, 향가의 내용과 형식 등에 관해 설명해 준다. 그리고 역사서 삼국유사에 실린 향가

14 수를 자세하게 해설하고 있다. 여기에는 각종 고문헌 자료와 향가와 관련된 유적지 사진 등이 일반인들도 쉽게 이해할 수

있도록 돕고 있다.

향가

 저자박노준

 판형A5 변형 장정 반양장발행일1991 년 5 월 1 일면수84 면가격4,000 원도판컬러 흑백

26 컷ISBN 89-301-0724-9

 분류한국전통문화, 교양 한국문화사


 1991 년 문화부 추천도서

이 책에서는 먼저 향가의 개념과 기원, 향가의 내용과 형식 등에 관해 설명해 준다. 그리고 역사서 삼국유사에 실린 향가
14 수를 자세하게 해설하고 있다. 여기에는 각종 고문헌 자료와 향가와 관련된 유적지 사진 등이 일반인들도 쉽게 이해할 수
있도록 돕고 있다.

 도서소개
 저자소개
 차례

향가는 한국문학의 뿌리라고 할 수 있다. 1 세기초에 처음으로 지어지기 시작한 향가는 한국 최초의 정형시로서 오늘날엔 소수의

작품들만 전해져 오고 있다. 하지만, 그 작품들로도 향가의 다양하고 풍부한 세계를 알기에 충분하다. 향가의 내용은 내세를

지향하며 부른 노래롭터 일상생활의 체험을 담은 노래에 이르기까지 다양하다.

이 책에서는 먼저 향가의 개념과 기원, 향가의 내용과 형식 등에 관해 설명해 준다. 그리고 역사서 삼국유사에 실린 향가

14 수를 자세하게 해설하고 있다. 여기에는 각종 고문헌 자료와 향가와 관련된 유적지 사진 등이 일반인들도 쉽게 이해할 수

있도록 돕고 있다.

Modern
Unending Dialogue: Poetry Resides in The Lowest of Lows

 Lee Seongbok
 A5 296pp 2014.9.20 14,000KRW ISBN 978-89-301-0472-2
 Unending Dialogue is a collection of 16 interviews that took place between 1983 and 2014. The collection
reveals a full picture of Lee Seongbok’s agony as a poet as well as his daily life as a person, acting as a
clear window that shows the hidden sides of Lee. Most of the interviews were held around the time Lee
released new poem collections, providing a vivid explanation on what aspects of life he pondered on at
the time, and how such aspects were projected in his poems. While Lee said during his first interview in
1983 that he would gradually “open himself up to the secular world” without setting up any guidelines in
poetry, he confesses 30 years later in the last interview that he is faced with an outrageous
“impossibility.” Now, as he became unable to escape from the “impossible love toward the impossible,”
Lee can’t let poetry go because “he knows nothing works, but he can’t stop working on it.”

Lee Seongbok

Born in Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province in 1952, Lee Seongbok earned his M.A and B.A in French
Language and Literature from Seoul National University. Lee made his literary debut with his poem In the
Familiar Red-Lighted District published in the quarterly magazine Literature and Intelligence in 1977.
Lee’s collection of poems include When Does a Rolling Stone Awaken; South Sea, Silk Mountain; When
the Summer Ended; The Memory of Horned Holly Tree; Oh, Those with No Mouth; Wave Pattern Traces
on the Moon’s Forehead; and Come, It’s Sad. Lee also published several collections of prose: Your Pain
Cannot Even Turn a Leaf Green, Why Couldn’t I Say a Word about the Pomegranate Petals Soaked in
Rain, Burning Water, and The Illusion of Love in the Works of Proust and Gide.

In Korean »
Poetry in Darkness: 1976-1985

 Lee Seongbok
 A5 328pp 2014.9.20 15000KRW ISBN 978-89-301-0470-8

Poetry in Darkness is a collection of 150 unpublished poems beginning in 1979 and continuing through
the 1980’s by Lee Seongbok, a poet who persistently kept to a single painful path of poem-writing for 40
years. The collection was born around the same period as When Does a Rolling Stone Awaken (1980)
and his second collection, South Sea, Silk Mountain (1986). Between the 1970’s and 1980’s, poetry
meant everything to the young Lee Seongbok. Thus, the poems written during this period allow readers
to trace back and pinpoint where Lee’s poems on “humiliation” and “pain” came from, and his sensuous
language and word fragments provide a glimpse of the present-day Lee Seongbok.
 Lee Seongbok

Born in Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province in 1952, Lee Seongbok earned his M.A and B.A in French
Language and Literature from Seoul National University. Lee made his literary debut with his poem In the
Familiar Red-Lighted District published in the quarterly magazine Literature and Intelligence in 1977.
Lee’s collection of poems include When Does a Rolling Stone Awaken; South Sea, Silk Mountain; When
the Summer Ended; The Memory of Horned Holly Tree; Oh, Those with No Mouth; Wave Pattern Traces
on the Moon’s Forehead; and Come, It’s Sad. Lee also published several collections of prose: Your Pain
Cannot Even Turn a Leaf Green, Why Couldn’t I Say a Word about the Pomegranate Petals Soaked in
Rain, Burning Water, and The Illusion of Love in the Works of Proust and Gide.

In Korean »
http://youlhwadang.co.kr/en/poetry-in-darkness/

Face of City: 10 Public Arts in Seoul

 Text by Shon Suho

 140x220mm 96pp 2013.12.31 15,000KRW ISBN 978-89-301-0459-3

A seasoned journalist and professor, Son Suho’s essay collection introduces Seoul’s top 10 public
artworks and buildings and contemplates the future of public art. The sites featured in this book
are: Admiral Yi Sun-Shin and King Sejong (statues in Gwanghwamun Square), Peace Monument (in
front of the Japanese Embassy), Spring (Cheonggyecheon), Hammering Man (Heungkuk Life
Building), Sacred Heartand other sculptures (Shinsegye headquarters’ rooftop garden), Vortext (D Cuve
City), Culture Station Seoul 284 (renovation of Seoul Station), Seoul Square(remodeling of Daewoo
Building at Seoul Station), Plateau (renovation of Rodin Gallery), and Boan Inn (Tongi-dong).
The author draws attention to the meaningful progress of public art and its function in an urban setting,
where individual interests are in sharp conflict.

Shon Suho

Shon Suho started his career life at the Kyunghyang Shinmun, and is now with the Kukmin Ilbo as a
cultural editorialist. He became interested in studying journalism while taking courses at the University of
 Missouri while working as a news reporter, later earning a doctorate in photography at Kyung Hee
University. Shon is on the Selection Committee to choose the ‘Best book of the Month’ for the Korea
Publication Ethics Commission. He received a prize for Korea Publication Scholarship as well as being
named Journalist of the Month. He has published On a way to books (1996), Landscape of Culture
(2010), among others.

In Korean
Let Me Show You the Stars

 Texts by Yi Chong-jun
 150×223mm 1 권 412 면, 2 권 224 면pp 2013.7.31 150,000KRW ISBN 978-89-301-0452-4
This is a new edition of Yi Chon-jun’s first short story collection, Let Me Show You the Stars. Yi’s
representative work, it demonstrates his creative spirit and lies at the foundation of his literary universe,
which spans some forty volumes. This volume features 20 short stories, including his debut work Leaving
the Hospital, and Dong-in Literary Award winner Fool and Idiot. The second volume of the new edition
features selected articles and documents chosen by literary critic Yi Yun-oak. This set includes
twenty-one articles on Yi Chong-jun’s Let Me Show You the Stars and other works, commentaries by
Sasanggye New Writer’s Award and Dong-in Literary Award, four reviews on Let Me Show You the Stars,
the author’s chronology, a commentary on his own literary works, and eight articles on Yi’s works. Twelve
photographs, the author’s handwritten notes, and thirty-eight photographs of primary documents are also
included.
Roots of Silence

 Texts and photographs by Cho Se-hui

 A5 266pp 1985.9.5 12,000KRW ISBN 89-301-0936-5
“In the 1970s I scribbled down and published a series of short stories ‘at the end of my tether’. It is none
other than The Small Ball Launched by a Dwarf. At the time I could not help feeling that it was very urgent.
Coming into the 1980s, I have again been seized with the very same idea, so I have published another
book. I, not as a writer, but as a citizen living in this land, would like to tell of the crimes we have
committed in the meantime.”

The novelist Cho Se-hui has compiled three short stories, various essays, and some 100 photographs
that he took at Sabuk (Gangwon-do), Eulsuk-do located at the estuary of the Nakdong-gang river, etc.,
during the last few years that he has been unable to write novels, into a book. This book starts from
crimes and ends with crimes. The crimes are not an individual’s private ones, but are the common ones
committed by all of us who do not bear responsibility for social and collective injustices. This book which
is dotted both with wrath against the crimes and with warnings against the situation irresponsibly
committing these crimes, produces a deep impression in our indolent hearts.

This book, which contains his writings together with photographs, is marked by the fact that both the
citizen and the novelist Cho Se-hui appear in this book without distinction. The writings and photographs
are a true testimony which Cho Se-hui poses to ‘this sad, frightened age’, an expression of a sense of
responsibility, and a silent outcry. His appealing sentences which resort to imagery omit numerous
 detailed explanations and reach their destination through images. The breath of his prose implants
images which transcend mere explanatory descriptions into the reader’s imagination. The photographs in
this collection which deal with areas of people’s lives also resemble the technique of his prosaic works in
that they do not directly expose the severity of his wrath.

Cho Se-hui

Cho Se-hui (1942- ), a graduate of the Seorabeol School of Art and Kyung Hee University, is a writer. His
first work was published in The Kyunghyang Shinmun in 1965. Some of his notable works include The
Small Ball Launched by a Dwarf and Time Travels. He also published Roots of Silence, a photo essay.

In Korean »

Why We Write: The Stories of 71 Literary Figures of Our Time

 By Kang Seok-kyeong et al.

 A5 변형320pp 2004.12.20 12,000KRW ISBN 89-301-0087-2
Many books on “literary theories” and “the history of literature” exist in the world. They have contributed a
lot to expanding knowledge on literature among the public, but they in most cases have fallen short of
cultivating the readers’ power to think and create literature.

Seventy-one writers—novelists and poets who are active in contemporary Korea’s literary
community—confess their motives for having started their careers in literature. The book examines two
main themes: how leading writers, who reflect the culture, emotions and thoughts of Korea today, have
stepped into the world of literature and what in particular has propelled them to write further. One of the
greatest attractions of this book is that it attempts to provide readers with a chance to glimpse Korean
literature through the implicit confession of those authors who are the source of great literature and who
contain the thoughts and the sentiments of the times. In other words, this book enables the readers to
explore the world of literature as directly spoken by the authors. This book also gives readers the joy of
looking into the personal history and inner thoughts of the authors. This book serves both as a collection
of literary criticism and comments that emit the invaluable charms of literature through the voices of the
authors.

Some say they started literature because they feel freedom when they write and they find it interesting to
write something. Others say that they could overcome their inferiority resulting from the comparative lack
of academic achievement, stuttering as well as autism or melancholy. Others say that they want to heal
the wound of the Korean War or to make the world better. A novelist, for example, says that he finally
found salvation in literature although he had been skeptical of the role of literature during the turbulent
periods of Korea. The experiences of literary figures will invite the readers and the writer-hopefuls to the
world of genuine literature.
Kang Seok-kyeong

Kang Seok-kyeong (1951- ) graduated in Sculpture from Ewha Womans University, and is active in
writing fiction. She has many collections of short stories and prosaic writings.

http://youlhwadang.co.kr/en/why-we-write-the-stories-of-71-literary-figures-of-our-time/

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Who Ate
Up All the
Shinga?
An Autobiographical
Novel
Park Wan-suh.
Translated by Yu
Young-nan and Stephen
Epstein
Columbia University
Press
 MAIN

 REVIEWS

 CONTEN TS

 EXCERP T

 LINKS

 AWARDS
Park Wan-suh is a
best-selling and
award-winning writer
whose work has been
widely translated and
published throughout the
world. Who Ate Up All
the Shinga? is an
extraordinary account of
her experiences growing
up during the Japanese
occupation of Korea and
the Korean War, a time of
great oppression,
deprivation, and social
and political instability.

Park Wan-suh was born

in 1931 in a small village
near Kaesong, a
protected hamlet of no
more than twenty
families. Park was raised
believing that "no matter
how many hills and
brooks you crossed, the
whole world was Korea
and everyone in it was
Korean." But then the
tendrils of the Japanese
occupation, which had
already worked their way
through much of Korean
society before her birth,
began to encroach on
Park's idyll, complicating
her day-to-day life.

With acerbic wit and

brilliant insight, Park
describes the characters
and events that came to
shape her young life,
portraying the pervasive
ways in which
collaboration,
assimilation, and
resistance intertwined
within the Korean social
fabric before the outbreak
of war. Most absorbing is
Park's portrait of her
mother, a sharp and
resourceful widow who
both resisted and
conformed to stricture,
becoming an enigmatic
role model for her
struggling daughter.
Balancing period detail
with universal themes,
Park weaves a
captivating tale that
charms, moves, and
wholly engrosses.
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Park Wan-suh broke into
Korea's literary scene in
the 1970s and in 1981
received the prestigious
Yi Sang award for her
novel Mother's Stake.
Her prolific career
includes more than 150
short stories and novellas
and close to twenty
novels, many of which
have topped best-seller
lists and have been
adapted for the screen.
Her works in translation
include My Very Last
Possession and The
Naked Tree.

Yu Young-nan is a
freelance translator living
in Seoul. She has
translated five Korean
novels into English,
including Park
Wan-suh's The Naked
Treeand Yom
Sang-seop's Three
Generations. Yu was
awarded the Daesan
Literature Prize for her
translation of Yi
In-hwa's Everlasting
Empire.

Stephen J. Epstein is the

director of the Asian
Studies Programme at the
Victoria University of
Wellington in New
Zealand. His research
focuses on contemporary
 Korean literature and
society, and he is
currently working on a
book exploring Korean
national identity in
relation to globalization.
He has also published
several translations of
Korean and Indonesian
fiction.

Park Wan-suh’s Who

Ate Up All the Shinga?
Charles Montgomery / 12 January, 2010
Park Wan-suh’s Who Ate Up All the Shinga, originally published in Korean in 1992, is
a brilliant book on at least three levels. First, it is the compelling narrative of a writer
coming into being in the most trying of times. Second, it is a highly amusing and often
bittersweet mother-daughter memoir. Finally, it is an unusually well-balanced novel –
a remarkable cultural artifact, if one chooses to approach it that way – one that
manages to utilize Korea’s extremely difficult history without making the novel itself
about Korean history. This unusual combination has the beneficial effect of making
Park’s novel enjoyable on multiple levels. Who Ate Up All the Shinga is one of the best
translations, and choice of works to be translated, in recent memory.

Pak Wan-so was a relatively late-bloomer as a published author, writing her first novel
just before she turned 40. In some ways this is not surprising, since it was only in the
late 1960s that any substantial number of women entered the literary ranks in Korea.
Since that time she has become the Grand Dame of Korean letters, in 1981 receiving
the prestigious Yi Sang award for her novel, Mother’s Stake. But as Who Ate Up All the
Shinga an “autobiographical novel” reveals, the authorial seeds were planted
young. Who Ate Up All the Shinga’s relation to fiction is not at all coincidental. Park
tips her hand on this on the book-sleeve, where she calls her work an “autobiographical
novel.” In fact, it is a compelling story of a young girl who seems, almost unknown to
herself, to be destined to write and then finally reaches that conclusion herself.
There is a certain tension in that semi-oxymoronic phrase, “autobiographical novel”,
and that tension reflects one of the books’ larger issues, identity. The larger sense of
Park’s search for identity is mirrored elsewhere in plot. As I will discuss shortly, this
issue of identity is also found in the Mother’s behavior. The Park family struggles with
issues of identity, beginning with her Grandfather who adopted, often to comic effect,
the airs of Yangban and continuing on to the families’ struggle over the assumption of
Japanese names, through the Mother’s sometimes comical identity contortions, and
even to political stances. The question is no different for Pak herself, who sometimes
describes her youth in ways that point to a kind of otherness, an inbred and evolving
narrative voice. This feeling first comes upon her when she is only four years old, she
sees her village from an angle she does not usually see it and, “it looked completely
different … I couldn’t bear it and burst into tears” (18). This is Pak’s first recognition
that she is in some way an outsider, and observer. In a latter passage, Pak describes her
first efforts to control her mise-en-scene as she observes swaying millet stalks that
bring a similar sadness, “This time, though, I tried to find ways to accentuate my
melancholy. What could I do to make that swaying sadder, drearier” (18)? These are
the baby steps of an artist. A certain sense of being an outsider, “I always lagged on the
periphery … From the fringe, it was easy to observe what was going on” (61), turns
into a habit, “Walking to school alone for six long years had a significant effect on my
character. For one thing, I learned to entertain myself” (135). These are the words of
a narrator coming into being. Park’s awareness comes in fits and starts, and it is firmly
placed in the context of the family, “Mother’s storytelling talent instilled in me a love of
narrative (107)

This process culminates in a chapter entitled, “Epiphany” in which Park finally realizes
who she is, and what she wants to be. “I felt as though I’d been chased into a dead end
but then suddenly turned around. Surely there was meaning in my being sole witness
to it all.” As Pak looks out upon a city she has made her own, she makes a final decision
that it, and all she has endured, will be the fuel for both her physical life and her life as
an author. From this epiphany “came a vision that I would write someday, and this
premonition dispelled my fear … The clustered, vacant houses were now my prey. … I
already planned to steal from those houses.” (248)

Who Ate Up All the Shinga is also a touching tale of family loyalty – the story of a
remarkable woman shepherding her family through difficult times. Park’s mother is
the most remarkable character in the book and this is both because of and despite how
she is portrayed. She is willful and humble; extravagant and penurious; affectionate
and demanding. The narrating Park is often entirely confused by her mother. Readers
will be alternately amused and aggravated by the mother’s actions, but she does what
she needs to do to survive. Park’s mother is somewhere along that continuum of Korean
fictional characters which includes Ch’ae Man-sik’s Master Yun, Chon Kwangyong’s
Kapitan Ri, and Seo Giwon’s Ma Rok characters; navigators of uncertain systems. The
mother is neatly caught between onrushing modernization – she is certain that she
wants Park to grow up to be a “modern woman’ – and traditional cultural strictures
based around gender and family ancestry roles. Some of the funniest scenes in the book
feature Park’s mother as she uses the disparity between these two forces in her ongoing
efforts to rise in society (whatever society might be nearby!). Park sums this up
beautifully in a passage describing the families’ return to the countryside:

It was important to Mother not to look like we were returning because we

couldn’t make a go of it in Seoul Her attitude was perfectly understandable
given the difficulties she’d gone through to establish herself. She must have
wanted an appropriate excuse if we couldn’t manage a glorious, silk-clad
homecoming. (145)

In the end, as Park makes her declaration of authorial intent, a reader sees that the
mother was, after all, successful despite the family enduring substantial trauma and
heartbreak.

Who Ate Up All the Shinga is an excellent translation choice because it conforms to
multiple levels of understanding of Korean history, literature, and culture. It can be
read for already noted the mother-daughter story, or the evolving writer story, but it
can also be read as an introduction, in a most elegant and subtle way, to pundhan
munhak and all sorts of political, social and economic themes. Without the overt
violence and in-your-face political themes of much of Korean modern literature
(e.g. Land of the Banished), Park’s work allows the political story to infuse the
narrative, or to serve as explanation. This allows the story, first and foremost, to shine
through and the reader can appreciate the “K
oreaness” of the story as his or her knowledge allows. Park’s indirect political strategy
means that a reader who knows about the Korean War can feel it’s inevitable approach
and understand its meaning in that context, while a newcomer to Korean history can
feel the same ominous approach, but understand it within the narrower context of the
family. Who Ate Up All the Shinga (as well as the recently translated Toy City) is a
novel that can be read completely on its own merits. Certainly it includes incidents and
broad historical realities of the era, but these really only occur when they are
coincident with the plot. History is not, as it so often is in translated modern Korean
literature, the plot itself, rather it is a backdrop against which a far more personal plot
develops. To go back to Park’s personal development in this story – it is primarily
internal, despite all the rigors of the time, and this gives the character of Park a type
of human agency that is often missing from Korean modern literature. Discussing some
of Park’s previous work, Stephen J. Epstein (the co-translator here) notes, “[Pak’s]
texts, though centered within domestic spaces, reach out to comment on larger social
issues, but in such a way as to make the most meaningful aspect of the public sphere its
impact upon private lives.” This is in some contradistinction to more conventional
modern Korean narratives (particularly when they are situated in this time), which
more often give us characters who are nearly passive, or reactive to the events of the
larger political sphere.

Park’s writing is literary and clever. Her narrator’s semi-displaced and confessional
style allows her to describe the cruelest hardships in an off-hand way that, peculiarly,
makes the hardships seem all the more real: They are not part of drama, rather they
are part of life. Park also has a way of linking long themes throughout the book with
clever anecdotes. There are extended meditations on image and honesty, sprinkled
through the book, and an aware reader will see them come to conclusion in the final
passages of the last chapter.

The translation, by Yu Young-nan and Stephen J. Epstein is fluid and vernacular. This
is the second translation I’ve read this month in which the translation was, to my mind
perfect, and that is heartening. One final point, although it may seem a trifle. Who Ate
Up the Shinga also has one of the most attractive covers I have seen on recent
translations and that suggests to me that more thought is being put into the marketing
of translations, which can only be a good thing.

Who Ate Up All the Shinga is a great read, on multiple levels, and will fit well on the
bookshelf of a dedicated fan of Korean fiction and just as well on the bookshelf of the
casual reader of general fiction.

http://www.ktlit.com/park-wan-suhs-who-ate-up-all-the-shinga/
Who Ate Up All The Shinga – a critical
essay by Alice Bennell

by ALICE BENNELL on 24 SEPTEMBER, 2010

IN 1945-1960, BOOK REVIEWS, COLONIAL PERIOD, KOREAN LITERATURE
IN TRANSLATION, MEMOIRS
Alice Bennell, UK winner of last year’s Korean Literature Translation Institute essay contest
on “There a Petal Silently Falls”, contributes her entry for this year’s competition.

Park Wan-suh

Who Ate Up All the Shinga is an autobiographical novel chronicling the early life of the author,
Park Wan-Suh. The Japanese occupation of Korea, and events leading up to the Korean War,
provide a backdrop to a story of a young girl growing up in the tiny Korean village of Pakchok
Hamlet. At age seven, she joins her mother and brother in Seoul to begin her formal
education. Later, having just graduated high school, the sudden outbreak of the Korean War
cuts short her studies at Seoul National University.

What is remarkable about Who Ate Up All the Shinga is that we witness the life events that
shaped the author as an artist, alongside a backdrop of a difficult period of Korea’s modern
history. As she grows into an adolescent, not only does her personal life become more
complex, but Korea’s political situation darkens and culminates into full-blown civil war. The
universal theme of growing up, of the turmoil of one’s developing identity during adolescence,
is amplified by Korea’s own identity crisis. In a way, Park Wan-Suh grew up with Korea.
Through the book, she shares with us the events that shaped her as an author, as she
experienced events that shaped Korea’s recent history.

From the very beginning, Park Wan-Suh seemed destined to become an author. She
developed a great love for stories from an early age, her mother being a particularly prolific
story-teller:

“Mother’s storytelling talent instilled in me a love of narrative, but she of

course was oblivious to the desires she had kindled.” (Page 107)

There’s a particularly poignant and poetic account of the author’s instinctual artistic
sympathies as a young girl near the beginning of the book:

“It’s hard for me to describe my overwhelming sadness as I returned home

alone after parting from my friends. Millet stalks swayed in the vegetable
patch. They were outlined in the soft persimmon tones of twilight against the
contours of the ridge… I tried to find ways to accentuate my melancholy.
What could I do to make that swaying sadder, drearier? I lowered myself,
tilting my head to find the correct angle, and wound up lying on the grass on
my back. And I quietly waited until the sorrow welling in my heart flowed out
in tears.” (Page 18)

Such an artistic response to the beauty of nature, as she drowns in her sorrow, sows the
seeds of an artistic temperament.

She loses herself in books, unable to tear herself away from them. As she recounts her first
experience of going to a library and having to leave behind a half-read book at closing time:

“…..in leaving the book unfinished, I had the sense that I was leaving half of
myself behind.” (Page 122)

Being the only person in her class to live outside the city gates (her mother lied about their
address to be admitted to a Seoul elementary school), the author spent six of her formative
years walking to school alone:

“Walking to school alone had a significant effect on my character….. I

savoured those moments of solitude…. I’d turn my attention to unimportant
things, letting my ideas run free, and sink into idle fancies or just observe my
surroundings.” (Page 135)

She evidently relished those times alone, which allowed her to sink into her imagination,
without the burden of having to strike up conversation. Though in retrospect, she admits it
was an unnatural way to develop emotionally.
Within the pages of the book, Park Wan-Suh paints a fond (though sometimes harsh) portrait
of her class-conscious mother. There are some comical accounts of her mother, such as her
stubborn belief that Emperor Sejong created the Korean Hangul alphabet ‘overnight’ after
being inspired by the shapes on a wooden door frame. She is obsessed with her daughter
becoming a ‘New Woman’, with a modern education and wearing Western clothes. She looked
down on her neighbours, often referring to them as ‘trash’:

“Mother was a woman of many contradictions. Although she was very polite
to our neighbours and their families – the sieve seller, the chimneysweep,
the plasterer, the tinker – the underlying message she conveyed was that
she didn’t want to have much to do with them.” (Page 55)

Though, unbeknownst to herself, the longer she spent in Seoul, the more she was becoming
like her mother:

“After half a year in the capital, I felt superior to the other children in the
village and consciously tried to convey that. I’m sure I must have seemed
terribly obnoxious to them…….. Although we were struggling to get by in a
hovel beyond the gates of Seoul, we were determined to impress those back
home. The way we strove to realize our dreams of coming home in style, with
a Western dress and ice-skates, strikes me now as something out of a
comedy movie.” (Pages 87 – 88)

***

As the author describes events leading up to full-blown civil war, much of the later part
of Who Ate Up All the Shinga is reminiscent of Ch’oe Yun’s There a Petal Silently Falls. As Park
Wan-Suh describes the ridicule she had to endure from fellow citizens as a result of her family
being suspected as leftist sympathisers:

“They gazed at me as though I were a beast. Vermin. I became their

plaything. Their worm. I crawled for them. They were like children, amusing
themselves with a disgusting insect…. I not only literally wriggled like a worm
in front of them, but had mentally submitted to the violence.” (Who Ate Up All
the Shinga, Pages 234 – 235)

This account strikes me as an almost parallel to the protagonist’s suffering in There a Petal
Silently Falls:

“They threw rocks at me, they spit at my ugly carcass, they beat me up. But
I didn’t cry. No screams, no tears. I closed my eyes, spread my arms and legs,
I accepted it all like a sun-baked rice paddy soaking up water.” (There a Petal
Silently Falls, Page 48)

Yet again we witness an adolescent girl being ridiculed by villagers, and we read helplessly as
she submits to the violence. And yet again we see that it is not only the State that is
responsible for an individual’s suffering.

Eventually, in response to the mass evacuations out of Seoul, and prospect of the People’s
Army entering the city, the remaining members of the Park family escape on a rickety old
wagon. Unable to continue much further beyond the Han river, they take temporary refuge in
Hyonjo-dong. It is ironic they take refuge here; when earlier in the book, how they longed to
escape Hyonjo-dong and move within Seoul’s city gates:
 “We were the only ones left behind in all of this large city. I alone was
watching this vast emptiness, and we alone would view the unfolding of the
unknown in the coming days….. But an abrupt change in perspective hit me…
Surely there was meaning in my being the sole witness to it all… If I were the
sole witness, I had the responsibility to record it….. From all this came a
vision that I would write someday, and this premonition dispelled my fear.”
(Page 248)

It is interesting that the author chose to end the book at a crossroads, both in terms in of her
family’s escape from Seoul, and her own artistic awakening. The book ends almost abruptly.
It’s as though she is encouraging the reader’s own imagination to fill the gap in between this
period, and her later life as a successful writer.

Park Wan-Suh’s fond childhood memories provide some welcome comic relief to the story,
adding a human element to these historical times. She describes how, one time, waking alone
in their home in Pakchok Hamlet, she sleepily enters the main room where her grandma is
giving her baby cousin a bath:

“Grandmother was kneading something in a basin. “Grandma, are you killing

a chicken?” I asked groggily. Mother shooed me out, trying to stifle a
smile…My absurd question gave the grownups something to chuckle about
for a long time to come.” (Page 86)

It is this conversational narrative style, along with the author’s stark honesty and sense of
humour, that makes Who Ate Up All the Shinga such a delight to read. Amongst the confusion
and deprivation of the time, Park Wan-Suh manages to retain a uniquely light-hearted,
sometimes funny, narrative. It still amuses me that such an extraordinary account of
Korean’s modern history begins with the sentence: “I used to go around with a runny nose.”

Photo credits:

 Image of the Shinga plant (싱아, aconogonon alpinum): Wikipedia.

 Image of Park Wan-suh: Charles Montgomery’s Korean Literature in Translation
blog.

https://londonkoreanlinks.net/2010/09/24/who-ate-up-all-the-shinga-a-critical-
essay-by-alice-bennell/

Who Ate Up All The Shinga – a critical

essay by Alice Bennell

Ko Un
Ko Un grew up in a formerly Japanese-controlled territory that was very much the center
of the Korean War. Ten Thousand Lives is his major, ongoing work, which began during
his imprisonment, when he determined to describe every person he had ever met. The
selection in this volume—from the first 10 volumes—represents one of the major classics
of twentieth-century Korean literature, published for the first time in English.
Born in 1933 in a small rural village in Korea’s North Cholla Province, Ko Un grew up in a
Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. He
became a Buddhist Monk in 1952, and began writing in the late 1950s. Ten Thousand Lives is
his major, ongoing work, which began during his imprisonment, with a determination to
describe every person he had ever met. Maninbo , as it is known in Korea, is now in its 20th
volume, and he has plans for five more volumes before its completion. The selection in this
volume—from the first 10 volumes—represents one of the major classics of twentieth-century
Korean literature, published for the first time in English. (less)

Ten Thousand Lives , by Ko

Un
12:24 am 29 May 2014

Common to all four Korean authors I have read so far is a life deeply
scored by war, oppression, hunger and persecution. These travails run
from the later Choson era in the middle of the 19th century to the
middle of the 1980's, a period which includes the collapse of a regime
and civil war; then the Chinese, the Russians and the Japanese
struggle over Korea without a by-your-leave from the Koreans; then
Japan annexes Korea as a colony in 1910 and doesn't loosen its grip
until 1945(*); the division of Korea, the Korean War, and decades of
military dictatorship follow... What can one say?

When the poet Ko Un was born in 1933, he drew his first breath in a
Japanese colony, a colony in which it was forbidden to teach the
Korean language in the schools as part of a campaign to replace the
inferior Korean culture by the infinitely superior accomplishments of
the Japanese. Too malnourished to be drafted into the army during
the Korean War, he nonetheless witnessed much of it (the war swept
over essentially the entire peninsula) and lost many family members
and friends. In 1952 he entered a Son (Zen) monastery but left
dissatisfied ten years later. After a period of inner torment and
self-destructive behavior during which he twice attempted suicide, he
found a purpose in the pro-Democracy movement in the early 70's.
This earned him prison and torture (like Kim Chi-ha

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/935972669?book_show_
action=false ).

Though he had started publishing poetry as early as 1958, while in

prison he conceived of a project which still occupies him. This
project, Maninbo(Family Records of Ten Thousand Lives), consists of
writing one poem for each person encountered in his life. This simply
stated principle need not be taken literally, but Ko has produced at
least 20 volumes in the project already! Thousands of persons have
left a sign of their lives in his poems.

The translation I read is a selection from the first ten volumes

of Maninbo. Robert Haas writes a nice introduction, and I would like
to quote a passage from his discussion of the poems in the earliest
volumes of Maninbo.
Most of them are as lean as the village dogs they describe; in hard
times people's characters seem to stand out like their bones and the
stories in the poems have therefore a bony and synoptic clarity.

And clarity is the keyword, to judge by the poems in this selection. His
poems are linguistically and structurally quite straightforward; their
art is manifested in the manifold ways he alertly captures at least one
significant aspect of each of his subjects. His diction is nearly that of
prose; his tone reserved but sympathetic. Unlike Kim Chi-ha, Ko does
not emote, though emotion is certainly close beneath the surface.

Man-Sun

Her face was a mass of freckles,

as if she'd been liberally sprinkled with sesame seed,
but her brows were fine, and her eyes so lovely
they made breezes spring up from the hills and plains.
Her shadow falling across the water
was like nothing else in this world.
Near the end of Japanese rule, after she had picked
and handed in the castor beans,
she left, wearing a headband stamped with the Japanese flag,
to become a comfort woman.
A woman from the Mijei Patriotic Wives Union took her away,
saying she was off to earn money at a factory
making airplane tails.
Took her away with the Japanese flag flying.
Then, ho-ho, a bottle of liquor
and a ration ticket for rice arrived at her family's house
from the village captain.
"Ho-ho, what have we done to deserve such favor?"
After Liberation, when everyone came back,
not a word was heard from Man-Sun...
though white campanulas blossomed
and cicadas sang.
Often, Ko exaggerates some trait of the person, using the hyperbole to
draw in the reader, and then surprises with some kind of poignancy.

The Wife from Kaesari

Although she brought up three sons

as stout as big fat toads,
the wife from Kaesari never so much as once
coughed out loud after getting married.
No matter what anyone said,
her only reply was a reluctant mmm,
and even that didn't really leave her lips,
a tiny sound, eager to quickly crawl back in again.
Among the neighborhood women
no one had ever been seen with such a tiny voice
as the wife from Kaesari.
Once her eldest son was married,
she never spoke harshly
to her daughter-in-law
but merely stitched away at a torn hemp jacket.
She took care that no one heard the sound
of her blowing out the kerosene lamps.
The wife from Kaesari
went into a decline in her last year of life.
No one knew just what was wrong with her.
When she was dying, her three sons were in her room
waiting for the end to come.
Knowing no eloquence in her lifetime,
she was incapable of any decent last words.
She was more or less heard to say
the lid of the soy-sauce jar up on the terrace
ought to be opened to the daylight
and also, it seems,
that the lining in father's jacket ought to be replaced.
Then in a flash she expired.

Clearly, Ko memorializes even what are apparently the most modest

of lives. I find such poems much more absorbing than those he wrote
about the famous, where not the person but the role he played seems
to come to the fore.

Of course, with so many poems written, not all can be equally gripping;
but it is remarkable how Ko is able to maintain freshness and variety,
at least in this selection of what the translators considered to be the
best in the first 10 volumes of Maninbo. Cumulatively, reading this
collection gives one the impression of having lived through 50 years of
Korea's stormy history. The numerous poems based on characters
from his home village transmit a many sided view of hard lives full of
duty, superstition and envy, touched only in moments by beauty and
generosity.

One last, little poem:

Hui-ja

With hands still wet from washing dishes, she goes out
to the black alder grove and cries to her heart's
content until

her dead mother's face appears. Star-seed sprinkled in the

sky, stars appear.

(*) The stories of the Korean sex slaves (sometimes called comfort
women) for the Japanese army are just a portion of the horrors of that
occupation.
http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/893646/ten-thousand-lives-by-ko-un
This selection of poems by Ko Un, Korea's leading writer, offers unique insights into how a
great poet responds to the violence, war, and oppression that have ravaged Korea in this
century. His first poems were written when Ko Un was a Buddhist monk. Later, he
returned to a society where nihilism and doubt seemed compelling choices; in the 1970s
and 80s he participated actively in many dissident movements, for which he was often
arrested. In recent years, now married and a father, he has found new poetic forms to
express his evolving vision. For this volume, poems from every period of Ko Un's
remarkable career have been selected and translated by BROTHER ANTHONY with
YOUNG-MOO KIM.

Songs for Tomorrow: Poems 1961-2001

Recognized as the greatest living Korean poet, Ko Un has produced a vast
amount of poetry over the years, including the noted collection Ten Thousand
Lives, previously published by Green Integer. This new volume selects work
from Ko Un’s entire career to date.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/404539.Songs_for_Tomorrow

Letter
Ko Un
Translation by Don Mee Choi

My bother
a wounded soldier brother
of Vietnam War
I’m drunk
Today I detest lies
hate lies

I never worked
at an office or candy factory

That was all a lie

Seven years ago, as soon as

I arrived at Seoul Train Station
I went on my road
I went on a road of a Jap’s whore

My bother
my brother
crippled brother
I got drunk
Only when I’m drunk
I have a home

Even a whore, a whore has a home

Translated by Don Mee Choi

Cucumbers
Ko Un
Translation by Don Mee Choi

Retail price of 30 cucumbers is only one

thousand won, it’s dumbfounding
Our cucumbers taken to Karak Street, Orak
Street in Seoul go for
400 won for a bundle of 50. It doen’t even
make the transport cost
Even big round melons are 500 won for 10
a flat of garlic, 100 bulbs, is less than
2000 won

This is our crop, this is our crop

Smash this dog-craziness

let’s go to Seoul
let’s go to Seoul to live or die
My daughter can become a whore or factory
girl
my wife can go as a maid
I’ll rise to the drum’s fury, climb to Mount
South
scream once and kill myself!

Let’s go to Seoul
Let’s go to Seoul

Let’s go to Seoul to wreck life

Translated by Don Mee Choi

Frog
Ko Un
Translation by Don Mee Choi

Crying all night long

crying kaegol kaegol
That potent cry
makes a rice paddy

Make a rice paddy to give to the poor

Sang-soe, good to see you again
Here, a patch of paddy for Kum-sun too

Look at the morning fields

such a colorful bride
All the frogs are asleep
from crying all night

kaegol kaegol

Translated by Don Mee Choi

ABOUT THE SHADOW OF ARMS

A novel of the black markets of the South Vietnamese city of Da

Nang during the Vietnam War, based on the author’s experiences as
a self-described South Korean mercenary on the side of the South
Vietnamese, this is a Vietnam War novel like no other, truly one that
sees the war from all sides. Scenes of battle are breathtakingly well
told. The plot is thick with intrigue and complex subplots. But
ultimately The Shadow of Arms is a novel of the human condition
rather than of the exploits and losses of one side or the other in war.