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"The Bird" By Oh Jung-Hee, Translated by Jenny Wang Medina, Telegram Press, Paperback, 167 pages, $14.95
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You barely finish the first sentence of The Bird before there’s violence: a slap to the head of young U-mi, leveled by her grandmother. Why the strike? Because she was writing on the face of her sleeping brother, U-il, an act that could confuse the young boy’s soul when it returns to his awakening body, causing it to become eternally lost. Though just about everyone’s soul seems to have gone missing in this harrowing Korean novella.
Among the missing souls is the children’s mother, who suffered a mysterious death. Unable to raise the children, their father deposits them with reluctant relatives, only to scoop up daughter and son months later, with a mistress in tow. But their new “mother” wants money, not a family, and she pays a price for such leanings: the father beats her. Soon, the blond mistress flees, sending the father into an alcoholic spiral, leaving the kids to raise themselves: a recipe for disaster.
Neighbors try to help out and, for a while, a neighbor’s caged bird fascinates the siblings. But U-mi has no idea how to be a parent. So she takes a page from her father’s book: she abuses U-il, with words and fists.
The result is a tense exploration of the generational dangers of domestic violence. And a call for fiction lovers to seek out more of Oh Jung-Hee’s unsettling work. |
