The Read

The author says her main theme is compassion.

 That if there is any good source it must be from a mother's heart.

The author sustains my reading well. I found it hard to put it down the moment I started reading though my growing old eyes can blur at times. The story line is basically on the strings of the heart; how a mother's children respond and remember her under different circumstances and light. It catches my attention tightly as I reflect upon my own feelings towards my mother and wonder how my children read me too.

The plot started with the mother missing from a train station in Seoul and how it got family members uptight, upset and guilty. It is when a person is lost that it forces one to remember her/him at the best perspectives and giving reason for regret. So here, the family characters start to play their roles and not a line went by without show of concern and regret.

I also secretly hold the notion that perhaps my siblings should recall and record our personal exchanges and moments with our own mum and maybe learn to appreciate her more in her golden years while we still can. To live in regret is sad as I read too true that one may choose to ignore the good values of others and not notice changes that may be detrimental to good living in loved ones around you. Do we choose to avoid facing reality or quickly live for real moments and live well ?

I can associate myself with many of the principles of Asian living expounded in the thoughts of the characters; the son, daughter, father and mother. As a learning exercise, it is perhaps provoking enough for me to ponder over them and better myself as a person. It is not easy but there is a need to try. After reading it, I am overwhelmed with much guilt too.

Not that there are any excerpts less worth mentioning, but I happened to scroll through the final chapter again and picked some thoughts which I can associate with my own beliefs...here are they :

• ...watching your mother put you to her breast even though she didn't have any milk, I glared at you, just a newborn. I even sent your other grandmother away and grabbed you from your mother's arms and smacked your bottom. People say when a baby is crying, the paternal grandmother will say, "The baby is crying,you should feed her", and the maternal grandmother will say, "Why is that baby crying so much, making her mother so tired...
• ... you were always a neat and clean child, unlike your sister. You were the child who would wash your white trainers if there was even a pea-sized mark on them. I wondered why you'd study so much, if you were going to live like this ...(looking after 3 babies at home)
• ...when you were accepted into a top university in Seoul,and into the pharmacy school and after that, your high school hung up a congratulatory placard in your honour. Whenever someone said to me, "Your daughter is so smart ! I'm sure my smile stretched up to my ears...
• ...a house is a strange thing... even a good house falls apart quickly when nobody looks into it...
• ...a house takes on the characteristics of its occupants, and depending on who lives in it, can become a very good house or a very strange house...I do think that a house starts resembling the people who live there...

It takes a while to digest all thoughts and feelings but I like deciphering over them. They are good values to live with and by. There are hundreds of such thought provoking lines to ponder over in the novel.

I enjoyed the book tremendously.

If you can, get a copy for your library.