The Old Garden by Hwang Sok-Yong
After the Korean War, which ended in 1953, dissent in the newly formed South Korea was classified as communism, a taboo political and social belief. Hyun Woo fell afoul of the law for actively promoting democracy; the internationally supported authoritarian government considered this a crime. His jail sentence was eighteen years in solitary confinement.
Hyun Woo is the protagonist in The Old Garden, a novel by esteemed Korean author Hwang Sok-Yong. The author’s own incarceration informs the experiences of his characters.
When the novel starts, Hyun Woo has just been released – into a world that makes nonsense of his youth. Cars are everywhere. Shops line major roads. People are rushing through busy lives. Upon being given the letters and diary of his once fiancée, Yoon Hee, he retreats into her story of motherhood, painting, teaching, and marginal activism. At a time when he is flooded with sadness because she did not survive his absence, he learns that they had a daughter. She never told him, to keep him from the added pain of not being able to support them.
Yoon Hee was anything but a model mother. As a baby, Eun Gyul was left with her grandmother, because her mother needed to work. Even so, the long periods between visits meant that the child didn’t know her mother well; and her father had been given a false identity. When school enrollment required a parent’s authorization, Yoon Hee’s sister adopted the girl. Hyun Woo only meets them at the end of his story.
The tragic themes of The Old Garden are lightened with delightfully poetic descriptions of places and people. The anecdotes about how the many solitary prisoners made pets of pigeons, mice, and insects are tributes to the human spirit. As is usual with prisoners, the imaginary recipes and later actual recipes are detailed enough for the reader to create delicious Korean meals. The romantic invocation of Kalmae, where he lived with Yoon Hee, saved his sanity through the years of loneliness and through the time needed to re-enter the new world.
For Canadian readers, The Old Garden tells a history unknown to us, in a style that is lyrical and easy to follow. The characters are motivated by universal values, even though they inhabit a barely familiar culture.
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