Stephanie Jane reviewed Meeting with My Brother by Heinz Insu Fenkl
Nuances passed me by
3 stars
I wasn't sure what to expect from this novella and came away from it feeling a little disappointed and that I had missed out somewhere along the line. The book begins with an interesting essay about Yi Mun-Yol's life and unusual literary career and I appreciated this additional background into the work, its author, and the challenges faced by the translators. Once onto the novella however, I found it difficult to really appreciate the story. The whole book is only about 120 pages so there is limited space to really get to know Yi so while I could envisage supporting characters, such as Mr Reunification and the man who arranged Yi's meeting, Yi himself never stepped off the page for me. I did however learn about about Korean history and how the country came to be a separated nation. I liked the two brothers' conversation when each defends their ideological …
I wasn't sure what to expect from this novella and came away from it feeling a little disappointed and that I had missed out somewhere along the line. The book begins with an interesting essay about Yi Mun-Yol's life and unusual literary career and I appreciated this additional background into the work, its author, and the challenges faced by the translators. Once onto the novella however, I found it difficult to really appreciate the story. The whole book is only about 120 pages so there is limited space to really get to know Yi so while I could envisage supporting characters, such as Mr Reunification and the man who arranged Yi's meeting, Yi himself never stepped off the page for me. I did however learn about about Korean history and how the country came to be a separated nation. I liked the two brothers' conversation when each defends their ideological standpoints, but I often felt I needed a much greater grounding in Korean culture in order to fully appreciate the many nuances that I could see passing me by.