Finding the pulse of modern Korean history in the perilous history of one family

The pulse of modern Korean history pumps through this novel of the Mun family and a mother who becomes a mudang, a shaman possessed by a spirit. The lives and stories of the narrator Sahyeon, his mother Dangollae, and his wife Suryeon interweave tightly to traverse the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Sahyeon’s family history is as perilous as that of any Korean family. His paternal grandfather participates in the Donghak Rebellion, and then in the peasant movement against the Japanese Empire during the colonial period, but meets his end after the liberation, when he is accused of being a leftist. On his mother’s side, his grandfather also participates in the Donghak Rebellion as a peasant soldier, but he and his family are financially ruined when he acts as surety for a friend’s debt, and he dies a lonely death.

Yet the family’s misfortunes provide the seeds of transcendence. Daggollae takes Sahyeon into the mountains to raise him, where she is possessed by a mountain spirit and trained as a shaman. Experiencing these trials alongside his mother, Sahyeon is better able to weather the storms of life. The seeds lain by the painful, desperate lives of Sahyeon’s father and two grandfathers do not simply dissipate into the vast universe, but grow into a sturdy tree for their descendants. This is the unceasing pulse of history. This novel acts as a dedication to the masses of people living out perilous family histories.