Please Look After Mom

Author: Kyung Sook Shin
Translator:Tanti Lesmana
Publisher:PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Publication Date:September 2011

Pages: 296

Hanya ada dua kemungkinan: seorang ibu menjadi sangat dekat dengan anak perempuannya, atau mereka menjadi asing terhadap satu sama lain.

A deeply moving story of a family search for their mother who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul subway station. This missing moments change life of all family members. They feel sad, sorry and 'empty' inside. They finally realize that all this time they are too busy with themselves and never show enough care for their mom.

The story is told uniquely through four richly imagined voices, the mother's daughter, her eldest son's, her husband and finally her own. The author structured the voices of all of them in the second person 'you' and the third person 'her'. It's only the mother who uses the first person. According to the author "when a woman becomes a mother, she no longer gets to speak or sometimes even think in terms of 'I'. Of the four different voices in the book, the mother's perhaps the most vivid and powerful."

Beside telling about love, relationship and the despair among the family members, the book also tells about many elements of Korea culture beautifully , the Fool Moon Harvest, the food, the clothing, etc. This book reminds me of Trilogy Warna, an excellent graphic novel written by Korean author, Kim Dong Hwa.

A good book will change us. It will make us thinking about it for a long time. Reading this tale is like opening a door, once you cross it, you will never be able to go back to your comfortable place you came from. Read the story slowly, it needs to be uncovered layer by layer, just as it was written. One think for sure, after finishing the book, you will never think of your mother the same way again. A well written book. Highly recommended.