Concerning My Daughter

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Kim skillfully depicts the vulnerability and fear underlying her protagonist’s anxiety and anger, laying bare the ways in which family dynamics are fluid and full of paradoxes …. Kim’s compassionate portrayal of the narrator’s contradictions and ever-changing feelings makes her project captivating and moving. Readers will be grateful to discover this new author.” In this novella, Kim Hye-Jin gives us the perspective of a homophobic Korean mother who discriminates against her thirtysomething lesbian daughter, accusing her kid's girlfriend, portrayed as a loyal and loving partner, of ruining her life. But the narrative viewpoint gives room to complications: The mother is also a hard-working widow who is terrified by what she witnesses in her job as a caretaker for the elderly, she fears that without a traditional life, a husband and children, her own beloved daughter will end up alone and unhappy - and that's what makes the text special: While it's easy to hate the bigoted views of our narrator, it's hard to hate her, because she is driven by fear and, ultimately, love for her only child. There are a lot of themes in here that made me sit and contemplate several times. It goes a lot over ageing and motherhood, sexuality, shame as well as cultural and societal expectations. These are also coupled with generational differences and exploring familial and working relationships and caring for vulnerable people. This book itself felt quite vulnerable and honest. It made me think about things I’ve never considered before, as well as offering different perspectives on issues. While the narrator was at times frustrating and disagreeable, being in her head and seeing her reasoning for her beliefs and feelings and actions was very interesting. Ya da belki. Korkağın tekiyim. Hiçbir şey duymak istemeyen, risk almaktan kaçan, başkasının meselesine burnunu sokmayan biriyim. Etliye sütlüye karışmayan, kıyafetleri kirlenmesin diye hep kenarda duran biriyim. Duyulmak istenenleri söyleyen, görülmek istenen ifadeyi takınan, çaktırmadan geri adım atan kişiyim. Yine de iyi biri olmak mı istiyorum? Peki ya konu kızım olduğunda?’

Concerning My Daughter — Restless Books Concerning My Daughter — Restless Books

But when Green turns up with her long-term girlfriend in tow, her mother is enraged and unwilling to welcome their relationship into her home. Having centered her life on her husband and child, her daughter’s definition of family is not one she can accept. Green’s involvement in a campus protest against unfair dismissals of gay colleagues throws her into deeper shambles. As Green continues her protests, the mother makes a mad plan to rescue Jen from the distant dementia center, to which she has been discarded. Lane becomes a crucial part of the plan, stepping in for Green at the last minute. Once Jen is rescued to the mother’s house, Lane and the mother care for Jen until Jen’s death. The novel then comes full circle as the mother, Green, and Lane carry out Jen’s funeral. Green takes on the role of chief mourner, usually carried out by a male member of a family. The coming together of the three women to see Jen through her life’s final rites symbolizes their metamorphosis into family. With bracing honesty, Kim Hye-jin taps into the complexities of mother-daughter dynamics while unearthing the mechanisms of violence that target LGBTQ communities in traditional societies. Elegantly translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang, Concerning My Daughter shines a light on all facets of familial love and conflict. Concerning My Daughter is a work that is unafraid of the human body in all its contradictions, at once philosophical and practical in its treatment of the aging body, the gendered body, the body’s capacity for acts of caretaking, protest, and love. Urgent, timely, tender.” Bu monolog uzun zamandır düşündüklerimin bir özeti gibi. İçimdekiler ile dışa yansıttıklarımın birbirinden ne kadar farklı olduğuna dair..La narradora y protagonista de “Sobre mi hija” es una mujer viuda que ya ha pasado la barrera de los sesenta y que se gana la vida trabajando en una residencia de ancianos. Allí cuida de Jen, una mujer famosa por luchar por los derechos de los demás en el pasado, y que ahora que la enfermedad la ha atrapado y sufre demencia, se halla sola, únicamente cuidada por esta otra mujer. Por otro lado, la narradora nos habla de su hija, de la falta de entendimiento entre ambas y de la “amiga especial” que desearía que nunca hubiera conocido, cuya existencia trata de ignorar lo máximo posible. Sin embargo, por cosas de la vida, acabarán viviendo las tres bajo el mismo techo, y el conflicto no tardará en aparecer. The compisition of the story is simple, but stringent and effective, and while knowing a thing or two about Korean society will certainly help, it would probably be to easy to dismiss what is portrayed here as a Korean problem (this is one of the connections to Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982): The marginalization of LGBTQ+ people and the elderly is real in many societies all over the world. The narrator of this novel is a widowed woman in her late sixties who works as a carer in an old people's home, where she looks after a woman suffering with dementia. It's a hard job, both physically and emotionally. The narrator wonders how long she'll be able to do this exhausting work and fears ending up like most residents, who have no one to visit them and are just waiting to die. But meanwhile the mother gets involved in a dispute of her own. She is an agency worker as a carer as a facility for elderly patients, becoming particularly close to one, a woman in her 90s with a distinguished past, but now suffering from dementia and with no family. She ends up losing her job when she protests over the woman’s treatment, which triggers anxiety about her own fate, given her advancing years:

Concerning My Daughter – Kim Hye-jin | Full Stop Concerning My Daughter – Kim Hye-jin | Full Stop

As the mother’s understanding of her daughter grows, she finds she is unable to resist Lane’s unwavering patience and caring attention. The mother’s aches and pains are debilitating and her appetite is gone. Lane, who has also been wounded amidst the chaos of the protests, brings herbal tea and muscle relaxant patches for the mother and herself. They tend to each other’s wounds, creating a moment of communion that recalls the Last Supper. This is a transcendent moment of mutual care. Lane becomes the mother’s business, marking a clear turning point in the novel. Why can’t you just accept me for who I am? I’m not asking you to agree with me on every little thing. Weren’t you the one who told me that there were all kinds of people in the world? Who live different lives? You said different wasn’t bad! You’re the one who taught me all that. How come these things never apply to me? Having centred her life on her husband and child, her daughter’s definition of family is not one she can accept.Hayatım boyunca bunun için çabaladım. İyi evlat. İyi kardeş. İyi eş. İyi anne. İyi komşu. Ve bir dönem de iyi öğretmen.

Concerning My Daughter | Kim Hye-jin | 9781529057676 | NetGalley Concerning My Daughter | Kim Hye-jin | 9781529057676 | NetGalley

When the daughter and her girlfriend move in with her due to monetary issues, conflicts arise, but while the mother first despises her daughter's activism for colleagues who got fired because of their homosexuality, she slowly sees that the humanist concerns that torture her in her job are not that different from what plagues her daughter: They both long for dignity. But when Green turns up with her girlfriend Lane in tow, her mother is unprepared and unwilling to welcome Lane into her home. In fact, she can barely bring herself to be civil. Having centred her life on her husband and child, her daughter’s definition of family is not one she can accept. Her daughter’s involvement in a case of unfair dismissal involving gay colleagues from the university where she works is similarly strange to her. But when Green turns up with her long-term girlfriend in tow, her mother is enraged and unwilling to welcome their relationship into her home. Having centered her life on her husband and child, her daughter's definition of family is not one she can accept. Green's involvement in a campus protest against unfair dismissals of gay colleagues throws her into deeper shambles.The story is told from the perspective of a middle-aged woman, a widowed careworker and mother to Green, who is now in her thirties. When Green asks her to rent out a room to her, she reluctantly obliges and is horrified to discover that Green will be joined by her long-term girlfriend, Lane. The mother wants her daughter to be happy, but her vision of contentment does not align with Green’s. The narrator longs for Green to lead a ‘normal’, expected, life: husband, children, a house. But here she is in her thirties and living with her. Worst, she is 'unapologetically' and 'unabashedly' gay, and has no intention of hiding her relationship from the prying eyes of others. In fact, Green is fighting for lgbtq+ rights, protesting the discrimination and unfair dismissal faced by members of her community at the university where she was employed at. Meanwhile, the nursing home where she works insists that she lower her standard of care for Jen, an elderly dementia patient who traveled the world as a successful diplomat, chose not to have children, and has no family. Outraged, Green’s mother begins to reconsider the unfair consequences of choosing one’s own path. And yet when the care home where she works insists that she lower her standard of care for an elderly dementia patient who has no family, who travelled the world as a successful diplomat, who chose not to have children, Green’s mother cannot accept it. But when Green turns up with her girlfriend, Lane, in tow, her mother is unprepared and unwilling to welcome Lane into her home. In fact, she can barely bring herself to be civil. Having centred her life on her husband and child, her daughter’s definition of family is not one she can accept. Her daughter’s involvement in a case of unfair dismissal involving gay colleagues from the university where she works is similarly strange to her. The narrative swings between the mother’s uneasy relationship with Green and her girlfriend, to her taxing workplace. There she witnesses how uncaring and downright neglectful the staff is towards one of her elderly dementia patients. The patient has no family to speak of and therefore no one but our narrator looks out for her. The mother fights against the idea that this patient should be treated this way because she did not conform to society (the patient was a diplomat of some renown who travelled the world). I found the parallelism between this patient and Green banal …

Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin - Daunt Books Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin - Daunt Books

In Concerning My Daughter, translated from Korean by Jamie Chang, Kim Hye-jin lays bare our most universal fears on ageing, death and isolation to offer, finally, a paean to love in all its forms. Jamie Chang is a literary translator. She has translated Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo. She lives in Korea with her wife and dog. Sobre mi hija” es un libro breve en tamaño pero enorme en profundidad, uno de esos en los que se puede subrayar cada frase, cada palabra, que logra hablar sobre muchísimos temas, todos ellos entrelazados, y lo hace con tanto acierto que consigue agitar irremediablemente al lector. Entre los temas que toca, podemos destacar la homofobia, la precariedad laboral, el edadismo, la falta de empatía o las relaciones familiares y la dificultad para comunicarse y entenderse entre los miembros de una familia. Prize-winning Korean author Kim Hye-Jin’s debut confronts familial love, duty, mortality, and generational schism through the incendiary gaze of a tradition-bound mother faced with her daughter’s queer relationship. I can't help but be moved by a story about women meeting, fighting, helping each other, looking after one another, and raising their voices against the prejudice and criticism they are subject to.”The slim novel covers a breadth of contemporary concerns: family relationships, elder care, and LGBTQ issues. The author was awarded the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature in 2018, and translator Jamie Chang is known for her translation of Cho Nam-joo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. It has been a particularly exciting time for translations from South Korea, with releases such as The Picture Bride and The Old Woman with the Knife, and Cursed Bunny and Love in the Big City being shortlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize. Imogen West Knights, The New York Times I can't help but be moved by a story about women meeting, fighting, helping each other, looking after one another, and raising their voices against the prejudice and criticism they are subject to. La parte más emotiva de la historia la vivimos con la relación entre la protagonista y Jen, la anciana de la residencia. Son constantes las reflexiones sobre como la sociedad aparta a las personas mayores, considerándolos inservibles, sobre como los hijos olvidan en ocasiones a sus padres, siendo estos, muchas veces, dejados en malas condiciones y sin nadie que los defienda. Esto no es algo que pase solo en Corea del Sur, creo que en mayor o en menor medida en todas partes se dan circunstancias similares, por lo cual es muy fácil empatizar con la unión de estas dos mujeres. Hay muchísimos momentos tristes que te llenan de impotencia y que han hecho que derrame algunas lagrimillas en más de una ocasión. Kim excavates the complexities of a mother and daughter's relationship in her excellent debut...Kim's compassionate portrayal of the narrator's contradictions and ever-changing feelings makes her project captivating and moving. Readers will be grateful to discover this new author." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) She's not a static character though; the movement here is her relationship with Jen, a woman she cares for who has dementia and no family, having spent her younger days traveling, being a diplomat, doing charity, and accomplishing a lot career wise. When Jen's well being is jeopardized, the narrator is forced to consider the parallels between Jen and her daughter.