A lot of information about Korean politics and culture. The writing is a bit stilted, but that could be the translator. Otherwise a really fascinating engaging story. I'm not sure the characters were 100 percent believable, but there were so many cultural differences that I'm not sure they aren't believable either. It is worth looking up the food references in particular because the food is also culturally relevant. Like eating rice cake soup on new year's is a tradition sort of like christmas it seemed when everyone is considered one year older and it is a time for family to come together. So it isn't just food, it's culture. I find the ending incredibly satisfying. Some of the events leading up to the ending were weird but not necessarily unbelievable. But the ending was just about perfect.

I imagine being a sleeper agent is a lot like crashing a drunken party. You walk in the door, pretending to be invited. You eat a couple chips and drink a beer. You join conversations and chat with people, avoiding specific conversation topics but not really holding back. ultimately the consequence of your actions may be discovery and ejection from the party. Depending on the climate of the group, you could be offered to stay, or you could be painfully beat to the ground, you could simply be ignored going forward.

I have trouble thinking about being a spy, let alone a sleeper agent. Coming to a country, melding myself with the culture, people, and policies but knowing full well that I did not belong. building relationships, having a family, working a job that ultimately may need to be shed like a second skin and left behind.

Young-Ha Kim’s “Your Republic Is Calling You” was an incredibly fascinating read. Ki-Yong imports movies from other countries. He is moderately successful South Korean businessman and enjoys life for the most part. He met his wife in college where they were both political dissidents. They have a teenage daughter who is well liked. They have their share of family concerns, but overall, things are going well.

The novel covers the full scope of a single day from the perspective of Ki-Yong’s family. Ki-Yong heads to work with a throbbing headache, and receives a coded message via email. He is a sleeper agent for the North Korean government. He came south as a spy during his college years, but lost contact with the north after a regime change. Ki-Yong has been given 24 hours to close out any open business he has, cover his tracks and disappear. A mini-sub will take him back north in the morning.

I have to wonder how I would react in a situation like this? The love for my wife and child would be legitimate, even if my name and history would be false. If I were to stay, the North could send down an assassin to clean me. If I leave, I lose the life i built and the world i have grown accustomed to… I do not think I could make the choice..

This book was very visually and emotional ambiguous. Portions were self destructive/hopeful, calm yet disconcerting. In the end, it was an excellent view into the New South Korean culture, very different in the last 20 years from how it was when the UN was assisting during the Korean War.

Toastx2

2/5stars

This was a pretty big disappointment. I really enjoyed Young-Ha Kim's previous novel, but this one just fell flat. It dragged on for SO LONG and absolutely nothing happened. I never wanted to pick it up and had to basically force myself to finally just sit down and finish it.

I'll try another one of his novels eventually, but right now I'm a bit discouraged.

pretty good!

I saw that some folks compare him to Murakami, but I don't like Murakami and I liked this so.....

I wanted to read this for what feels like forever, because I thought, well, some sort of mystery-espionage story about S Korea has to be interesting. And this doesn't disappoint, in spite of not being much of a thriller.

In fact, the plot is the awakening of a sleeper agent from the North who has been in Seoul for twenty years and built a life, as he tries to decide what to do. We also see his wife and fifteen year old daughter and a couple other characters go about their days, and in the process, I think we do get a legitimately panoramic view of contemporary (and even twenty years worth of) Korean culture. It's a smart and insightful book and if you weren't naturally curious about what life is like on the Korean peninsula in kind of an NPR way, I don't know that you'd like this much at all.

I am that kind of reader, and I enjoyed this enough to want to read other books by this author. He writes well-- there are some stylistic touches early on of a kind of stripped down prose that evokes a less downwind Marlowe, though the book regresses to a kind of anonymous middle style, but it stays readable, and it's quick without feeling like you're being hustled.

There are lots of insights here, and nearly everyone is disarmingly casual about having lives that are haunted by some pretty terrible moments in their past. I don't know if it's an affectation or most Koreans see themselves as the living survivors of some titanic accidents, but it certainly kept my interest, even if I read through my fingers whenever anyone in this book took a stroll down memory lane.

This was translated into English from Korean. I enjoyed this book, and it's been a couple of years since I read it. There is a very interesting scene in North Korea where the main character is taken to a place that is designed to look and feel exactly like the social setting of South Korea, so that the spies can fit in. When the main character gets the notice that he imagines to be his doom, all kinds of decisions are made that affect him and his family and in the end one has to wonder if it was worth it.