Beasts of a Little Land

Juhea Kim

OneWorld

Otago Daily Times, February 22nd 2022

Described as a Tolstoy-esque epic of love, war, and redemption, Korean-born author and advocate Juhea Kim’s entrancing debut novel explores the tumultuous history of her homeland from the earliest phase of Japanese rule to after partition, painting a vivid, three-dimensional portrait of the Korean struggle for independence through the lives of ordinary people. 

The prologue is set in the winter of 1917, when a hunting party of Japanese soldiers lost in the mountains of PyongAhn comes across a man lying in the snow, nearly dead from starvation and exposure. Identified by their local guide as Nam KyungSoo, a tenant farmer and former soldier in the Korean Imperial Army, he is revived and ordered to lead the group out of the forest. Not only does he do so, he saves the group from an attacking tiger along the way, an act of bravery for which the officers spare his life.

The connections – inyeon – formed during this brief encounter play out over decades and across generations, shaping the fate of a diverse cast of characters whose lives intersect, directly or indirectly, over the course of the novel.

At the centre of the story are KyungSoo’s son, JungHo, and the woman he loves, Jade Ahn. The pair first encounter one another in 1918, shortly after moving from their provincial villages to Seoul in an attempt to escape the famine gripping the countryside. Jade, who is apprenticed to a high-class courtesan, is kept in well-appointed and highly restrictive conditions, while JungHo, the leader of a gang of street urchins, knows the city inside-out. He introduces her to Seoul’s many hidden delights while she does what she can to make his hard-scrabble life more bearable, and despite the disparities in their station, they maintain their friendship over the years. For a time, each finds a measure of success. Jade makes a name for herself as a dancer and actress, while JungHo is taken under the wing of a wealthy Communist intellectual and commits himself wholeheartedly to the fight for Korean independence. But while Jade loves JungHo as a brother, she has lost her heart to another, and they eventually part on acrimonious terms, with forgiveness coming too late for the damage to be undone.

Woven through this narrative spine are stories from perfumed courtesans, high-ranging Japanese military officials, Korean labourers and landed gentry. Their connections with and through each other bind the novel together and add nuance to the complex social, cultural and political landscape against which the action takes place. The physical setting is just as subtly evoked, from the shifts in fashion as Western influences increase to the changing of the seasons and the sky (a central, stabilising force throughout the novel).

Beasts of a Little Land is not a fairy tale or a romance in the traditional sense, and its characters reflect a shared (and flawed) humanity. People act out of selfishness and self-interest as often as from loyalty or conviction, goodness and virtue are as likely to be punished as rewarded and love is more often a source of grief than joy – indeed, women are, for the most part, valued only in so far as they serve a useful purpose to the men in their lives. Despite this, the novel’s tone is of hope rather than despair. Many characters meet their death with remarkable equanimity, and even Jade, who loses everyone she has ever cared for, eventually finds peace. “Life is only bearable because time makes you forget…life is worthwhile because love makes you remember.”