What do you think?
Rate this book
마당 깊은 집
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 12, 2020
This tender novel is based on Kim’s survival after the Korean War. Other than the fictional names, this is really a memoir. Like the young teenage protagonist Gil-nam, in 1954 Won-il Kim was a twelve-year-old starving boy with four siblings and a mother. A native of Daegu (a city located in the southern part of South Korea), Gil-nam’s five-member family settled in the one-room rental house referred to as “House with deep front yard”. Not a metaphor but a physical reference of house. In Korean culture, we tend to refer location by physical reference (i.e. 2 stops pass the red roof house, the house with crooked garden) rather than the actual address. When I was growing in Korea, my house was referred to as a “house with a red door”. There was actually no need to know the address. It is common for an owner of the house to rent out rooms to several families. Typically the owner’s family lives in the biggest part of the house and rents out rooms to several families. Each family member is packed into one room and share communal space (such as kitchen, bathroom, and water pump).
The book is written from Gil-nam’s view. Through the young boy’s eyes, the reader sees his unblemished, heartbreaking innocence as he struggles to survive the cruelty of life in war-torn Korea. Gil-nam is the 2nd child and jangnam, which means the oldest boy in the household. Emphasizing the responsibility of being jangnam in a family without a father, Gil-nam’s strong-willed mother makes him drop out of school and sell newspapers to help the family. Gil-nam’s mother is a dressmaker who works day and night to meet the demands of her mostly call-girl/prostitute customers. Under the candlelight and moonlight, she labors on her second-hand sawing machine to feed the family. There is no definite explanation from her why her husband is missing and what happened to him. But the assumption is he might have gone red and joined communist North Korea. And so it goes her anguish, her bitterness and the staggering responsibility of feeding four hungry children. Life is hard. In House of the deep front yard, there are six families under one roof, including the landowner. We see how each family deals with their struggle to survive, even the wealthy, arrogant and obnoxious landlord family.
The book is written in a rich Daegu dialect, which is a prominent Gyeongsang dialect spoken in Gyeongsang province. In Gyeongsang province, there are several dialects and the most well-known ones are Daegu, Busan and Ulsan dialects. As a native of Seoul, I cannot distinguish between each one. But because Daegu is a big region in Gyeongsang province, I equate Daegu dialect as the Gyeongsang dialect. To non-Korean speakers, how can I describe what Daegu direct sounds like? There are different vowels, consonants, tone, and grammar structure. Daegu dialect has a sing-songy pitch. It is very friendly yet confrontational and passionate. The entire book is a mad sing-songy pitch of Daegu dialect. I can hear them talking. I can hear everyone in the entire book talking. It is an audiobook in the form of a paper book. This is a kind of book that has to be read in Korean.
The book makes commentaries about social injustice, particular between the rich man and the poor man, rich country and small country. The book isn’t just about the survival of one boy but the survival of virtue and what it means to be a human. What hurdles do we overcome to be a decent human? This book reminds of David Copperfield, Catcher in the Rye, This Tender Land. This makes it sound like a big, fat serious book on life. But it isn’t. The book flows very easily because the book is ultimately storytelling – relationship, individual trial and error, heartbreaks, hunger, the importance of being virtuous, love, faith... The stories are told through six families who are trying to survive the hardship of life post-Korean War. In the end, Young Gil-nam was able to go back to school. The family had to skip meals at times but his mother stashed away enough money to put her son back to school. She makes hard choices – food or education for my son. She makes him learn the unbearable harshness of life by making him earn a living. Selling newspapers is no small job. She makes sure he never begs for food no matter how hungry he gets. Keep your dignity, she says. All of these add up. Gil-nam wonders if his real mother was somewhere else. Am I the dead father’s love child found under the bridge? This is a common teasing in Korean culture – we found you crying under the bridge. When I was a child, my family and extended non-blood related families used to tease me about that. There is always one child in a family who gets to be the “crying baby found under the bridge”.
House with Deep Front Yard brought me such joy and memory. Our family was the landowner of such a setting. Not a deep front yard but a yard nonetheless. We had two families that took up four rooms and I grew up calling them different names - Innocent Sister, Flower Sister, Jeju Island Married Uncle, Big Jeju Island Mother… They were the extended family members. Daegu dialect is music to my ears. When I was reading, I was transformed into a child in Seoul. I was back in my yard, pig-tail girl riding bicycle round and round. That is the magic of great book.
The book is written from Gil-nam’s view. Through the young boy’s eyes, the reader sees his unblemished, heartbreaking innocence as he struggles to survive the cruelty of life in war-torn Korea. Gil-nam is the 2nd child and jangnam, which means the oldest boy in the household. Emphasizing the responsibility of being jangnam in a family without a father, Gil-nam’s strong-willed mother makes him drop out of school and sell newspapers to help the family. Gil-nam’s mother is a dressmaker who works day and night to meet the demands of her mostly call-girl/prostitute customers. Under the candlelight and moonlight, she labors on her second-hand sawing machine to feed the family. There is no definite explanation from her why her husband is missing and what happened to him. But the assumption is he might have gone red and joined communist North Korea. And so it goes her anguish, her bitterness and the staggering responsibility of feeding four hungry children. Life is hard. In House of the deep front yard, there are six families under one roof, including the landowner. We see how each family deals with their struggle to survive, even the wealthy, arrogant and obnoxious landlord family.
The book is written in a rich Daegu dialect, which is a prominent Gyeongsang dialect spoken in Gyeongsang province. In Gyeongsang province, there are several dialects and the most well-known ones are Daegu, Busan and Ulsan dialects. As a native of Seoul, I cannot distinguish between each one. But because Daegu is a big region in Gyeongsang province, I equate Daegu dialect as the Gyeongsang dialect. To non-Korean speakers, how can I describe what Daegu direct sounds like? There are different vowels, consonants, tone, and grammar structure. Daegu dialect has a sing-songy pitch. It is very friendly yet confrontational and passionate. The entire book is a mad sing-songy pitch of Daegu dialect. I can hear them talking. I can hear everyone in the entire book talking. It is an audiobook in the form of a paper book. This is a kind of book that has to be read in Korean.
The book makes commentaries about social injustice, particular between the rich man and the poor man, rich country and small country. The book isn’t just about the survival of one boy but the survival of virtue and what it means to be a human. What hurdles do we overcome to be a decent human? This book reminds of David Copperfield, Catcher in the Rye, This Tender Land. This makes it sound like a big, fat serious book on life. But it isn’t. The book flows very easily because the book is ultimately storytelling – relationship, individual trial and error, heartbreaks, hunger, the importance of being virtuous, love, faith... The stories are told through six families who are trying to survive the hardship of life post-Korean War. In the end, Young Gil-nam was able to go back to school. The family had to skip meals at times but his mother stashed away enough money to put her son back to school. She makes hard choices – food or education for my son. She makes him learn the unbearable harshness of life by making him earn a living. Selling newspapers is no small job. She makes sure he never begs for food no matter how hungry he gets. Keep your dignity, she says. All of these add up. Gil-nam wonders if his real mother was somewhere else. Am I the dead father’s love child found under the bridge? This is a common teasing in Korean culture – we found you crying under the bridge. When I was a child, my family and extended non-blood related families used to tease me about that. There is always one child in a family who gets to be the “crying baby found under the bridge”.
House with Deep Front Yard brought me such joy and memory. Our family was the landowner of such a setting. Not a deep front yard but a yard nonetheless. We had two families that took up four rooms and I grew up calling them different names - Innocent Sister, Flower Sister, Jeju Island Married Uncle, Big Jeju Island Mother… They were the extended family members. Daegu dialect is music to my ears. When I was reading, I was transformed into a child in Seoul. I was back in my yard, pig-tail girl riding bicycle round and round. That is the magic of great book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review