This story in this Pulitzer Prize winner takes place in North Korea, except for a dicey excursion to Texas.

The novel is in two parts. While reading the first part, I felt I had lucked into a well-written novel with understandable and somewhat chronological sequence of events. Definitely, the entire novel is expertly written and the amount of research that the author has put into it is exemplary.

In the first part, the reader meets Jun Do (John Doe), his beginnings and his rise in a cruelly ruled regime and his sudden bad luck of being taken to a prison mine.

While reading the second part, I had to go over large sections of the book to get a better understanding of it. This was because the style of narration suddenly changed. The constant back and forth in the chronology of events, plus the weird twists in the story as probably the reason of an alien regime to us, and the shocking deviations in the POV, in short, the abruptness in the storytelling of this second part put me off somewhat. On the other hand, the jokingly gothic propaganda sections in between chapters succeeded in showing the darkness of the harsh regime and the brutality of its “Dear Leader.”

Still, the story is epic because it is about a violent totalitarian state, a love story, impersonation and identity switching, cruelty mixed with humanity, false propaganda, and a last scene that reminds the reader of a failed slapstick. It is also about a very strong main character, presented to the readers with great skill.

At the end, I saw where the success of the novel lay. It was in the masterful composition of an excellent characterization, far-out, absurd scenes and imperfect storytelling.

This book disturbs yet enlightens the reader, but I can only advise other readers to read it at their own risk.

the first part of the book

the sudden plunge of the storytelling into magical realism.

Adam Johnson is an associate professor at Stanford University. He is mostly a short story writer, and this book has won the 2013 Pulitzer prize.

it is a masterpiece and a very different type of a book, but it is also hard to digest. So, read at your own risk.

I read an author's interview of Adam Johnson. In it, he said he read extensively for six to seven years and took a trip to North Korea for less than a week, just to get the feel of the place.
Although I shouldn't be, I was surprised when he said that the North Korean government prohibits its citizens to talk to visitors.

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Created Jun 19, 2017 at 8:46pm • Submit your own review...