Madeline
I think I may have become obsessed with Lisa See. This is the second book in two months I have read of hers. First, it was Snowflower and the Secret Fan and now it is The Island of Sea Women. Her books are easy to read but they tell great stories about historical times in Asia. Although very depressing, they are also captivating.
Premise of The Island of Sea Women
The Island of Sea Women is about the women located on the Korean island of Jeju, who support their families by diving in the ocean to collect food, called water-work. See describes how it is the women who keep these families afloat through diving. These women form a collective. And the collective has a hierarchy of baby divers, the beginners, all the way to grandma divers, the advanced. Neither being actual babies or grandmothers.
When the season is not good and the divers are still young, many of them leave their homes to make money in other countries to bring home to their families. This is called home-away water-work. How this is how the women pay for their brothers to go to school and become educated. It not only becomes their job, but also their identity and their passion. Although the drama in The Island of Sea Women starts with the dangers of this profession, it does not stop there.
The Politics
A big chunk of The Island Of Sea Women is about the politics of Korea during the decades starting in the 1930’s and moving well into into the 1970’s. The politics start wit the occupation of Japan into Korea, then the United States and Russia into Korea, and finally into Korea’s own independence. See describes the terror of the Korean people and the brutality they went through during these various occupations. How the civilians were treated as less than animals and the people of Korea feared for their lives, their dignity and the lives and dignity of the people they love.
Being an independent nation did not seem like a possibility to the population of Korea, nor did the Koreans think they could handle it. They felt they needed another country to guide them through everything. And when they finally became an independent nation, how fearful the older generation remained. Because they had been hit by so many waves of brutality, they are constantly waiting for the next one to hit. The older generation is not allowing the younger generation to grow into the modern world and pushes them into keeping into their old ways also pushing these people into a profession that in the end leads to poverty.
Final thoughts
This book is insanely good. It is of a topic I did not even realize was a thing. And the story See paints around the topic is beautiful. As long as Lisa See keeps pumping out amazing books like this one, I will be reading. And I promise, there will be much more Lisa See on this blog in the near future.
