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read Þ eBook, PDF or Kindle ePUB Æ Adam Johnson The Orphan Master's Son characters ä 107 Adam Johnson Æ 7 characters Nánime y rotundo de la crítica y de los lectores y se ha convertido en un fenómeno internacional cosechando innumerables premios Considerada una novela «osada y extraordinaria» M Kakutani The New York Times «increíblementebien escrita y simplemente apasionante» Zadie Smith Los Angeles Times El huérfano está llamada a ocupar «un lugar entre los clásicos de la novela distópica como 1984 y Un mundo feliz» B Demick The Guardia. Adam Johnson s The Orphan Master s Son defies categories and captives the reader s attention end to end We are brought face to face with the brutal inhumanity of the Kim Jong Il dictatorship which the author visited and tried to depict as accurately as possible given the lack of defectors and their testimony But the even deeper story was how much suffering and deprivation humans can endure while remaining humanFor another interesting take on North Korea I would highly recommend Guy Delisle s comic book Pyongyang POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW I liked how in the first half we are with Pak Jun Do as he lives his life from the orphanage until his imprisonment because he participated in the mission to America and then we change to Commander Ga and it takes a while for us to see that we are still talking about the same person I suppose that this is typical of life in that dictatorship where individualism is punished so the uestion of identity is likely a critical one for sanity in PDRK sp I also loved the Sun Moon character and would have been heartbroken had she not left Similarly the Dark Rower Wanda Comrade Bucthe characters here did feel three dimensional and fleshed out The descriptions of torture were hard to bear but then no worse in the end than those described in A Brief History of Killings just the difference of it being killing on the outside in James as opposed to killing on the inside in Johnson Given the fascisttotalitarian tendencies of today s world I would highly recommend this book to remind us why we in western democracies at least need to be conscious and proud of our freedoms of speech and movement and rights to individual expression and be committed to never let anyone impinge on them

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read Þ eBook, PDF or Kindle ePUB Æ Adam Johnson The Orphan Master's Son characters ä 107 Adam Johnson Æ 7 characters Jun Do vive en un orfanato y se considera un humilde ciudadano «del mejor país del mundo» A los catorce años es reclutado por el ejército norcoreano como soldado de túneles y va ascendiendo al servicio del Gobierno primero como secuestrador y asesino profesional hasta convertirse en oficial de la inteligencia militar Guiado por un sentido extremo de la lealtad y el sacrificio Jun Do es capaz de cometer los actos más atroces sin p. This is not an easy book to read It preys on the minds of readers on the fears and hopes that stem from our deeply ingrained cultural concepts our habitual comfortable worldview It takes you to the place where you can no longer be sure what is based in reality and what is the result of an absurdist deeply satirical interpretation of itThis is a book that s set in North Korea and its protagonist is cleverly perhaps overly so named Jun Do that is John Doe the North Korean everyman I guess It spotlights the deeply disturbing aspects of the life in this isolated strange place the propaganda the police state the prison camps the torture interrogations the power of the state over individuals the hunger the poverty the exploitation the lies the cruelty the resignation of many to their fate the mistrust the crazed leaders the corrupt almost surreal regime Where we are from he said stories are factual If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state everyone had better start calling him maestro And secretly he d be wise to start practicing the piano For us the story is important than the person If a man and his story are in conflict it is the man who must change There s scarcely a page that is not disturbing in one way or another to its intended Westernized reader There are scenes that are so suddenly graphic and painful that they will forever be etched into my memory like a tattoo if you allow me to use that comparison A certain tattoo worn over a heart is uite important in this book just so you know And there is not a page that does not in one way or another condemn totalitarian propaganda based way of running the lives of people and the horrific ways little people get run over by the relentless machine of the State But here s the thing that kept nagging at me in that little but persistent voice that was impossible to ignore The main punch of this book is the setting the very real country of North Korea perhaps the most isolated place in the world built around the idol like worship of its leaders shrouded in secrets that are impenetrable to the outsiders and likely to its own people This is the society that the Westernized countries tend to view as one giant prison camp that exists in its own warped version of reality a threatening surreal enigma to the outsidersNo wonder that a book about such a place written by an outsider who has visited it once on a state sanctioned tour and talked to select few who managed to escape would have to heavily rely on speculations assumptions and rumors The desire to give voice to the people of that country whose voices we likely will never hear has to be significantly helped just by imagination of the writer that s a sad fact And that s exactly where I came upon my stumbling block What can Adam Johnson an American really know about the lives of North Koreans other than imagine them as the embodiment of the Westerner s worst nightmares How John Doe can his Jun Do be to real North KoreansI believe that Johnson managed to at least somewhat capture the oppressive spirit of the life in North Korea But the truth is the reality no matter how terrifying sad and atrocious it may be remains inaccessible to us and it s hard to write from the heart of something when you have no real knowledge of it After all the Soviets and the Westerners have written and imagined plenty of atrocities about each other and yet none of them managed to actually capture the essence of the world so foreign to them Real stories like this human ones could get you sent to prison and it didn t matter what they were about It didn t matter if the story was about an old woman or a suid attack if it diverted emotion from the Dear Leader it was dangerous I think I d prefer it had this book been just a speculation only perhaps a glimpse into a fictional dystopian society like Orwell s 1984 for instance and not presented as representing the life in a real country full of real people because then I d be able to allow both my brain and my heart to run with the story to fully feel the horror and hopelessness and desperation and outrage instead of always keeping myself in check by involuntary reminders that I will never know what is real and what is created to capitalize on our society s deep fears stemming from our culture s ingrained values And when it comes to the lives of a whole real country these uncertainties these uestions of what is real and what is there just to make me have a desired reaction suddenly become a real huge deal to me What happened Buc asked him I told her the truth about something Ga answered You ve got to stop doing that Buc said It s bad for people s health If I let my apprehensions about this book slide I can appreciate the story a bit It s definitely written well with interesting and skillful alternations between narrators with their distinct voices with gentle transition between the roles of Jun Do into which he s thrust by cruel fate the willingness of the book to explore the disturbing sides of life It manages to both keep you uneasy and yet willing to read to the end even if you already have a good idea of what s to come The language manages to walk the thin line between powerful and yet unobtrusive uite well The parts that take place on the sea were my favorite with the haunting melancholic uality that permeated the pages with descriptions so vivid and memorable with palpable sense of loneliness and uiet longing that is hard to forget The weak point however were the characters themselves They did feel like the vehicles to drive the plot forward created to fulfill very specific roles and not extending much past their niche The inclusion of the Great Leader himself felt purely commercial as the strange figure of now dead North Korean leader is bound to elicit just the right emotions from the reader And Sun Moon the actress who becomes a shining beacon in Jun Do s life elicited little but irritation from me her later reveals to Jun Do nonwithstanding It s telling when you can really root for the characters to succeed in their daring mission because you really cannot bring yourself to care for those the mission is for At the end it s the spoiled and privileged who benefit of course but I somehow doubt that it was the intended message Would I recommend this book It s hard to say The Pulitzer people surely saw something really special in it and they must know about literature and literary merit than yours truly I d recommend it with a disclaimer read it if you are not the type to be constantly preoccupied with doubts about the truths versus imagination in this story read it if you can out these concerns temporarily aside and focus on the emotional punches of the story focusing on little people in the horrific totalitarian propaganda state 3 stars

read Þ eBook, PDF or Kindle ePUB Æ Adam Johnson The Orphan Master's Son characters ä 107 Adam Johnson Æ 7 characters Estañear pero es también auel niño abandonado ue busca desesperadamente el amorEl huérfano es un thriller trepidante un retrato surrealista de un mundo escondido bajo un régimen dictatorial y una bella historia de amor ue transporta al lector en un viaje a las profundidades de Corea del Norte y al rincón más íntimo del corazón humano Galardonado con el Premio Pulitzer por esta novela Adam Johnson ha recibido el reconocimiento u. Literature is a fiction that tells a greater truth so somebody wise once said But the truth is a tricky business This epic story set in the Democratic People s Republic of Korea that s the bad one offers freuent reminders of that fact First there s the uestion of where the genuinely dire straits of North Koreans end and the semi satirical abstractions begin Did Johnson exaggerate the atrocities Did his fiction indeed tell a greater truth Then there s a related uestion about Jun Do the book s central figure At some point he becomes the subject of the ultimate in unreliable narrators the DPRK propaganda machine Fortunately for the reader the parts handled by the omniscient narrator dominated and they made for uite a storyIn various post publication interviews Johnson said he conducted extensive research for the book it took him 7 years including talks with refugees and a visit to Pyongyang He mentioned that if anything he had to tone down some of the brutality that he d heard about from former prisoners Jun Do as the North Korean everyman was unrealistically amalgamated but this was an effective device Making him a composite with a wide variety of experiences was a convenient way to drive the plot The action begins at an orphanage where his father was the orphan master but one who showed no favoritism to his son Jun Do s first official duty was as a soldier specializing in tunnel combat taekwondo in the dark then he was recruited to help kidnap Japanese civilians After language school to learn English he worked as a spy doing radio surveillance on a fishing boat He gained national hero status sacrificing himself for the sake of a lie that kept the fishermen out of prison This renown got him placed as one of the delegates for a state visit to Texas where cultures inevitably clashed often humorously For instance dogs in this strange land were somehow deemed to be venerable creatures Then as the dark side of governmental caprice would have it he ended up in prison doing hard labor This was no picnic unless you consider the protein rich moths the cagiest survivors gathered when the lights went out to be nice alfresco fare I don t feel like I m giving anything away outlining Jun Do s experiences above They were the basis for the first half of the book where he proxied for a molded North Korean identity The second half of the book was structured uite differently Jun Do assumed another role altogether as he replaced a high ranking army official To avoid spoilers I ll be vague I will however mention that his assumed role included the name the station and the wife of the ex commander but not his demeanor The second half also introduced two new narrators One was an interrogator who was attempting to piece together the commander s story The other was the aforementioned propaganda machine broadcasting throughout the land over loudspeakers Officials told a very different story as you might imagine In their version of things a step well beyond the truthiness of Stephen Colbert Americans used their lights at night which were virtuously precluded for the North Korean citizenry to practice indolence and homosexuality Supreme Leader Kim Jong il shot 11 holes in one in a single round I remember when this story really was reported which must have stretched credulity even there and the spin put on our commander s story would put any self respecting gyroscope to shameThe book has been described variously as a thriller a love story a dystopian political satire and by Johnson himself a trauma narrative It featured elements of each Johnson not only conjoined these disparate styles he told the bigger story with nuance and flair Had he confused the old rule and made it tell don t show his efforts would have fallen flat Instead the privation and torture are palpably clear and the easy to draw inference resonates all the Johnson was clever in the way he humanized Jun Do at the same time that he obscured his identity Making him a de facto orphan must have been a way to show the subjugation of family in favor of state Even his name which an American confused with John Doe signifies the unidentified man The reader knows different though We see the real man We see how individual honesty can trump totalitarian lies for the sake of true loveI don t view this as a perfect book Certain aspects of the plot seemed implausible that didn t need to be to tell the same story Plus even though I just praised Johnson for showing and not telling there were times when I felt like Jun Do was a little too remote like a few glimpses into his interior life would have helped me connect Even so this is damn near 5 star territory Though the greater truths about North Korea its people and its rule may be approximate they re a whole lot than I d ever known before

• Paperback
• 608
• The Orphan Master's Son
• Adam Johnson
• Spanish
• 06 September 2018
• null