Stories are as integral to families as anything. Who we are comes from the stories our families tell. On my dad’s side of the family, we’re farmers and readers. That’s the stories we tell. Some of my most important stories take place on my grandparents farm, and when I talk about that side of my family, those are the stories I tell. We tell stories about connections to the land, working it, teaching future generations to work it, etc. But what stories do immigrants tell each other? What stories do families tell when they’re uprooted from their land by war? What stories does the next generation tell each other? These question interest me because my country isn’t very accommodating to immigrants at the moment. And it’s never been very accommodating to immigrants of color. But immigrants do come here, and they make their own stories despite the institutional and, often, overt racism they face. How does this affect the stories their families tell each other? In Angela Mi Young Hur’s Folklorn readers get the story of Elsa Park and her family. But the stories Elsa and her mother tell root themselves in Korean myth. Layered upon these stories are a mental illness that might be passed on to Elsa. As a scientist, Elsa has used her intelligence to run across the globe from her family, but can she run from the stories of her family?
Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher on Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
© Primmlife 2021
TL;DR
Folklorn focuses on families and the ties that bind blood together. Angela Mi Young Hur asks if we can ever escape the legacy that is our family. I highly recommend you read this meditation on family.
From the Publisher
A genre-defying, continents-spanning saga of Korean myth, scientific discovery, and the abiding love that binds even the most broken of families.
Elsa Park is a particle physicist at the top of her game, stationed at a neutrino observatory in the Antarctic, confident she’s put enough distance between her ambitions and the family ghosts she’s run from all her life. But it isn’t long before her childhood imaginary friend—an achingly familiar, spectral woman in the snow—comes to claim her at last.
Years ago, Elsa’s now-catatonic mother had warned her that the women of their line were doomed to repeat the narrative lives of their ancestors from Korean myth and legend. But beyond these ghosts, Elsa also faces a more earthly fate: the mental illness and generational trauma that run in her immigrant family, a sickness no less ravenous than the ancestral curse hunting her.
When her mother breaks her decade-long silence and tragedy strikes, Elsa must return to her childhood home in California. There, among family wrestling with their own demons, she unravels the secrets hidden in the handwritten pages of her mother’s dark stories: of women’s desire and fury; of magic suppressed, stolen, or punished; of the hunger for vengeance.
From Sparks Fellow, Tin House alumna, and Harvard graduate Angela Mi Young Hur, Folklorn is a wondrous and necessary exploration of the myths we inherit and those we fashion for ourselves.
Review: Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur
Folklorn starts Chapter One in the antarctic. Elsa Park is a post-doctoral physics researcher studying neutrinos. We, the readers, get introduced to her in her professional capacity, and right away, we get her thoughts on her family and her vocation. Elsa, a very intelligent person working in advanced scientific fields, soon begins to see her childhood, imaginary friend. The return of her friend occurs close to when her catatonic mother speaks for the first time in years. In Southern California. Instead of wintering at the South Pole, Elsa returns to Sweden, which is where she’s doing her post-doctoral research. Her imaginary friend follows her, and Elsa begins to wonder if she couldn’t outrun the legacy of her family.
Before I started this book, I knew nothing about Korean myths and had no plans to learn. Other than this book, I know nothing about Korean myth. After reading Folklorn, I have it on my to do list to check out Korean myths. Because I don’t know if Hur used actual myths for this book or created her own. But the myths are fantastic. There is one about a young woman drowning herself to meet her father, the king of the sea. It…well, who knows why certain stories hit so hard the way they do, but I put the book down after reading this myth. I had to process it, and I still think about it occasionally. I don’t know that I’ll ever look at lotus flowers the same.
I received access to this book prior to the Atlanta spa shootings that brought anti-Asian racism to the forefront of American consciousness. Hur talks a lot about wearing Korean skin in white spaces. (And I apologize if I’m saying this wrong.) Her descriptions of how white people – especially white men – look at her were rough to read, though, no doubt accurate. I can’t imagine how worse these looks are to experience. At one point, in ‘englightened’ Sweden, Hur writes a scene with anti-Asian racism that, unfortunately, was too easy for me to imagine. What I can’t imagine is how exhausting it must be to be on guard for each and every potential interaction.
Writing
Folklorn is told in first person, stream of consciousness point of view. This worked so well. Folklorn is beautifully written, as in I enjoy how it was constructed, but also it is a good example of form adding to function. It reads like a diary entry; yet, I know it is carefully constructed. It’s so well done, and I’m in awe of how balanced it is. The pitfall with stream of consciousness writing is that it can feel self-indulgent and navel gazey-ish. Folklorn never crosses that line, and Elsa’s tale feels immediate and urgent. For most of the reading, I felt a tension between avoiding and confronting the legacy of her mother. In parts, I wanted her to face her demons, and in part, I just wanted to hear her navigate the world.
The first person, stream-of-consciousness writing reflected upon Elsa’s life, but it read a little slow. The pacing of this novel is very, very slow. Elsa dwells in moments. She reflects upon her surroundings, her past, and her fears. At times, this was a bit too slow for me, but these moments were few.
A Parent's Illness
For as long as I can remember, my mother had Multiple Sclerosis. It affected her mental state. How much? I’ll never know. But the way I felt about her illness, the tension any time someone called me to talk about Mom, Hur captures in Folklorn. Sometimes, it brought back uncomfortable memories. Painful memories. But that just signals to me that this is good art. Folklorn made me feel, made me miss my parents. In one of the chapters, Ms. Hur talks about a parents death as a second chance to meet them because you get to go through their stuff and see what they hid from you. You meet the secret parts of them. Having gone through my Mom’s possessions after she passed and not being able to sort my father’s things after he passed, I can tell Ms. Hur that she’s correct. With that sentence, she hit the bullseye.
Hur has a talent for capturing the tension a child feels about an ill parent. And no matter our age, we are all children when our parents are sick.
Conclusion
Angela Mi Young Hur’s Folklorn is a book about family. Elsa Park shows us that no matter how far we run across the globe, there are roots somewhere that ground us in a past – one we may like or despise. For Elsa, the roots are a family dealing with mental and physical illnesses. And upon her mother speaking again after years of catatonia, Elsa goes home to learn new stories and see if she’ll continue or break her family’s legacy. Folklorn tells the story of the Parks family, and it’s a story worth learning.
Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur from Erewhon Books on April 17th, 2021.
© Primmlife 2021