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The Orphan Master Son A Novel Pulitzer Prize Fiction Adam Johnson Books

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The Orphan Master Son A Novel Pulitzer Prize Fiction Adam Johnson Books

The Orphan Master's Son is a hard book to read because of its graphic descriptions of the tortures Jun Do, the protagonist, receives at the hands of the North Korean government employees. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no happiness. There is not a single bright moment in the book because of the omnipresence of the DPRK's constant lurking in the background. There is no one to trust, no one to hang one's hopes on. It is a sad, depressing novel, and I have to wonder how much of it is TRUTH. Because I only know what newspaper reports say about the people and the government of N. Korea, I am glad I read The Orphan Master's Son because Adam Johnson does make me wonder about the horrors (cutting off tattoos without anesthesia) and the secrets (kidnapping foreigners) and the public attention speakers spreading propaganda (the imminent war with America). It is not a book to be read lightly; it's scary. With the nuclear threat actually being posed by the Kim regime, it might be a good idea for everyone to read this novel. "Forewarned is forearmed."


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The Orphan Master Son A Novel Pulitzer Prize Fiction Adam Johnson Books Reviews

The Truth about the Truth
In the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Orphan Master's Son, the author Adam Johnson uses Jun Do (John Doe) to represent all North Koreans. Their lives are seemingly lived on tectonic plates. Catastrophes are ever present. Circumstances change without warning. They absolutely have no control. Life in North Korea can be so jarring that one feels the tremors in each chapter.
Because the book is fiction and contains so many unbelievably frightening tales, one wonders if the circumstances of Jun Do and the other characters lives are based on fact. In an interview included with the book, Johnson explains how he used the factual accounts of defectors and his own travels to the country. He tells of a U.S. soldier who was taken prisoner in North Korea and was released after 39 years. Many of Jun Do's exploits are based on what happened to this soldier. Still, I wondered what was truth, and what was fiction in this book? I sifted through Internet stories, mostly from newspapers in the UK, to find whether what Adam Johnson depicts is true.
Deprivation
According to the World Food Program, one in three children in North Korea remains chronically malnourished or becomes stunted. The height of the average North Korea man has decreased. Since the state owns all land and farm products, little can be grown to feed a family. Orphans starve or are worked to death. There are many abandoned children in the country because the parents are sent to prison camps or sent to labor in other far away places. A defector living in Australia has reported cannibalism in his native country. This has not been confirmed, but other North Koreans believe that it happens.
Prison Camps
A huge gulag of prison camps exists in North Korea that can be seen in satellite images. North Korea denies they exist. Very few prisoners have escaped. However, prisoner Shin-Dong Hyuk managed to escape and has given interviews to "Sixty Minutes" and various newspapers. People are sent to prison because of "wrong thought" or for attempting to leave North Korea. Entire families are locked up because they have associated with someone who is guilty of independent thinking or actions. An estimated twenty thousand prisoners died last year because of starvation. Camp 22, a vast 770 square mile (the size of London) complex, was closed by Kim Jong Un in 2012. No one knows what happened to the prisoners. The prisoners' nourishment comes from a gruel made of corn meal and cabbage and supplemented with insects. Because prisoners also eat rats, rodents are nearly extinct in the camps. Torture is used regularly as stress relief for the guards who consider prisoners less than bugs. The prisoners work in mines and the logging industry. By age 45, the backs of many prisoners are permanently bent at a 90 degree angle. Pregnancy is prohibited in the camps. The mothers must execute their own newborns, or pregnant women may be cut open and the baby and mother both executed.
Abductions
There are currently eighteen cases of Japanese citizens who have been abducted by North Koreans. It is thought that many have been kidnapped to teach Japanese language and culture in North Korean schools. Approximately, 486 South Koreans have also been abducted. Some were murdered so that North Koreans could make use of their identities. Small boats are used to take victims from beaches and ocean front towns. There is also available a labyrinth of tunnels under the DMZ to infiltrate South Korea.

However, not through journalistic accounts did I truly understand the shocking reality of life in North Korea. I understand North Korea through Adam Johnson's astonishing narrative. The biography of the fictional Jun Do helped me to grasp how deprivation and fear can enslave a nation. Johnson said, "If literature is a fiction that tells a deeper truth, I feel my book is a very accurate portrayal of how the tenets of totalitarianism eat away at the things that make us human. . . the reach of literary fiction is our best tool to discover the human dimension of such an elusive society."
From a prizewinning novel I expect a memorable story with memorable characters. I hadn't even read a review of this masterpiece before beginning the first page, so I hadn't the first idea what it was about.
It is a gripping, chilling story. It exposes in excruciating detail the degraded lives of the people of North Korea through the experiences of the main character--a true "Everyman" but also "no man." Jun Do is "John Doe." He becomes Commander Ga because no one dares question this transformation--reality in North Korea is what the Dear Leader says it is.
The reader is drawn into this world, always hoping for some kind of redemption, knowing that only sacrifice--and being told the same thing--can perhaps achieve some sort of partial victory.
I couldn't put this book down. The characters continue to live for me, their stories and lives are part of me. A wonderful, wonderful book.
When I see reviews entitled something like "A Masterpiece" on , I often suspect they're hyperbole. But I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this is one of the best books I've ever read, and as a compulsive reader for over 20 years, that's saying something.

Without spoiling anything, the novel starts much like you'd expect a novel about North Korea it's foreign, bleak and disturbing. The first part of the book introduces us to Pak Jun Do -- the Orphan Master's Son of the title -- and it progresses steadily until you think you know what to expect from this novel. But at the end of Part I (about 25% through) the author shifts the story so surprisingly, so audaciously, I couldn't help but pay closer attention. Once I was hooked, I couldn't put the book down.

The Orphan Master's Son is one of those great novels, like The Life of Pi, that's both accessible and profound. It takes you to emotional places you didn't think you'd go, and yet by the end it all seems inevitable that you'd end up there. The author also did an incredible job rendering every nuance of the North Korean social climate. It's as if someone who lived there all his life wrote The Orphan Master's Son.

Mr. Johnson's storytelling is so masterful, it took me back to the feeling I had when I first fell in love with reading. I imagine this hauntingly beautiful novel will stay with me for many years.
A chilling account of life in N. Korea. The lives of ordinary citizens are portrayed in a heartfelt gripping manner. The reader comes to live & view the depth & breadth of total mind control by the government. Torture is complicit in the reign of The Dear Leader who is controlling & bereft of human compassion. One does come to wonder if the Koreas were United, could the N. Koreans adapt to,having choices? Could they make decisions? How does such evil power exist in this 21st century? This is a story of a nation of people manipulated, & enfeebled.
The Orphan Master's Son is a hard book to read because of its graphic descriptions of the tortures Jun Do, the protagonist, receives at the hands of the North Korean government employees. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no happiness. There is not a single bright moment in the book because of the omnipresence of the DPRK's constant lurking in the background. There is no one to trust, no one to hang one's hopes on. It is a sad, depressing novel, and I have to wonder how much of it is TRUTH. Because I only know what newspaper reports say about the people and the government of N. Korea, I am glad I read The Orphan Master's Son because Adam Johnson does make me wonder about the horrors (cutting off tattoos without anesthesia) and the secrets (kidnapping foreigners) and the public attention speakers spreading propaganda (the imminent war with America). It is not a book to be read lightly; it's scary. With the nuclear threat actually being posed by the Kim regime, it might be a good idea for everyone to read this novel. "Forewarned is forearmed."