All Woman and Springtime

It's been a while since I've read a book that has hooked me from the very first page and kept me hooked throughout every single chapter. All Woman and Springtime is one such rare gem.

A story of survival in the face of insurmountable odds, it centres on two teenage girls living under the Orwellian gaze of Dear Leader (the late Kim Jong-il) in North Korea. Having already endured more hardship than their young lives should have encountered, Gyong-Ho and Il-sun are plucked from the frying pan into the fire when Il-sun's dalliance with a local man proves a dangerous game. Removed to the capitalist South, they become caught in the ever-enclosing net of those who wish to profit from the vulnerability and naivety of these young, unworldly girls.

Given the lack of information available to us about life under the North Korean regime, it is hard to know how much of Jones's depiction of the country is conjecture, but the picture he paints is eminently believable. What makes it more so is that it isn't one-sided. Much as this novel condemns the atmosphere of fear and oppression under which North Koreans live, it is equally damming of the evils that flourish within a capitalist, democratic society. Neither society, Jones says, has got it right.

His real accomplishment, however, is his characters. In Gyong-Ho he gives us a heartbreakingly sympathetic heroine who we root for every step of the way. Jones ably depicts the near-brainwashing the girls have undergone north of the DMZ, to the point that Gyong-Ho, who was tortured under the regime, treats Dear Leader almost as a safety blanket in the capitalist south, which they have been taught to fear. Given what happens to her, perhaps she's right: better the devil you know.

Upsetting and horrific though this story is, I couldn't put it down. Though there's a tinge of twee in the ending, by that time it was a much needed relief for both reader and protagonist. So absorbing was the story that I wanted to step in and usher the characters to safety. What more could you ask from a novel?