Closure

Posted by rjhmoore at 7:50 PM 3 comments
Monday, August 25, 2008

If you read the previous blog, you will get a brief summary of the novel To Swim Across The World. What a beautiful story. Of course, like any decently good read, it has many depressing, stressful, and intense moments. Fortunately, there are some sweet and funny anecdotes to balance out the drama, but overall, this book does not hide the horrors of human suffering.

It does have a happy ending... sort of. Many people talk about having closure at the end of a book. They feel satisfied, relaxed, and usually happy, kind of like after going on a really long run. You're exhausted, but you know it was worth it. This feeling never came to me in this book. Well, that's not completely true. It was like there were many, long, untied ropes hanging from the story in front of me and most were tied off, but there were a few very important things that were not answered. I would have been happy even if they weren't answered in the story, at least a little where-they-are-now-and-what-they-are-doing section would have been nice.

These are the questions that I was left with: Did Heisook ever see her mother again? Did her mother ever find Changi, her brother? Did Heisook and Sei-Young ever return to Korea? What happened to Heisook's father? What happened to Sei-Young's mother and aunt? What did Heisook and Sei-Young do after they got to America? Have they ever gone back to North Korea? Did they ever see any of their old friends, Korean and Japanese, again?

These probably won't make any sense to the average blog-reader, but to those who have read this book, some of these questions may be floating around in your mind as well. This is why the book sort of ended happily for me. I got closure for some issues, but other things were left unfinished.