This Burns my Heart by Samuel Park: Compelling & Memorable

It's been a long time since I’m able to read a novel again, one that I can’t put down. I got this book in a secondhand bookstore, found the story fascinating and brought it home. Unfortunately, it was lodged on my bookshelf for a couple of months now, lumped  together with my other books of nonfiction, waiting to be read.

But one morning when I was scanning my bookshelf for unread pieces, I absentmindedly took it out and began to read the first paragraphs again and became absorbed with the story.

This book by Samuel Park was set in the 1960s and revolved around the heroine Soo-Ja Choi who made a mistake of marrying a man she wasn't truly in love with so she can fulfill her dreams of being a diplomat. Her father wouldn't approve of her going alone to Seoul to study for it so she opted to marrying Min who she thought could help her achieve her dreams. But she got trapped in a stifling, very traditional marriage where her in-laws were in charge but she still stayed because she didn't want her daughter to be taken away from her. 

Then her paths crossed with the man she turned away before, Yul, the one she didn't choose but loved. Meeting him again made her realize the gravity of her mistake, the life she walked away from when she didn't choose him. Overall, it is a book about a woman’s journey as she tries to survive the consequences of her choices.

I found this book compelling because you can't help but develop this sense of urgency to find out how Soo Jai would be able to overcome every obstacle, every problem thrown her way. You can't help but share her joys, her pains and her fears. You become invested with the character and are able to go join her on her journey. You want her to succeed.

This book doesn't fall short on the emotions and I like that. I like drama, I like tension, I like dripping expression of emotions, not holding back what the character really feels. I don't like to infer, to guess, I want to feel how the characters are feeling. Maybe that's why I read more nonfiction. However, this book is not filled by pure histrionics but a good and masterful combination of highly charged scenes and beautifully nuanced ones which makes it more dramatic.

A man penned this book and I admire and how he was able to capture a woman’s emotions to its core. How he was able to immerse himself in his character’s plight  and be quite believable. I also liked the way his characters delivered their dialogue, it was so natural that it was like watching a scene from a movie, some scenes were so heartfelt, it tugs at you. 

For a man to write and describe authentically what a desperate mother felt like while looking for her daughter or the agonizing dilemma of a married woman while her lost love was in front of her was a feat. It was like a woman wrote it. So kudos to Mr. Park :)

This book may not be as popular as the other books I've read but it is one of the most memorable fiction I have read in a while. I just hated that Soo Jai's looks here was almost drop dead gorgeous with most men falling at her feet.. I mean really? :) But I read that this book was partly inspired by his mother so I take it back. Soo Jai is indeed that beautiful, inside and out :) 

Here are some excerpts from the book:

“Now, more than ever, I long for my life to have more heft.” Wrote Soo Ja to Min. It was the first letter she’d ever sent him. “ And yes, that the word I mean heft. I have tasted what it means to have days with urgency and meaning, and I cannot go back to living an unimportant life…I can see what will happen if I stay in Daegu. I’ll never have to answer the call of my own highest potential. I must become a diplomat”

“ Her father nodded, smiling. “ I hate that you have to live with them”. So he knew that too. Soo-Ja wondered if all of her efforts to look happy were in vain, and people acted as if they believed her just to be polite, when deep down they could clearly hear her heart breaking.

“If I had let you go to Seoul to study diplomacy: you would never have married him,” said Soo Ja’s father.

“You can’t blame yourself for my mistakes” said Soo Ja

“But isn't it true? Would you have married him if I had let you go to Seoul?” he asked. Soo Ja did not reply, and her father began to nod, taking her silence for an answer…"

“It is the worst feeling in the world, to know that your child is unhappy.”…

“You should have called for me!” he cried out. “I would have taken the first train to Pusan. To think of what you went through!”

“I didn’t want to worry you”

“Worrying is what a father does. Take that away from him and he has nothing to live for. How can I trust you, if you don’t reach out for me in a moment of need?”

Soo Ja felt as if the way to find her daughter was to provide the right answer to a riddle. I know you are here somewhere. You couldn't have gone very far. I can find you. If I look in the right place, I can find you. I will look the way a mother does. I will bring purity to this search.

“I want to go home! I don’t think you’re going to find her!”

Soo-Ja grabbed Na-yeong by the arms again and shook her. “I am going to find Hana. What you just said. I’m going to forget it ever came out of your mouth. Because if I don’t watch myself, I might just kill you with my bare hands.”

…She was like the lowliest of beggars, pleading with no dignity or self-respect, but with tears streaming down her face and questions were not questions but cries. She needed to tell everyone that her daughter was missing: the pain inside her was so big, the only way to bear it was to give a slice of it to every single person in the world.

With Yul gone, Soo Ja began to think of him even more often. She imagined him next to her, offering sad-hopeful smile of his as she did the most mundane of tasks. How is it possible that Yul cannot be mine, when the pain of his absence feels like a cave inside my heart?

Soo Ja could tell no one about her feelings- Yul was a secret, the way any great love was, to some extent, a secret. But when she asked her own self, she heard the words loud and clear: You are not finished with him, and he is not finished with you. Even if you two wanted to, you could not fight this longing.

“..All right, you want me to tell you if I still-love- you? Is that the word you think I’m so afraid of saying? Love? I could do that. I could tell you that. But what does it do? Nothing except make us feel bad. It doesn’t change anything.”

“Is that how you feel?

”

“I’m a married woman. I’m not free to tell you how I feel.” It was true, but only because she feared that once she started, she would not be able to stop. “Your wife is just across the hall.”

“I know. But I thought I’d forget you with time, and I haven’t. When I was younger, I thought there was only room for one person at a time in your heart. And each time you met someone new, you evicted the one who was there before. But now I realize that there are multiple rooms, and your old love doesn't leave. It sits there, waiting.”