Ten Thousand Sorrows, Ten Thousand Joys
Written: Jun 19 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Detailed, emotional, well written
Cons: End of book becomes rather weak
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| atara's Full Review: Ten Thousand Sorrows Books |
This is not a book that I would ordinarily have picked up. Autobiographies have always struck me as rather - oh, I don't know - egotistical. They have never really interested me.
However, I heard an interview with the author, Elizabeth Kim, on an NPR show. Half listening at first, I heard the tale of a war orphan who was adopted into a fundamentalist Christian family, and who was later married to an abusive man. As the interview went on, I listened more carefully as caller after caller told her how much the book at affected their lives.
Of course, I had to get the book.
This is not light reading. The horrors that Elizabeth experienced during her childhood and early adulthood shocked me. Each time she was given a punishment (such as having her genitals held under a hot water faucet because she was caught touching herself), I found myself wincing. Elizabeth describes each incident in very blunt terms, as if to force the reader to relive each punishment with her as she writes about it.
As her story progressed, she repeats herself again and again, telling an anecdote similar to one that she has already related to the reader. At one point, she makes a mention of this:
"As repetitive as this all sounds, it's impossible to do justice to the stultifying monotony of my life in that household. I was trapped on a wheel that turned endlessly on the same theme." -pg. 85
There are four sections in this book, neatly dividing her life into four parts. In the first, she describes her life with her mother, Omma, in the Korean village where she was raised. Her tone is full of love for her mother, and the horror of her mother's murder at the hands of her relatives comes through in sharp contrast. The atrocities she witnessed at the orphanage are described in stark detail, and the relief she felt when she was finally taken is almost palpable.
In the second section, she tells how she was raised. Her father was a fundamentalist Christian pastor, and from day one her parents attempted to mold her into their vision of the perfect Christian child. For example, she was punished for all manner of things most children take for granted. Her parents saw her interest in clothing "worldly," and they decided to fix that by only allowing her to wear one dress for an entire week to school. Elizabeth's frustration with Christianity and her parents is a major theme in this section.
The third section details her marriage. The wedding was arranged by her parents, and she married a deacon from the church she and her parents attended. Elizabeth goes to some length to protect her husband's identity, but the abuses he heaped upon her are inexcusable. She would wake up sometimes to see him kneeling on her chest, holding a pillow just above her face. Then he would hold the pillow down over her face until she fainted.
She stopped taking her birth control pills long enough to get pregnant, simply because she needed someone to love and someone to love her. The fourth section of the book tells how she tried to repair her life - and her psyche - after leaving her marriage. Her Omma is a great presence in this part of the book. In fact, I could almost see her own mother writing this section after Elizabeth was born. However, this section seems almost too pat. I was left with the feeling of having been cheated out of something... I couldn't put my finger on it, though.
This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to adopt a foreign child. The prospective parents usually have no idea what the child's life has been like before coming to this country. Forcing a child into a set of beliefs that have no correlation to anything in the child's experience is not only cruel, it's inhumane. Elizabeth's Buddhist upbringing had no place in her new home. It was only when she left her family behind did she rediscover her mother's religion.
Although I wouldn't call this book life changing, it is touching and powerful. Elizabeth's Omma told her that every life has ten thousand sorrows, and ten thousand joys (hence the title). I wish Elizabeth luck in her journey to find her ten thousand joys.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
atara
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Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 13 members
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