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The sun may have been blown away today but it made it out for the bank holiday weekend and what better way to enjoy the rarity than to spend a little time reading in the garden. Our cherry blossom is looking particularly spectacular this week and I couldn't rest a cheeky sunbathe beneath its blushing boughs.
This week I have been reading The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang. Sun-Mi Hwang is
a South Korean author who fought her way through education, refusing to give up
even when financial restraints kept her out of school for four years. Now she
has a creative writing degree from Seol Institute of the Arts and Gwangju
University, as well as a post-graduate qualification from Chung-Ang University. The Hen was published in 2000 and was
quickly added to the list of Korean classics, remaining in the bestseller list
for the next ten years (if that isn’t proof of a good book then I don’t know
what is). It has since been made into a play, a musical, a comic book and South
Korea’s most successful film to date (I really want to see the musical).
With such an introduction, I was expecting wonderful things –
a sort of Animal Farm, only set in
Korea; however, with its mallard ducks and typical farmyard animals, The Hen is comfortably close to home.
This novel follows Sprout the hen from her life as an egg-layer in the chicken
coup through her great escape to the big outdoors. Watching the world pass by
through a chink in her door gives Sprout that age old envy of greener grass.
She watches the ducks waddle towards the reservoir every morning, the chicks
playing in the yard and the blossom form on the acacia tree as Spring comes
once again; but, the world outside is not as comfortable as that rich blanket
of acacia petals appears. Sprout learns fear as the wild weasel searches desperately
for its next meal and those she loves most are put in danger.
My eye was drawn to this book because of its exquisite cover
design by Nomoeo. The stark white background and looming trees frame the
lonely, wandering Sprout and the pop of colour from the leaves of the acacia
tree on the hill draws the readers’s attention away from the darker foreground
to the multitude of colours on its branches.
Incidentally, this is exactly what the novel does. There is not much to be thankful for, or hopeful about, in Sprout’s sparse existence but somehow the tone never falls into despair. There are moments of sadness, but these are tempered by a profound awareness that to be free is far more important than to be safe. The story of Sprout is as hopeful as her name and Sun-Mi Hwang has almost persuaded me that chickens can fly.
Incidentally, this is exactly what the novel does. There is not much to be thankful for, or hopeful about, in Sprout’s sparse existence but somehow the tone never falls into despair. There are moments of sadness, but these are tempered by a profound awareness that to be free is far more important than to be safe. The story of Sprout is as hopeful as her name and Sun-Mi Hwang has almost persuaded me that chickens can fly.
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