Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Barbara Demick
Oral histories are, of course, always to be somewhat suspect, but in a country as paranoid and aggressively secretive as North Korea, they may be the only way to even come close to a realistic depiction of the country. The results, as presented in journalist Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, are indeed grim as expected and, in some ways, far worse. It is easy for Americans to presume that the country is full of automatons who praise the Dear Leader(s) with every ounce of sincerity, but these stark accounts will force readers to re-assess their own preconceived notions of life in the oppressive dictatorship. Though these stories, which originate from defectors, naturally represent the viewpoints of those who grew disillusioned with the regime, Demick approaches her task with an eye toward journalistic credibility, and for the most part avoids sensationalism. The account, based on the experiences of six defectors now living in South Korea, does rely heavily on an elementary human interest angle, but it is hard to find true fault in this technique when the story concentrates on a famine that ravished its characters' families and the homeland they show a lingering affection for. More importantly, Demick's eye for tenderness, though occasionally deployed with an unnecessarily heavy hand, forces readers to put themselves into her subjects' positions, to peer into their lives and to realize that, even for a society relentlessly pounded with brainwashing propaganda and other stuff of Orwellian nightmares, there are simple human emotions like hunger, skepticism, and love. It is no accident that the main story here revolves around two lovers pursuing a romance made impossible by the strictures of society but enabled by the persistent blackouts simultaneously grinding the economy to a halt and allowing the lovers to maintain the requisite level of secrecy and concealment.
Just like the line that explores this arrangement- and fiercely challenges Americans' convenient ability to dehumanize the residents of the country- there are points in the story where the raw emotion overpowers the often pedestrian prose and unnecessarily tangled narrative arcs. Though their stories through time more or less collectively, jumps between them are frequently jarring, offered with no transitions, leaving readers suddenly immersed in only vaguely familiar waters, reacquainted only after some vital points of the story have been missed. Likewise, some of Demick's prose reads in a stunted, simple-sentence, simple-sentence cadence that quickly becomes tiresome, though there are moments of deft insight that break through the tedium. For all its simplicity, the prose does allow the story to shine through nearly unimpeded, and what a story it is, told with compassion and bolstered by incidental information and history that, while sometimes awkwardly located, helps flesh out North Korea from both bird's eye and street-level views. Nothing to Envy is a moving and detailed account of life in a seemingly impenetrable land, hampered occasionally by slight authorial missteps but retaining an insightful humanity throughout.
Grade: A-
Barbara Demick
Oral histories are, of course, always to be somewhat suspect, but in a country as paranoid and aggressively secretive as North Korea, they may be the only way to even come close to a realistic depiction of the country. The results, as presented in journalist Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, are indeed grim as expected and, in some ways, far worse. It is easy for Americans to presume that the country is full of automatons who praise the Dear Leader(s) with every ounce of sincerity, but these stark accounts will force readers to re-assess their own preconceived notions of life in the oppressive dictatorship. Though these stories, which originate from defectors, naturally represent the viewpoints of those who grew disillusioned with the regime, Demick approaches her task with an eye toward journalistic credibility, and for the most part avoids sensationalism. The account, based on the experiences of six defectors now living in South Korea, does rely heavily on an elementary human interest angle, but it is hard to find true fault in this technique when the story concentrates on a famine that ravished its characters' families and the homeland they show a lingering affection for. More importantly, Demick's eye for tenderness, though occasionally deployed with an unnecessarily heavy hand, forces readers to put themselves into her subjects' positions, to peer into their lives and to realize that, even for a society relentlessly pounded with brainwashing propaganda and other stuff of Orwellian nightmares, there are simple human emotions like hunger, skepticism, and love. It is no accident that the main story here revolves around two lovers pursuing a romance made impossible by the strictures of society but enabled by the persistent blackouts simultaneously grinding the economy to a halt and allowing the lovers to maintain the requisite level of secrecy and concealment.
Just like the line that explores this arrangement- and fiercely challenges Americans' convenient ability to dehumanize the residents of the country- there are points in the story where the raw emotion overpowers the often pedestrian prose and unnecessarily tangled narrative arcs. Though their stories through time more or less collectively, jumps between them are frequently jarring, offered with no transitions, leaving readers suddenly immersed in only vaguely familiar waters, reacquainted only after some vital points of the story have been missed. Likewise, some of Demick's prose reads in a stunted, simple-sentence, simple-sentence cadence that quickly becomes tiresome, though there are moments of deft insight that break through the tedium. For all its simplicity, the prose does allow the story to shine through nearly unimpeded, and what a story it is, told with compassion and bolstered by incidental information and history that, while sometimes awkwardly located, helps flesh out North Korea from both bird's eye and street-level views. Nothing to Envy is a moving and detailed account of life in a seemingly impenetrable land, hampered occasionally by slight authorial missteps but retaining an insightful humanity throughout.
Grade: A-
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