Flashlight

I'm kind of speechless over this book. I read it because I'm trying to read the Booker 2025 shortlist. I knew nothing about the plot, at all. It's my first Susan Choi book, and I need to read them all. Masterful.

It COOKED. Fascinating historical context, intriguing underlying plot, complex characters and a conclusion that felt both fitting and realistic. Very well-written with vivid descriptions of places/people that weren’t lost in English lit overdo. I enjoyed the story moving along through different snapshots of various characters’ lives. It is a rare book in that despite the characters generally being pretty unlikeable, it didn’t feel like a chore to read about all the unlikeable things they were doing. I still felt a lot of sympathy for their various predicaments. Louisa was by far the worst. My favourite character was Tobias - he was a funny caricature of “white man adopting Asia/being a monk” but also I thought a very pure and earnest person in amongst the more negative traits of the other characters. The historical setting was very interesting and I’ve done a bit of reading about it since. I didn’t know much about the Korea/Japan/America/China axis post-WWII. The main thing I took from this was how little control any individual at any given time in history has over their life course. It was sad to see Seok’s entire life just blasted by bigger going ons, and the sequelae for those around him. It was a good reminder of the illusion of choice/agency of the individual, which was also reflected in the West/democracy vs East/communism-but-really-authoritarianism discourse. Luke’s take about random tragic things happening without a wider meaning/purpose also ties into this I think. I also thought the exploration of belonging and what it means to be “from” somewhere were very powerful. Seok being Korean but born in Japan and forbidden from speaking his own language, then being unable to become a Japanese citizen/get ahead in Japanese society, then moving to America where he still wasn’t able to integrate, then his imprisonment in NK, to finally ending up in China “stateless,” was a very complex journey of identity. I thought it was poignant that he eventually died in SK, even if he wouldn’t have known this himself. I found the last part of the book very moving - Seok’s descent into senility and the amoral Fisherman’s care for him, and then finally his reunion with his lost daughter, amidst a brief lucid moment before his death. It felt like a very apt way to tie up the story, even if there wasn’t really a happy ending for anyone.

overall I really liked it. I thought it was very eloquently written and the characters felt complex and believable. A lot of the time while reading I found myself wondering why certain characters were making the choices they did or why their lives seemed to head in certain directions, but by the end I almost felt that was part of the point. Not everything has a neat explanation and sometimes people’s lives just unfold in tragic or messy ways without there being a clear reason for it. I also found the historical side of it really interesting and kind of heartbreaking. From reading reactions online, it seems some people found the book a bit slow or ambiguous, while others really appreciated the character work and emotional realism. I think I ended up appreciating it more as it went on, especially once the final sections pulled things together and it became clearer what had happened. It’s one of those books that made more sense to me emotionally after I’d finished it than while I was actually reading it.