This book was truly beautiful. The exploration of grief and race and womanhood and so much more was so eloquently done. At times the writing could get a bit intense and confusing, but the story was so captivating and real that I honestly didn't mind. Elsa's journey was fascinating, from her mother's stories to her exploration of physics, and I really loved the discussion of family that filled the whole book. The ending was magical and profoundly bittersweet and I loved how the whole book just seemed so connected. Folklorn is such an important book and was truly an enchanting discussion on so many things that I couldn't even begin to fully list out.

Thanks to Erewhon and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book. The scope of this novel was larger than I anticipated. Elsa Park a physicist is haunted by the ghosts of her past and the myths and folktales her mother past on to her. She starts seeing an imaginary girl who speaks to her about some family secrets and its unclear whether she is haunted by a ghost or is simply loosing her mind. Her brother is a schizophrenic so she might be suffering a similar affliction rather than being haunted by shamanistic lore.

Her mother once told her the the women in the family were cursed. To figure if her imaginary friend is a spirit guide and if her "ghost mother pulling strings from beyond the grave" she delves into Korean folk tales that were passed on by her catatonic mother “You’ve read her—she’s more myth than woman. She fell asleep before I could get to know her as an adult. My childhood memories are all mixed up, mistranslated.”

Another subject this novel delves into is Epigenetic trauma. What it means growing up as second gen in America with all it's racial tensions and systematic racism while trying to live up to their parents unrealistic expectations.. Here is how her brother Chris sums it up: "Fucked-up immigrant culture, combining the worst of two countries—all about social perception, can’t find worth in herself so she depends on her kids to reflect it for her. But I could never redeem all the shit’s she’s been through."

The Korean stories are mostly about children sacrificing themselves for their parents sake, like the virgin thrown into the bell in it's forging. Other tales are the wood carpenter who steals a fairy's robes so that she stays with him and bares him children, a tale of twin sisters one dead at birth the other wrongfully accused and killed by her step mother and step brothers who comes back to avenge herself, and also the tale of a gumiho daughter who wishes to become human. Helping her explore the Korean lore is Oscar a fellow academic and a Korean adoptee who has some unresolved issues of his own.

Despite the description this is not a fantasy novel but a very realistic meditation on immigration, making sense of the parents stories that are somewhat lost in translation and cultural gaps between first and second generation.

I received this ARC from Netgalley and the publisher, Erewhon Books, for free in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a trippy ride, but I loved how it all came together in the end. It had a bit of everything - science, myths, Asian culture (specifically Korean), magical realism, a tiny bit of romance, and discussions about race and mental disorders.

With all of that, you would think that the author was biting off more than she could chew, but she handled it and more. The storyline follows Elsa through current times and through flashbacks of her childhood. The flashbacks were easy to follow and masterfully flowed into the narrative.

I had no idea where this book was leading me through it's journey, and I was beginning to worry that it would be a heavy ending. Instead, it left me feeling light and thoughtful. Definitely worth a read if you are looking for something a little different!

Stunning, heartbreaking, and truly unlike anything I have ever read.

I can't even find the right words to describe Folklorn, other than that it's a must-read for adventurous literary travelers. It's a story of Elsa Park, a Korean-American woman who struggles to understand her place in the world and within her family, who is stationed at a neutrino observatory in the Antarctic. Even though she is so far from home, the ghosts of the past haunt her, just as her mother warned her Korean legends would come true. And as Elsa struggles with loneliness at her job, we discover who she is through Korean myths and legends, family drama and her self-discovery as a woman.

I can't recommend this book enough for how truly gripping and different it is. I appreciate the discussion on mental health, gender and family expectations.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hello readers! Thanks to Netgalley I had the opportunity to read "Folklorn" by Angela Mi Young Hur, out in April. The first thing I saw of the book was the cover, so elegant and nostalgic.

“Folklorn” is a complex, dramatic story. It was not at all what I wanted to read, but I have to admit that objectively it is a deep and beautifully written book.
It is a book that explores mental illnesses, a war that has divided a country, the fate of men, women and especially children torn from their families and their country of origin. It is about a very rich folklore, full of sacrificed, sold, betrayed, lost, young women.
And all these tragic elements are perfectly intertwined; parallel roads that collide, causing an emotional earthquake.

It is an evocative story, which recalls ancient and almost lost legends of daughters thrown into the sea, girls who turn into lotus flowers, sacrificed daughters whose singing resounds in the ringing of a bell, immortal women trapped by evil men - myths that roar in Elsa’s present and haunt her, a tragic path already established, already followed by her mother. These stories are a warning, a clue, a nightmare and a teaching, they are beautiful and deep.

But "Folklorn" does not only speak of folklore, it also speaks of history - the history of Korea, destroyed by the war, and of people forced to emigrate after witnessing unforgettable scenes and having experienced terrible events, like Elsa’s parents: her father, a rich man who lost everything in America, and her mother, a silent shadow surrounded by secrets.
It’s a story of racism, the explicit one, of mean words and horrible actions, but mostly the implicit one, of haughty looks.
It’s the story of boys and girls torn from their parents' arms to be taken to a better country and to families that, not knowing how to deal with them, nullify their identities in order to make them feel at home.
It’a also a story of mental illness, hallucinations, visions, premonitory dreams and obsessions.
It’s the story of a family destroyed by pain, war, hatred, hope and illusion.

It’s a novel full of painful and heartbreaking stories, centered around Elsa, her need to understand a distant mother and the desperate search for a lost sister.
It’s an intense novel, for all the reasons written above, but it’s very well written. At first it’s kind of hard to get into the story because there’s a bit of scientific language and a closed, distant main character, difficult to understand in the beginning. Furthermore, I did not expect this kind of story (I was looking for something more magical), but once you glimpse the core of the novel, the ultimate end, the reading will go fast, it will not be simple, but very touching.

I’m not sure I enjoyed reading it, I would have preferred something else, but I can’t say it’s a bad novel. It is perfect for those who like the genre.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and I am voluntarily leaving a review.

A story on intergenerational trauma, postmemory, and migration, Folklorn by Korean American Swedish writer Angela Mi Young Hur follows the curious trajectory of Elsa, an experimental physicist who studies neutrinos, as she questions the the constructed dichotomy between the real and the imaginary, symbols and numbers and truth-telling and tale-spinning.

"My mother always spoke Korean to me," Elsa opens her narrative, "but when telling her stories she didn't sound like herself. No rich amber tones, weighted with regret-instead, her voice hollowed like a a will-o'-wisp untethered."

The way Elsa begins her story is telling; it foresees the questions that she ceaselessly asks herself, as well as the answers she seeks throughout the novel. Intertwined questions on motherhood, family values, displacement, culture, and race drive the narrative, as Hur masterfully moves beyond the dividing line between past, present, and future.

Having taken solace in the world of facts and numbers to protect herself from her seemingly dysfunctional family, Elsa, whose goal as an adolescent is simply "to get out," goes to boarding school, then leaves the U.S. and finds herself first in Sweden working on her post-doc and eventually at the South Pole.

When Elsa begins the narrative, she is thirty, and as her friend Jesper tells her, "sometimes you're like a Bergman film-but with more slapstick." Part I offers insight into her anxieties, hopes, and regrets, as Elsa prepares to return to Sweden where she plans to extend her post-doc and continue her research. The South Pole is also where her imaginary friend, whom she hasn't seen since her mother's accident sixteen years ago, reappears. In the sections to follow, Part II and Part III, the intimate link between the mystery surrounding Elsa's mother and her imaginary friend is uncovered. Although this is a painful process, Elsa handles it with humor and grace; Hur's poetic language throughout the novel certainly helps too. Occasionally, time slows down to an extent that makes it a bit difficult to follow the narrative, especially in Part II. However, this is to be expected; in this novel, "time stretch[es] like taffy" and “words melt into inky puddles.”

Growing up in California, Elsa and her brother Chris suffer from social and parental alienation. Their childhood is loaded with adult responsibilities, as the two siblings struggle to navigate their relationship with an abusive father and a crestfallen mother, both traumatized by their own family issues in Korea, the lingering effects of the Korean War, and the inevitable loss of home. Theirs is an all-too-familiar story of displacement and survival. And to cope with discrimination, racism, sexism, and abuse from her husband, Elsa's mother finds solace in Korean folktales and stories. In her mother's tales, young girls are sacrificed for prayers and Gods; nymphs are forced into marriages with Kings; sisters are betrayed by their step-mothers, and princesses trapped in a liminal space between Heaven and Hell. “You and I," her mother tells her, "we are descended from women whose lives have been degraded into common folktales. We live their lives, echoing their stories, but not their greatness--only their stupid tragedies because that is all we remember of them.”

In order to protect herself from, what her mother calls, the destiny of the women in her family "passed through the simplest direct bloodline," Elsa replaces her mother’s grim tales with science textbooks:

"[...] subject[ing] my Barbies to chemistry experiments, and w[inning] science competitions, beating out all the other Asians. Their parents were doctors and professors, but I was the true devotee because science was my survival. The language my mother couldn’t understand--how I disproved and refuted her.

[...]

I devoted myself to the read instead- numbers, formulae, facts- what Mom couldn't understand but fearfully respected. That's how I reached escape velocity, away from home into a life I'd determined for myself."

When her mother passes away, however, Elsa embarks on a mission to not only decode her mother's secrets but also to decipher the true meaning of her fairy tales. She is thus compelled to return to California, confront the past, her imaginary friend, red ribbons, Deer Gods, legendary bells, as well as who she really is.

Folklorn is a contemporary origin story that seamlessly weaves Korean folklore within a narrative of identity, migration, and home. Elsa believes that she always chooses science "for its reliable, stable certainties because the rules and empirical evidence diminished my mother and disenchanted her, got me further from home.” However, as the parallel between her research and personal struggles becomes explicit, so does the close link between the personal and the cosmic. We can see Elsa's desire to challenge the perception of neutrinos and, albeit subconsciously at first, of identity as monolithic.

Published on readingundertheolivetree.com with more quotes and details.

Many thanks to Erewhon Books and NetGalley for the advance copy!

First things first- the book opens on the protagonist, a PhD researcher, doing research in Antarctica. That alone is pretty cool.
This is a book about the stories that drive our choices. From folktales to the stories that others tell us to the stories we tell ourselves.
Through the lens of our brilliant unreliable narrator we delve into the stories and histories and folk tales of a Korean family. At times I wasn't sure if the narrator was legitimately insane or if she was truly seeing the visions she described. Either way, it was beautiful.
The folk tales were vivid, the characters full of depth and hope and pain, and the story was one that took me on a real emotional journey. Both real and surreal at the same time.

Have you ever heard of piblokto (Arctic Hysteria) or hwa-byeong (fire sickness)? These are names of culture-bound syndromes that only ‘exist’ in certain cultures and families. Let’s add the title of this book to this list of syndromes. Folklorn is in so many ways one of the best book titles I have ever come across: it hints at feeling lost, a certain (be)longing, and the magic and mystery of folk tales.

Through Elsa’s story, you explore what it means to belong somewhere – not only in terms of origin, but also in terms of relationships with people (including yourself). The many comments about race and culture and vulgar “jokes” sometimes made me feel uncomfortable and annoyed with Elsa as a narrator. I don’t like her as a person, but I do recognize that she is an insightful storyteller who fits a story like this. In fact, my slight dislike and appreciation shows Angela Mi Young Hur’s writing skills.

In Folklorn, you’ll read about what it is like to grow up in another country from two different perspectives: the adoptee and the immigrant. Neither had it easy, but despite being “neglected” by their (foster) parents, the story shows that the (foster) parents did their best with the knowledge that was available at the time.

“I just want to be enclosed and untouchable, lest anyone expect me to bloom.” Elsa is not in a happy place, yet that doesn’t make this a depressing story. Her self-mockery and thoughts show a deep-rooted hurt. One of the things that Folklorn does really well is that it creates an understanding of the characters and the situation. Just ask yourself the following question: when you act with someone’s best interests at heart, are you doing what is best for them? Did you ask them?

When Elsa returned to the USA, the story got a bit tedious. The balance tipped too much in favor of flashbacks and repetition. Also: the in-depth scientific, historical, and folkloristic explanations can get a bit lengthy at times but if you like the topics, then you’ll appreciate the information. Just when you think the story is going to linger in the past too much, it starts to move forward again. Thank you, Oskar!

The folklore is carefully woven into the real story, I especially appreciated the link to the motif from the story of the girl with the blind father. The folktales help to keep Elsa’s story on track. Elsa’s mother and the other people who ensure the transmission of cultural heritage are vigorous and, in their own way, love the next generation.

Folklorn is an intriguing read that I encourage you to pick up because it mixes folktales, science, history, and cultural aspects in such a cool way.

“I don’t find it ridiculous at all, he said. It is beautiful and meaningful because its origin is a myth, and like all great myths, the story endured because it allowed people, including immigrants- those struggling to survive and wondering if they’d made a mistake in leaving- to become part of a grander narrative that unites them with each other and with those in their past.”

As someone who, only a week or so ago, finally admitted magical realism just isn’t for me, I wasn’t sure what to expect with Folklorn. I was drawn to the themes of family, trauma, and mental illness, but would the mythical elements take me out of the story?

Instead, I stayed up until 2am to finish, needing so badly to know what happens. What a gem this book is.

Elsa is a physicist, living in Antarctica, who then returns to her post-doc position in Sweden. The child of immigrants who survived the Korean War with a lot of trauma, she keeps people at arms length, not willing to examine her family’s past or her own inherited trauma. However, when she must return home to her family, she can’t stop what comes to the surface, and she ends up drawn into the mythology her mother had created for her. Stories of women and girls, torn from their homes, married to various men in power, transformed by the experience and often traumatized. What did these mean? Why was her mother so insistent that these be the stories she passed on?

As Elsa spends time with her dad and brother, and unlocks her mother’s secrets, often with the help of Oskar, a Korean-Swedish adoptee with knowledge of Korean mythology, so much is revealed about the stories we tell ourselves and how they function to give us a sense of belonging.

It’s hard for me to put into words how beautiful this book is. The plot kept me needing to know what happens, but the searching and striving for understanding is the real heart of the book. For anyone who has wrestled with belonging, with what it means to exist in this world with the people we exist with, with what it means to be who you are and how you got there, this novel has so much to tell you.

It does have magical realism, but it is rooted in mythology and arguably mental illness, which kept even my cynical self engaged throughout. Even if you are a magic skeptic, this book is worth a read. It has so much to say, so many stories to tell, so many mysteries to present… you just need to be open to hearing it.

“I look at all of us on shore. A universe of mystery in each person. It doesn’t frighten me; it leaves me in awe. How sad would it be anyway, if all was solved and understood- what point would there be to look up at the stars? Or look at the face beside us?”

This is a devastating book about mental illness and family secrets and domestic abuse. A young scientist struggles with her relationships and work, and when her mother dies, she experiences a collapse, unable to find a path back, unable to find coherence in her life and the lives of her brother and father. Seeking a kind of therapy through folklore, she batters her way forward, moving and thinking erratically. This novel captures schizophrenia and paranoia in a remarkable, first-person narrative, and aptly describes the kinds of confused reactions from those who unknowingly witness it.

5 painful, grief filled, magically important stars

Okay, Folklorn was just way more personal to me than I anticipated it to be. It was.... incredibly surprising how close to home it felt. Elsa grew up near me, and I grew up where her Swedish home's people often emigrate to. I even almost ran to physics as well. Incredibly precise, and almost impossible for me to not rate this so highly. Angela Mi Young Hur was speaking directly to me!

Folklorn follows a Korean-American physicist, running away from the culture and folktales of her family and grounding herself in the solid concrete nature of science. Only to find out that you can't escape your history, and science reflects our lives more than we think.

I honestly don't even know how to review this book. It was beautiful, challenging, eye-opening. The integration of physics to ground Elsa, and to ground me, with the magical exploration of long told and oft lost folktales was stunning. Elsa's search for herself pushed me to also search for myself within the pages, only to find myself just about as well as she did, in a constant journey.

Every little bit of this book is important, and I felt I couldn't miss anything. From the mention of permanent makeup, especially eyebrows, to communities of immigrants giving each other loans to buy houses and start businesses. Small moments giving us a glimpse into these important, beautiful, communities. Seeing how people are able to band together and grow together by helping each other out in these communities really highlights the importance of the communities we build. All the way down to the moment where we realize that those of us of the diaspora have full right to the stories of our ancestors. It is all deeply important.

Anyway, I feel that I can't put into words how this book felt so close to me so I will just say: go read it. It's wonderful.

Big Takeaway
Read this book. It is important. It is beautiful, and wonderful, and I absolutely applaud what Angela Mi Young Hur was able to accomplish here.

The reason I was interested in this book was the fact that it involved a protagonist trying to wrestle with the side of her that's rooted in science versus the part of her that's been ingrained with her family's cultural mythology.

Dr. Elsa Park is a first-generation Korean American experimental physicist stationed at the north pole. Her life revolves around the theorized invisible neutrinos and their ghosts, far from the ghosts of her own past such as her mother's folktales, her family's hold on her as well as an imaginary friend. That is until she sees her across the ice.

What follows is Elsa trying to make sense of what's going on around her. Are the strange specters and noises she's observing real or are they in her head? It's something she's not immediately able to explain away with science especially when she's been warned by her mother of the curse that plagues all the women in her family. Or is the curse just another word for a mental illness that affects them?

Elsa is very much an unreliable narrator. You get caught up in her visions and stories. Her claim to sanity as well as her imaginations being questioned again and again. Especially after certain tragic events, when Elsa is drawn even more into her mother's folktales, her influence during Elsa's childhood, and her desperate need to find her supposed lost sister that her brother thinks is not real and that it's just something their mother made up. Their mother who has been through war, who's had to deal with a forced abusive marriage, of leaving home and journeying to a foreign country, of losing a child, and yet having to put up a vision of perfectness to the outside world.

The relationship that Elsa has with her mother takes center stage in the book. The question hanging in the air whether she's truly loved or if she's just a consequence of circumstance. It's sad and complicated. The book itself starts with her mother telling the story of a woman who had nothing material of value handing over her only daughter to a monk so they could toss her into a vat to make a bell with the child's voice for the sake of tradition. The child forever calling out to her mother through the ringing. Then there's her brother and father, both of whom were promised great things in life, and yet made all the wrong decisions at the wrong time and their hard work has been for naught. Every member of Elsa's family has been through trauma and Angela Hur does an amazing job of showing how Asian families can both support and suffocate each other.

There are drawn-out explanations and flashbacks and stories about each family member interacting with Elsa and her view of them keeps changing throughout the book. Just like the transforming fairytale characters that intersect the book they go from villains to victims, from cruel and selfish to kind and self-sacrificing and back, eventually straddling a grey area, getting caught up in doldrums of familial ties and personal ambitions. Something that is a lot more complicated when it comes to families of immigrants and especially those of Asians.

Besides the obvious issues of family, the book also shows the dilemma of being an immigrant, of racism, of being stereotyped, the effects of war, of being a transnational adoptee. The feeling that expatriates and immigrants share of having a leg on multiple countries yet belonging to neither. I loved the way the folktales left by Elsa's mother could be taken apart and applied to Elsa's own story at various points. They were both illuminating as well as destructive in their influence. The pace is a bit slow sometimes but prominently reflects Elsa's own confusion. Compared to her other family members Elsa felt a little cold and distant but it makes sense considering how much she tried to escape their fate.

Finally, the writing is actually amazing. There were so many quotes and moments that really caught my eye, that were sad and hard to forget because of the melancholy and desperation in the characters.

The first thing I have to say about Angela Hur’s "Folklorn" is that the book is a gift to the imagination. The novel is sprawling, narratively and geographically, and it leads the reader through a meandering, maze-like fantasy. The experience of reading the novel felt like if I didn’t pay attention, I would risk losing a detail that would become significant later, as the little details often were. No single genre can contain this story, but elements of mythology, memoir, and contemporary fiction come together like a chorus that brings this novel to life.

Elsa Park is at a peculiar moment of her life. In her early thirties, Elsa is a post-doc in particle physics running experiments at an international research station in Antarctica. She is trying to prove the existence of a specific kind of neutrino, a subatomic particle that can only be traced due to its interactions with other particles. “Neutrinos come in three flavors: muon, tau, electron. As they travel through space, they oscillate, changing from one flavor into another. They change identities, like shape-shifters.” A fourth kind of particle—the sterile neutrino—“would only interact with other active neutrinos, so it’d be even harder to detect than the typical neutrino. Some call it ‘the ghost particle’s ghost.’”

Then after a long day on the ice, she joins the rest of the scientists at the station for a party. They’ve made an artificial hot spring out of a large space cut into the ice, and Elsa has immersed herself in the pool. She begins to hear the deep ringing of a bell, but none of the other reveling scientists can hear it. At last she sees her childhood best friend—an imaginary friend—near her in the water: “At the pool’s edge, she rises from the water. Knotted at the end of her braid—a red ribbon unfurls. Turning head over shoulder, she meets my gaze and smiles bittersweet.” She then hears her mother’s voice from far away speaking to her in Korean: “Emmileh, emmileh”—mother, mother.

Soon we begin to learn the mythical history of Elsa’s family, a history which is rooted in Korean folktales; except Elsa realizes her family literally is a product of Korean folktales. By having a daughter, Elsa’s mother transmitted to her a cultural history and destiny. In that history and destiny, there are few traditional characters Elsa is allowed to perform. There’s the girl who was traded by her father to a monk and sacrificed in order to make a gigantic bell; there’s the girl who was married to a sea king but left him to return to land and to her blind father; and there’s the girl who was blackmailed by her husband into giving her three children, who then releases her and she flies with all her children to heaven.

Elsa gives us the precise definition of this condition: “Folklorn: a more narrowly defined culture-bound syndrome—family-bound.”

The story of "Folklorn" then becomes a novel of metaphysical journeying through Korean folklore. By going through these stories, Elsa is able to better understand herself, her family, and take the appropriate steps to process a generation’s worth of repressed emotions and unanswered questions. But there is also a lighter side to these stories. Elsa’s character is richly developed and alternates between being a driven scientist with her colleagues, a dedicated daughter to her father, and a quirky sister with her brother. There are also many scenes that examine the pitfalls of multiculturalism and the pervasive racism of people in Western countries; as a post-doc at a Swedish university, Elsa experiences similar and unique prejudices to living the US. And there so many moving passages throughout the novel—on the beauty of science, the metaphysics of identity, and the nuances of love—weaved into the mythological narrative that you begin to forget what kind of novel you are reading.

The answer is simple: "Folklorn" is engaging, unique, and memorable.

Dr. Elsa Park, an experimental particle physicist, is at the South Pole, working on collecting data, like you do, when she sees her childhood friend, or should I say, her childhood imaginary friend, and decides to follow her into the rabbit hole, that is learning to live through the grief of her mother's death.. and the aftermath of her life.

We are introduced to four major characters here aside from Elsa- Chris, her brother; Oskar, her future-lover and permanent myth google; her father; and her imaginary friend, and her mother by extension.

As children of two Korean immigrants who are war survivors, both Elsa and Chris at once mirror and play foil to each other. At first glance, we can see them as the two sides of a coin, where one is a particle physicist at the peak of her career, and the other a middle-aged, schizophrenic bum. But when you look closer, you realize which one is living, albeit painfully, in reality, and which one tends to escape into their heads; I'm sure you can read between the fine lines here. But despite all that, they are faces of the same coins, and that is shown in their shared trauma and grief, and incapability to form healthy human relations. It becomes evident in their views on family.

This whole book is a giant commentary on how debilitating repressed grief is, and, I won't lie, also a guide on how to irrevocably fuck up your kids. Like seriously, Mommy and Daddy Park do a fantastic job of it- till the very end: their father, through his abuse- first physical and later emotional, and their mother, through her stories that take a life of it's own, leeching off of theirs in turn.

There was no one perfect in this story- not Elsa, and not her ghosts. And I think that is the point, to not love them for being perfect, but to empathize. And this, Hur does through the myths, that are told from so many different perspectives: her mother's that shows the tragedy of the tales, and how women across all ages were sacrificed for one reason or another, be it love or greed, how being a woman is living a tragedy; Elsa's, that showed the strength of the women sacrificed, giving them not a delicate shape, but one of a survivor- cruel and ugly and real; and Oskar's, who showed the myths as we might interpret them at first glance, as that of a myth. And seen through these many lenses, the myths gain a life and body of their own, they become as dimensional as any character in the story.

Hur delved into a lot of different themes throughout the book- generational trauma, mental disorders, that feeling of being disconnected from one's culture, and not least of all the mythologies that shape those cultures, importance of family, and importance of human connection. And the lot of these were done quite impressively, if you take a moment to stop and think about the book.

Folklorn is a deeply cogitative tale, that through it's telling, compels you to not only think of the characters and the place they hold in their worlds, but also you, and the place you hold in yours. It seamlessly weaves the magic of ghosts into the trauma of of being haunted by one- both living and dead, and forces you to recognize, alongside the characters, what the most important aspects of living are.

Also, I really want to take a moment here to commend the writing, which was so fucking good that I couldn't discern if it was a story I was reading, or an epic poem. You will know what I'm talking about when you read it. Trust me.

So do I recommend reading this? Hell fucking yeah!

A beautifully introspective novel that weaves together themes of loss and grief, family history, culture both inherited and adopted, the effects of war and abuse, mental illness, the spiritual and the scientific. I enjoyed the blurred lines between the supernatural/spiritual and the real. It was wonderful to explore Korean tradition and folktales, a culture whose history I previously knew little about and still need to learn more. There were so many aspects of this book that kept me reading - the mother-daughter relationship between Elsa and her mother, the mystery surrounding her mother's illness and her stories. I loved to read about Elsa and Chris's relationship, and the struggles he faces. I did feel lost at some points in the story, I felt it was meandering in the middle, and that I was reaching conclusions several chapters before the characters were. I was often frustrated with Elsa, and even when I could empathise with her feelings in the circumstances she faced, I disliked the way she often spoke to and treated other people. This wasn't a heavily plot-driven book, but equally I don't think it's meant to be. We get to explore the characters and their relationships both to eachother and to their heritage. So much of this is exploring identity, and I'll definitely be interested hear the thoughts of own-voices reviewers. Overall, a very compelling and emotional read, that I think people with similar family dynamics and/or cultural history would take a lot from, and I certainly learnt a lot from.

Between a 4.5 and a 5 star, but the starkly honest beauty of Hur's prose earns 5 stars for me. Magic rooted in folklore/mythology blends with modern present day. Storytelling becomes a way of understanding family and culture. An excavation to find your role and process generational trauma. Beautiful and brutal imagery with a ribbon of hope throughout. Directly deals with racism, misogyny, immigration, domestic violence, mental health, transnational adoption, constructing an identity as a second generation immigrant. Very ambitious and the author executed it well. This novel is a journey of discovery and transformation so that you can safely inhabit the liminal spaces. I look forward to reading more from Angela Mi Young Hur.

Folklorn, by Angela Mi Young Hur, is a complex contemporary literature novel with a heavy layer of magical realism, or is it modern day shamanism? Or schizophrenia? It is many things, it weaves together loaded modern questions about immigration, loneliness, mental illness, adoption, after-war, multiculturality, applied physics, trauma, folklore, mythology and more.

This is the type of dense read where people all take away something very different. And while I will try to do justice to the book, even in a summary of this novel I can only focus on what particularly talked to me, stays in me and the questions it evoked.

The novel follows Elsa, a scientist working in Antarctica. She is on edge, brilliant but mentally unhinged by a history of violence - and the mystery her mother leaves her in the form of metaphorical Korean folk tales. Elsa is Korean American, lives in Sweden, works in Antarctica and hasn't been home in a very long time. But can we keep going and build a life when we are always running away and don't understand where we come from? Elsa is hunted by a ghost but who, or rather what is that girl following, reassuring and taunting her...

Like for a lot of books in that style we can never quite be sure what the magical elements of the books are: are they metaphors too? A real fantastical entity? Korean shamanism? The imprint of trauma? Or mental illness inherited from an already mentally fragile family… truthfully this is not the point of the book, to me the questions of identity when you are a second generation migrant, the role of a mother, her statues and inheritance, and the question of identity in a shifting world where things are hidden, unspoken become mysterious and hurtful. Everything in the book makes sense and joins together in a fascinating way. I was completely taken in that book and loved its analysis of society, even though I did not like Elsa very much. Her mother describes her as cold-hearted once, and you really do feel it. The mother is happy because that means her daughter won’t suffer to much… but that is when we start wondering if she didn’t become that way because she was pushed to be, and this is what is hurting her and breaking her.

This is a book made for multiple analysis, there are many layers to peel and dissect. It is not an enjoyable read per say, but a very satisfactory one for the mind. This is for people who loved “A Tale from the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki, or the philosophical, metaphysical scientific novels of the Spanish author José Carlos Somoza. I also Recommend Folklorn for people who like to decode patterns and meaning from things and events. This is a smart novel with many strings to follow and weave back into a modern Korean plat.

Erewhon was kind enough to pass me an ARC of this book, and I was intrigued just from the summary. There’s obviously only so much you can capture in the summary, but honestly, the breadth and depth of this novel is astounding. I took it a few chapters a night, and the sheer range of where the story takes you, even just in four to six chapters a night, is astounding. The breadth of what grief can do to people and what you let yourself believe in to preserve yourself, especially over the generations. Stories, as such, are deeply central to this novel, both folk tales and religious tales and the tales that people and families tell themselves and take their identity from, and the way all of these braid together are astounding. Yes, there’s just a bit of a ghost story in the fantasy sense here, but the ghosts of the past also play into it here too. Again, family and grief and finding the truths to ensure that maybe the next generation can break cycles of abuse and mental illness are at the core here, and as such, it’s a deeply touching story. The way Ms. Mi Young Hur writes is astounding, and is open to making an occasional meta joke at her own expense. I will warn for domestic and parental abuse, but can’t go much more into it than that. This comes out in April; pick it up when it does, pre order it. Angela Mi Young Hur is a talent I’ll be watching.

A novel about belonging, family, Korean fairy tales and plenty more.
Elsa, a Korean-American physicist, is torn between her ambition and the family history she tries to unravel.
Between the Arctic, California and Sweden Elsa is looking to find explanations and possibly closure.
Very well written, looking forward to reading more of the author's work.

arc provided by netgalley for an honest review

“these folktales also began and lived long as oral tradition, passed over generations—stolen notebooks and burning paper can’t kill these women.”

This book follows Elsa Park, a particle physicist who is doing her post doctorate work in Antartica and Sweden. She later returns to her childhood home after her mother’s death where she discovers more about herself and her mother through her mother’s korean folktales. This book is heavy on inherited trauma and a lack of identity as well as self discovery.

Folklorn is a book that I would define not only as thoughtful but introspective, I would not go into this book believing it to be a quick read. It deals with topics that many people of mixed culture, heritage, nationality etc can relate to and have experienced. I thought this was a fascinating read especially when we read of Elsa trying to understand if what she has in her memory is really or something she has imagined.

I definitely will be rereading this book before it comes out in April, there is a lot to absorb and experiencing it again would be highly beneficial.