Sunday Books & Culture
Reviews for this week include Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s floral fiction “The Language of Flowers” and Lee Chang-Dong’s short stories about Korean history “Snowy Day and Other Stories.”
Books & Culture is edited each week by Vanessa Sekinger
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS
by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Published by Ballantine Books (April 2012)
Paperback $9.63
Audiobook $14.95
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
I love walking around neighborhoods and opening the small doors on the Little Free Library boxes I find. In the midst of April showers, I found an older book that seems appropriate for May flowers. I am sharing it with you today.
Victoria Jones was a terror as a girl. She bounced from foster home to foster home, leaving each one in disarray. Abandoned as a baby, she makes sure no one gets close to her and that she gets close to no one. But that approach falls apart when she is placed with Elizabeth, who treats her with dignity and teaches her about flowers and their meaning. The two form a relationship, but something or someone rips it apart.
So Victoria is put into a group home in her teens, where she ransacks neighborhood flower beds, plucking not just blooms but root balls. She creates her own garden in a San Francisco park and tends to tender plants in cut-down milk cartons in her room, ruining the carpet. At age 18, she is turned out to fend for herself and to find a job.
The only things she knows are flowers and their meaning, so she reaches out to Bloom, a florist shop owned by Renata. Offering a nosegay she created, Victoria is given a one-day job that turns into a full-time career. She visits the flower markets in the early morning hours, picking the best blooms for upcoming weddings and events. It is there that she finds herself drawn to Grant, a young man with a flower stall. They share not only a love of flowers, but an understanding of what each one means. In that way, they begin to communicate, and a relationship forms.
Every time Victoria takes two steps forward in trying to get close to someone, she sabotages the relationship. Chapter by chapter, readers will learn what happened in each of those cases. Her index card file on each flower and its meaning helps her to make special bouquets for brides or lonely customers. But knowing the meaning of each flower seems to do little to help Victoria find peace or love. Until it does.
This is a lovely book, perfect reading for days when the Burg is part of Virginia Garden Week, when walking city streets brings the smells and colors of flowers everywhere. And at the end of the book, you’ll find “Victoria’s Dictionary of Flowers” to help you choose the proper bloom for the people in your life, be they friends, family or foes. (Several copies of this book are at Central Rappahannock Regional Library, including a book club set. You can also find it in paperback at used book stores.)
Penny A Parrish is a local writer and photographer. Click here to view her pictures.
SNOWY DAY AND OTHER STORIES
By Lee Chang-Dong
Published by Penguin Press (February 18, 20205)
Hardcover $29.00
Audiobook $14.95
Reviewed by Ashley Riggleson
Short story collections are difficult to review, but Lee Chang-Dong’s work, Snowy Day and Other Stories (beautifully translated from the Korean by Heinz Insu Fenkl and Yoosup Chang) intrigued me from the start. As soon as I read the first story, I was hooked—and there is not a single story that disappoints. Lee Chang-Dong is a singularly gifted writer.
Originally published in Korea in the 1980s, Snowy Day is a collection of dark tales set during a turbulent time in the country’s history. Korea is in the hands of a brutal dictator, and discontent and unrest are rampant. Lee Chang-Dong relies on his own dark memories of this time to write stories that explore the ways in which political unrest impacts ordinary people, whether they are simply trying to survive in a hostile environment or if they are actively protesting the government’s tyranny. Lee Chang-Dong deftly considers the intersection between desperate circumstances and morality and depicts the lengths people will go to to ensure their own survival as well as the survival of a nation.
From the epic to the intimate, Snowy Day is a profound collection in which the extraordinary and the painfully ordinary exist side by side. Although, as many readers can probably guess, there is not a lot of redemption or hope to be found here, Snowy Day is a relentlessly compelling collection of stories. While most short story collections vary in quality throughout, that is not the case with Lee Chang-Dong’s newly translated work. Instead, each story pulls the reader in like an ocean’s undertow, and before long readers have been swept into their currents.
My favorite story was the titular one, which tells the tragic tale of two very different soldiers on sentry duty during the season’s first snow, but each narrative has a cinematic quality. In recent years, Lee Chang-Dong has become increasingly well-known for his work as a film director, and it shows in this earlier collection of stories. His expert use of imagery is apparent from the start. Here a keen eye for detail meets with perfectly drawn plots and complex and layered characters to create emotionally powerful texts that are guaranteed to stay with readers well after they conclude.
Although Lee Chang-Dong should most definitely be given due credit, it is worth noting that the quality of the translation is also responsible for the collection’s success. Not a word is out of place, and the careful craft—both in terms of the quality of the storytelling and of its careful translation, is apparent throughout.
I loved reading Snowy Day and Other Stories and savored each story over weeks. I said earlier that short story collections are difficult for me to review, and I usually avoid writing about them. But Snowy Day and Other Stories is such a stunner that there is no way I could not write about it and spread the word about this outstanding collection to as many readers as possible. Snowy Day astounds.
Ashley Riggleson is a free-lance book reviewer from Rappahannock County. When she is not reading or writing book reviews, she can usually be found playing with her pets, listening to podcasts, or watching television with friends and family.
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