Tag: romance

Contemporary African fiction – reviews in brief

Since starting this blog, I have been on a journey to expand my reading horizons. These days, I read very few dead white men – if anything I read a majority of living women. But they’re still mostly white, mostly writing in English. I’ve been gradually increasing the translations in my reading mix, especially contemporary translation, but in the last couple of years I became aware of a glaring gap in my bookshelves: African fiction.

I’ve read some of the big hitters – Chinua Achebe, Ahdaf Soueif – but I have almost certainly read more books by white Europeans about Africa than books by African authors. Which is not great. So I looked up some lists of recommended books and authors. Here are mini reviews of three recent novels by African women that I have enjoyed.

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K-drama review: Crash Landing On You

Ri Jeong-hyeok, Yoon Se-ri, Gu Seung-jun and Seo Dan are the lead characters in Crash Landing On You.

I know, it’s months since I last wrote a K-drama review and I choose now to come back but it’s not about Squid Game? Rest assured, I am watching Squid Game and a write-up will follow soon. But when that dropped I was halfway through this previous smash hit show. Crash Landing On You (TvN/Netflix 2019–2020) could not be more different. And I loved it.

Crash Landing On You has all the classic K-drama ingredients: a lead couple who are clearly destined to fall in love but whose circumstances make it impossible; a huge disparity in wealth; complicated power dynamics including a chaebol family where the father is retiring and choosing which child to name as his heir; nefarious villains who kill and kidnap at will; some really beautiful friendships that withstand tests of their strength; very cheesy romance and slapstick humour that are sometimes at odds with the rest of the plot.

So what makes Crash Landing On You different from other K-dramas? The obvious thing is that much of it is set in North Korea, and many of the lead characters are North Korean (though obviously the actors are South Korean and no filming took place in North Korea). I have never seen North Korea depicted in a K-drama before (possibly because South Korea has very strict rules about depicting North Korea in its media) but this felt like it was treading a fine line where it showed the infrastructure and political system in negative light but the people as for the most part good and generous.

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Becky’s heart punches itself out of her chest and runs screaming through the room

The Bricks That Built the HousesThe Bricks That Built the Houses
by Kae Tempest

I am a big fan of Kae Tempest. Everything they create is brilliant: music, poetry, rap, books and plays. I’ve seen Kae perform live three times and they were fantastic every time.

This novel takes characters Tempest created in their solo album Everybody Down and their epic poem Brand New Ancients, and gives them a full story. Storytelling and character creation have always been Tempest’s strengths so I knew this would be great and I was right.

In the opening chapter young Londoners Becky, Harry and Leon are escaping the city with a suitcase full of stolen money. The narrative takes us back to when they all met each other and how that situation came about.

At a glitzy promo party for the launch of a Cool New Band’s music video, Becky is trying to look like she’s happy to be there, but in truth this isn’t her scene and she isn’t especially proud to be a dancer in the video. It’s dance work, which she’s glad to get, but she worries the longer she keeps taking these jobs, the worse her chances of joining a “real” dance company. Then across the room she spots Harry, and her night picks up.

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K-drama review: Let’s Eat

Let's Eat series 1 poster
In series 1 Soo-kyung shares food with her neighbours Dae-young and Jin-yi, as well as her annoying boss.

I’m not entirely sure, but I have a hunch that this TV show was cooked up (boom boom) to promote Korean food to the rest of the world. Let’s Eat (tvN 2013-2014) hits all the beats of a typical K-drama, but with cheesily shoehorned-in glamour shots of food and descriptions thereof. It’s a little like Kantaro the Sweet Tooth Salaryman but less wacky. And it actually made me want to eat most of the foods depicted.

Our hero, happily divorced paralegal Lee Soo-kyung (played by Lee Soo-kyung), is very comfortable with living alone. Her only frustration is that she loves to eat at restaurants, but dining out in her neighbourhood of Seoul is not designed for groups of one. (Most restaurants serve big sharing platters designed for 3 or 4 people.) Her best friend Kyung-mi (Jung Soo-young) is busy with her young children and Soo-kyung doesn’t really like her colleagues at the small law firm.

However, she discovers that both her next-door neighbours are also in need of company at mealtimes. Handsome but mysterious Goo Dae-young (Yoon Doo-joon, or Doojoon, a Hallyu star who has sung with Beast and Highlight) is a gourmand with a habit of lecturing his companions on the proper way to eat certain items. He works in insurance and has a tendency to put off new acquaintances by constantly trying to sell them a policy. It says a lot for Yoon that he manages to make this character charming.

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Who would put Jane Austen to an evil purpose?

The jane austen book clubThe Jane Austen Book Club
by Karen Joy Fowler

I picked this book from my TBR because I suspected it would be light and fluffy and that was all I felt capable of reading this past week. It was exactly right.

I should say upfront that I am not a big Jane Austen fan, and have not read all her works, and that didn’t impede my enjoyment of this book. In fact, it gently mocks those characters who are major Austen fans – then again, it gently mocks all its characters. I have read four of Austen’s six novels, but if you were to come to this as a complete Austen newbie, Fowler includes synopses and select quotes from literary critics at the end of the book.

The format is that each chapter is based around a meeting of the book club – so it’s a new month, a new book and a new setting (the club’s six members take it in turn to host). As is perhaps predictable, the earlier chapters contain more earnest dissections of Austen’s work, while later on it is the club members’ lives that are being analysed, for the most part.

They’re a disparate group to begin with. The club is started by Jocelyn, a middle-aged dog breeder who is worried about how her childhood friend Sylvia is handling the break-up of her marriage, so she decides this will be a useful distraction. I’m not sure that Austen’s concentration on love and marriage is actually the best distraction for Sylvia, which of course tells us something about Jocelyn.

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K-drama review: Because This is My First Life

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Because This is My First Life still
Lee Min-ki and Jung So-min co-star.

Finally, the first K-drama in a while that I have thoroughly enjoyed without any caveats. Because This is My First Life (TvN, 2017) is unashamedly romantic but also modern and, dare I say it, feminist?

Nam Se-hee (Lee Min-ki) is an app designer who is struggling to pay the mortgage on his home. Yoon Ji-ho (Jung So-min) is an assistant TV writer who can’t afford to rent a place on her own in Seoul (she had been sharing with her brother but when he gets married their parents decide Ji-ho must move out). So it’s initially an ideal situation for Ji-ho to rent Se-hee’s spare room. They’re both in their 30s, reserved, love football and like to keep a clean home.

It becomes apparent that other people are uncomfortable with the idea of an unmarried man and woman living together. So they do what seems logical: they get married, promising to each other that it is purely a financial arrangement. But of course, not only does the rest of the world have ideas about what marriage is, they also find themselves questioning what it means for their relationship to be quite so transactional.

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K-drama review: Ms Panda and Mr Hedgehog

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I deliberately picked another TV show that looked light and fluffy – I mean, it’s called Ms Panda and Mr Hedgehog (2012 Channel A). This romantic drama about patissiers certainly delivered on the fluffy front, but also managed to surprise me in a few areas (while being both lame and predictable in others).

Go Seung-ji (Lee Dong-hae AKA singer-songwriter Donghae) is a skilled 26-year-old patissier working in a small neighbourhood bakery run by the sweet, elderly Park Byung-moo (Park Geun-hyung). He’s also a little rough and wild, making money on the side as a loan shark. His nickname is Dochi (“Koseumdochi” is hedgehog in Korean) because he is prickly on the outside…

Pan Da-yang (Yoon Seung-ah) is a 28-year-old former journalist desperately trying to keep the family business Cafe Panda afloat following her parents’ death. Her younger sister Da-na and her aunt Mi-ra help out, but they are all reliant on hired baker Gil Dong-goo who is terrible at his job. On the verge of having to sell her home to pay her debts, she serves Dong-goo notice and advertises for a new baker – one willing to work solely for room and board for the first few months,

It’s a tall order, but handily Dochi has just learned that he is being paid more than the old man can afford, so he fakes a desire to strike out on his own and takes the job at Cafe Panda. Sparks immediately fly between him and Da-yang, but he doesn’t like to get close to anyone.

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K-drama review: When the Camellia Blooms

When the Camellia Blooms poster

I really enjoyed this recent release, which came out in September – November 2019 (KBS/Netflix) and is already award winning. When the Camellia Blooms effectively combines a really sweet romance with a modern twist and a suspenseful crime drama.

(I say “modern twist” because it’s about an unmarried mother finding romance, which wouldn’t be particularly novel in a European or American drama, but in Korean TV these things just don’t get depicted.)

Oh Dongbaek (Gong Hyo-jin, who I know from the excellent Don’t Dare to Dream and the mediocre Pasta) moves to the small (fictional) town of Ongsan as an unmarried single mother of a toddler. She opens a bar and surprises everyone by braving the locals’ cool reception and malicious gossip to make a modest success of her life. Six years later, romance comes knocking but at the same time, Kang Jong-ryul (Kim Ji-seok), the father of her son Pil-gu, finally tracks her down. He’s been busy playing pro baseball and making a reality show about his perfect-on-the-surface marriage to model Jessica, so he has money but not a lot else going for him.

Hwang Yong-sik (Kang Ha-neul, who has the most adorable goofy smile) is a police officer who was raised in Ongsan but has been away for years. Now he’s back, causing problems for his mother, his police superiors and for local criminals. He’s passionate and tends to throw himself full-throttle into situations. He falls hard for Dongbaek when he sees her stand up for herself to a rude customer and begins to woo her. And when he realises that an old serial murderer he’s been looking into may have reason to target Dongbaek, he makes solving the case his priority (despite being a junior officer whose responsibilities lie more in the realm of petty theft and neighbour disputes).

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K-drama review: You Are Beautiful

Tae-gyung, Min-ho/Mi-nyeo, Jermy and Shin-woo are the members of fictional K-pop group A.N.Jell.

This has not been a great few months for me, healthwise, so I am always glad to find TV shows that are entertaining, ones that don’t use too much brainpower but aren’t, you know, shit. You Are Beautiful (SBS 2009) perfectly fit the bill.

This light comedy romantic drama starts with a major nod to Sound of Music, as our heroine, a novice nun, runs clumsily late to mass. This is Ko Mi-nyeo (played by Park Shin-hye, who I know from Doctors and Pinocchio – which I loved – and Memories of the Alhambra – which I did not love – among others) and we learn that she is planning to take her vows soon, but her Mother Superior isn’t convinced this is the right choice for Mi-nyeo, and so enthusiastically encourages her to take a leave of absence to join a singing group as part of a ridiculous plan that is brought to her by music manager, Ma Hoon-yi.

Mi-nyeo’s brother Mi-nam has apparently won a talent contest to join K-pop group A.N.Jell, but he then had some botched plastic surgery that means he needs to secretly stay in hospital for a while. Handily, Mi-nyeo is his identical twin, so could she dress up as a man for a month so that the music label doesn’t find out? Also handily, her singing voice sounds a lot like her brother’s, so the only training she needs is to add emotion. Oh, how will she find emotional meaning surrounded by handsome young men?

Mi-nyeo agrees to this plan based on lies and dishonesty both to save her brother’s career and in the hope that if her brother becomes famous, their mother will come and find them. The twins were raised at an orphanage run by the convent after their composer father died, and never knowing their singer mother is their greatest sorrow. Hoon-yi and the band’s stylist Coordi will help keep Mi-nyeo’s secret until the real Mi-nam returns.

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K-drama review: Descendants of the Sun

From left: Captain Yoo Si-jin, Dr Kang Mo-yeong, Sergeant Seo Dae-young and Lt Yoon Myung-ju.

I know, it’s barely two weeks since my last K-drama review and this show is 16 hours long. No wonder I haven’t read much. My excuses are twofold: I was a bit brain foggy and I found this series addictive. From the first episode of Descendants of the Sun (KBS 2016), I knew I was in trouble.

After the low stakes of Coffee Prince, this drama was much more serious, but still sweet. It opens with an impressive set piece in the DMZ between North and South Korea. After soldiers from both sides of the border fight with knives in a stand-off that the public can never be told about, the triumphant leader of the South Korean commandos removes the scarf covering his face to reveal our hero: Captain Yoo Si-jin (Song Joong-ki).

Our heroine has a slightly less violent introduction but is still instantly impressive. Dr Kang Mo-yeong (Song Hye-kyo) is a surgeon at a big hospital in Seoul. She’s great at her job but keeps getting overlooked for promotions because she doesn’t have connections. She doesn’t take any shit from patients but does get on well with her colleagues and is willing to suck up to her superiors so long as it doesn’t break her moral code.

Si-jin and his best bud Sergeant Seo Dae-young (Jin Goo) are on leave and enjoying a funfair when they foil a robbery. The thief, Kim Gi-bum (Kim Min-seok, who I know from Doctors and Hello, My Twenties) is taken to hospital, with Si-jin and Dae-young in pursuit when they realise he still has one of their phones. Dr Kang initially thinks they are hoodlums harassing her patient and refuses to let them near Gi-bum (who, for reasons that I could never figure out, has as his next-of-kin Dae-young’s on-off girlfriend Lt Yoon Myung-ju – a military doctor who trained with Dr Kang). But when Gi-bum tries to run away from the hospital, he runs into a real gang and ends up being saved by Si-jin and Dae-young in the pilot’s second excellent set piece.

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