Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village's all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook's mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility - following generations of women haenyeo - but also danger. The haenyeo free dive, holding their breath as they swim to the rocky sea bottom in pursuit of their quarry. Both will experience tragedy in the water, further deepening their bond. Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook's differences are impossible to ignore.
Book Group Review
The Borrowers Book Group from Kesgrave Library share their thoughts on The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See.
This unforgettable book draws in the reader to the very different landscape and society of the island of Jeju off South Korea. A bit slow in the beginning, once one returns to the 1930s and the Japanese occupation with the introduction to the two main female characters, the story takes off, a story of friendships, betrayal, and prejudice within a restricted society.
Well written and researched, and historically correct covering WW2 and the Korean War, it is a challenging read as the writer does not spare us the brutality and suffering of the island’s history including the 4.3 incident, the massacre at Bukchon. For some of us, the brutality expressed in the middle section of the book, was too graphic. Although the two central characters are fiction, their experience was reflected in reality. Our sympathies swayed through the book as their illiteracy, different backgrounds and inherited views, inhibited their true friendship.
The background of a co-operative society of women divers, known as haenyos, is fascinating: as breadwinners, endangering their lives by diving to incredible depths, undertaking ‘leaving-home water-work’ in the winter in the freezing waters of Vladibostok, selling their sea produce as well as maintaining their crops.
Recommendation: Fascinating, engaging, unforgettable.
