“The sea is better than a mother. You can love your mother, and she still might leave you. You can love or hate the sea, but it will always be there. Forever. The sea has been the center of her life. It has nurtured her and stolen from her, but it has never left.”
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See is brilliant.
This was my fourth Lisa See read, and I am reminded why she continues to dominate the top of my “favorite historical fiction” list. The best historical fiction does exactly this: takes an interesting period of history and then places a specific relationship or group of people at the core. It gives history a name, a face, and a beating heart.
The Island of Sea Women sweeps us into a quickly flowing current of Jeju Island, Korea in the 1930s and 1940s (and beyond). At the center of Japanese colonization and the looming threat of World War II, we find Mi-ja and Young-sook, a pair of young women who have formed a close bond. Their village culture is dominated by their collective of diving women, the haenyeo.
That collective of women is the beating heart throughout this book. The tradition of diving into the sea fields is built on trust, strength, and wisdom. Facing the dangers of their profession with witty banter and camaraderie, these women dive for their harvest time and time again to feed their families and provide education for their children and siblings.
Mi-ja and Young-sook, like so many of Lisa See’s protagonists, carry us with them through a generation that faces the hardship of war and violence, the desperation to preserve their traditions, and the joys and pains of building families. And See pulls no punches from the first few chapters of this novel. She doesn’t shield us from the reality of the lives her characters live. We sit beside them to share their greatest joys and their deepest pains.
“Joy is a delicious luxury that we experience most cautiously, for tragedy conceals itself around every corner.”
See’s writing is incredibly immersive. Her attention to detail in the environment and culture is superb. Whenever I step into the pages of one of her books, I’m there. The characters are so real, and the world is so raw and painfully beautiful.
This book does not shy away from heavy content. Lisa See tackles life’s worst moments with an unapologetic grace. Nothing is sensationalized or glorified, it is simply seen and felt. She asks us to step into a time in Korean history that is largely hidden from the Western world, and find the story of humanity amidst the chaos of war, violence, and a friendship pushed to the breaking point.
Once again, I have nothing but applause for Lisa See’s powerful storytelling, and the characters who bring this world so vibrantly to life.
