Silver Stallion: A Novel of Korea

The story illustrates some of the trials of Korean natives as occupying soldiers take possession of their communities and introduce some of their mores. The family that is portrayed endures what is plausible but heartbreaking, as the mother of two young children is forced into prostitution. The reader is left with a poor taste for the American fighting army - somewhat unfair since I know of many good deeds performed by the American GIs.

Needed this book for class and was extremely happy it had an electronic copy. But I would recommend it for a leisurely read as well! It wonderfully captures the time period and its changes.

Great condition, great read

Thinking I would get some insight into the Korean people's experience during the war, I ordered this. The focus seems to be on showing all American soldiers as whore mongers and Koreans as either opportunistic whores or stiff-necked puritans. The sentence structure was poor. It jumped between adults and a gang of kids, who were the more interesting.

The destructive magnitude of war on people is immeasurable. Lingering memories of the war often scar victims and survivors, especially children, for life. Ahn Junghyo, a renowned Korean writer, tactfully recaptures his own memory of the Korean War that broke out on June 25, 1950 in this heart wrenching and disturbing novel, Silver Stallion. Ahn tries to unravel the complexity of the war and fathom the impacts that the war has on Koreans. Kumsan, a remote and picturesque village, seems to have escaped from the outbreak of the war. The lives of the village people appear undisturbed and the children spend their carefree days running in the woods in search of the Legendary General and his silver stallion,unaware of arrival of the UN liberators and the communist enemies. The life as they know it shatters when two UN servicemen violate widow Ollye one evening. From that point onward, the entire village headed by the patriarch Old Hwang accompanies by other adults and children shuns Ollye and her children, Mansik and Nanhi; even though the villagers know she has been an unfortunate victim, conservative Confucian values continues to prevail. Ahn seems to tell us that Kumsan's rustic and purity has consequently been ruined in the hands of the western imperial powers. The plot thickens when an American military base--Omaha-stations at the Cucumber Island, whish is located across the river from Kumsan. Aside from the presence of the foreign personnel on the island,prostitution becomes rampant, attracting numerous poverty stricken and socially rejected women into selling their bodies for money. Conservative Kumsan villagers perceive the flourishing prostitution as an indicator of moral bankruptcy in Korea, and Old Hwang is especially outraged by this encroaching phenomenon. There is an ambiguous point of view of the island and the arrival of these unwelcome intruders. On one hand, both adults and children scavenge the garage piles in search of food and other material goods to supplement their measly diet. On the other hand, I think Ahn attempts to imply that the presence of the military base and the introduction of prostitution are extensions of the pervasive colonial imperialism that has begun to take a toll on the conventional Korean society. Ahn writes that the rapid changes taking place around Kumsan also have rippling effects on the children. This impact can be seen in two ways. First, instead of running freely in the wood or fighting against the nearby village boys in defending honor and bravery, Kusman boys engage in physical aggression against the other clan boys for food and territory on the Cucumber Island. Second, the conflict between Mansik and his playmate intensifies when Mansik verbally threatens Chandol and Jun to kill them for watching Ollye at nights. The fight between the boys extends beyond the usual fistfights; in this case, a firearm is involved which concerns with the matter of life and death. Perhaps the boys symbolize the oppressed Koreans in the sense that they want to defend itself against the invading foreign encroachment. Ahn provides a detail account of the ambivalent sentiment that Koreans felt at the outbreak of the war in 1950. The liberators advanced their imperial interests at the expense of the suffering of Korean people, completely unconcern with their welfare and well being. The legacy of the imperialist aggression left Koreans baffled with its war torn past. Most importantly, Ahn concludes the story with an open ending with Mansik looking forward to the uncertain future, as an assertion that Korea is as resilient as the child who will one day rebound and reconstruct itself as a proud nation.

I purchased this book for my 17 year old grandson, required reading for his high school senior english class. I read it first and found it a wonderful insight into another culture and what happens when a traditional way of life is shattered. I was looking forward to discussing it with him as we often do when we read the same book. He found it boooring and stuggled to get thru it. Perhaps this is a book for an older reader.

Somebody, obviously a Korean-American, had written about "the legacy of the imperialist aggression". Well, Americans, read the novel (good one) and think of it. In 1950 your soldiers saved South Koreans from a really awful fate. As a person from an ex-Communist country who spent long years in both Seoul and Pyongyang, I can assure you that the difference is unimaginable: Kimsland is indeed the closest approximation to the hell on the earth since the fall of Pol Pot's madmen. However, read the novel to see how young South Koreans came to perceive you, their saviors. You are now seen as evil intruders, not liberators. Did it make sense to send the US troops to save South Korea? No. Ditto all other foreign adventures. You cannot think of a better case of a country saved by the US than South Korea. Nonetheless, it is only a question of time before the "US imperialists" will be thrown away, and the memory of them will manipulated to create a lasting bad image. Meanwhile, the mad killers of the Pyongyang clique are being whitewashed by the South Korean youngsters and, from 2000, by the official media. This might be sad, but this is a price to pay for mingling in other people's affairs.

This was recommended to me by a Korean literary authority as one of the best translations of any Korean novel into English (it's translated by Mr. Junghyo). It's about South Korean children who live in a village near an American military base during the Korean War. The story is engaging from the start, shifting from the Huck Finnish adventures of the children to scenes of war, violence and prostitution; it is punctuated with extremely haunting, tragic (and occassionally beautiful) images. I highly recommend it -- it's better than "White Badge" (Mr. Junghyo's apparently better-known novel about Korean soldiers in the Vietnam War).

Invaders to Korea have come and gone over the centuries but they always seem to bypass the village where the teenage Mansik lives. This all changes when the UN Army, and in particular it's American contingent, arrive to set up base on Cucumber Island, just a short boat crossing from Mansik's home.The story is largely told from a child-like viewpoint and the translation reflects this with a simple vocabulary. At first the village 'gang' do all the pointless things that local teenage boys indulge in, like searching for the cave that houses the mythical General and his Silver Stallion. Yet barely a few days after the soldier's arrival Mansik's world is brutally changed and we watch as he learns to 'hate' the world around him and especially the 'bengkos'.At many points, it felt like this could be used as a school text but, in truth, it contains several graphic sexual scenes or references and should be classed as an adult read. Mansik's hatred spreads to all around him, as he realises the mythical General will not become the nation's saviour and, instead, another kind of General brings turmoil to his life.It is short and powerful. To suggest it is MASH from the civilian perspective is too simplistic, there is no humour here.