Memories of My Ghost Brother

Rating:
Summary: real and magical
Review: Although I did not know him well, Heinz and I graduated Vassar College together in 1982. Apparently, Heinz was a better student of Professor William Gifford than I was. Fenkl's story of a young Korean-American growing up in Korea after the war is simple and honest, a child's non-judgmental view of a unique time and place. But the reader should not confuse Heinz' writing style from his precious content. We are drawn to the boy (is that a picture of young Heinz on the cover?) and his story, part horific, part fabulous fantasy, part loving tribute. We are also witness to post-war Korea, a setting virtually unknown to us, full of interesting people, events and ideas. I eagerly await Heniz' next book -- perchance another installment of the same story? I hope so.

Rating:
Summary: Fenkl's simple and beautiful writing transports the reader
Review: Although I did not know him well, Heinz and I graduated Vassar College together in 1982. Apparently, Heinz was a better student of Professor William Gifford than I was. Fenkl's story of a young Korean-American growing up in Korea after the war is simple and honest, a child's non-judgmental view of a unique time and place. But the reader should not confuse Heinz' writing style from his precious content. We are drawn to the boy (is that a picture of young Heinz on the cover?) and his story, part horific, part fabulous fantasy, part loving tribute. We are also witness to post-war Korea, a setting virtually unknown to us, full of interesting people, events and ideas. I eagerly await Heniz' next book -- perchance another installment of the same story? I hope so.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but not especially good
Review: Heinz Insu Fenkl recounts his childhood growing up as a half Korean, half American in Korea during the Vietnam war era. His father, who is stationed at the DMZ, then Vietnam, then again at the DMZ hardly appears at all in the story, but Fenkl spends many pages delving into the love-hate relationship he has with him. The characters in the story, especially old Hyongbu, are vividly depicted and each's personality really shines through the dull narrative that Fenkl provides.

It is probably in bad taste to criticize the story of someone else's life, but I can't help but wonder what exactly the reader is supposed to get out of this book. None of the issues regarding mixed-race children that Fenkl broaches are resolved. The lessons he learned from his father, Emo, and Hyongbu are never used in a meaningful way later in the story. It just seems that all the themes in the story float around with no central premise to tie everything together.

I did enjoy the retrospectives before and after each chapter, though the ones toward the end of the book when Fenkl talks about his ghost brother I found overly sentimental and flowery.

In all, this was a decent short read. You won't come away necessarily with any great understanding of mixed race childrens' psyche, but you will at least get a glimpse of what life was like in Korea during those times.

A better recommendation than this book would be A Child Called H which is an autobiography of a boy growing up in Japan during WWII. It is written in a format very similar to Ghost Brother, but is a much better written book (even in its translation!).

Rating:
Summary: powerful, moving
Review: I don't know why I like this "novel"/memoir so much, but it is a terribly moving and poweful story. Much of it is written in the deceptively simple prose of a child-narrator, though the older self "looks back" in reflective, lyrical passages that reminded me of Hemingway. I was at first put off by the first chapter: elements of haunting, mysticism, a child narrator. . .uh oh, where are we going? But as the story rolls along, I found myself more and more immersed in the story of a young, biracial child growing up near a US military base in Seoul. Descriptions of life at school, in the streets, in the GI camp were engrossing, and Fenkl's refusal to transliterate and translate some Korean words or expressions and not others was fascinating for me as a Korean American. The ethnographic folklore included here are always grounded in the harsh reality of a dim bulb in a spare room, the humanized character of a drunk, coarse uncle, and through all the traces of American culture that have infiltrated Korea. There are psychological and literal "displacements" described here that have produced painful cleavages in the family. The personal impact of social and historical realities are portrayed here in all their harshness, but this is absolutely not a sentimental "victim" story of oppression. I found myself identifying with the child-narrator, absorbed by his story, and in the end, powerfully moved.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read: A Beautiful and Haunting story
Review: I highly recommend this sensitive autobiographical account of a young boy growing up in the 60's in a country where the tradition, prejudice and yearning for a better life ran deep. Heinz Fenkl paints his life as a bi-racial child in Post-war Korea with realism and compassion. Born to an alienated German-American G.I. father and a Korean mother, Fenkl, in a way is displaced from the beginning and learns to live in the limbo world where cultures clash and mingle but neither claims him fully as its own. After years of brutal Japanese occupation and the devastating war, Korea was left barren for people to fend for themselves. The author testifies people's hardship including his own without excuses or pity but with humor and an open mind. The characters in his book are neither good nor bad-yet richly human and complex. The folktales told in the book are welcome antidotes that offer not only a glimpse of the rich oral tradition but also the redeeming quality of the storyteller, the uncle, who otherwise is a morally challenged character. Memories of My Ghost brother is a simple yet compelling book dealing with difficult issues like racism, death, the spirit realm, poverty, and human sufferings under all too human circumstances. The message I got from reading this book is that given a choice, what makes us better is to have In-Jung, the compassion for others, which in turn presents us hope for a better future.

Rating:
Summary: Wrenching story of mutual exploitation
Review: Korean-American author Heinz Insu Fenkl's first novel is an autobiographical exploration of growing up Amerasian in Korea in the 1960s.

The narrator, Heinz, to his American schoolteachers and Insu to everyone else, is the son of an American soldier and a Korean black marketeer. He lives with his mother and a gaggle of relatives in a house built and now haunted by a Japanese colonel. His father, mostly absent in Vietnam, is a blond disruption with a strange smell.

Insu identifies with his Korean roots although the large American presence is a given in his world, a gateway to riches to be exploited by any means at hand. He grows up wild, instructed by his alcoholic uncle's tales of demons and goblins, dabbling in black market goods and thievery, running the brutal streets with his friends.

His father's world of America glitters from afar, while its Korean manifestations - school, Christianity, and the contemptuous talk of soldiers, are bewildering and unpleasant.
Insu's story is turbulent, often jarring. His aunt commits suicide when spurned by her American lover, a boy he dislikes is killed in a street accident, his first friend at the American School drowns suspiciously.

Insu takes it all in stride, as children do. It is his world. But the reader sees it as an artificial and utterly venal confluence of exploitations - from both sides. This portrait is the strength of Fenkl's book, a poignant, wrenching and beautifully written novel.

Rating:
Summary: Grade B+:Energetic, simple, curious and quaint!
Review: The innocent, young voice of the author tells a tale of war from the prespective of those often overlooked- the children. This was a story that told of death, destruction, sadness and poverty but somehow did it in an uplifting and positive way. Never did I get the impression that the young boy felt sorry for himself nor his situation despite the fact that he rarely saw his father, had to watch his mother peddle on the black market and neighbors prostitute themselves. He saw many strange and demoralizing things living near an American Airforce base during the Korean War; however his spirit never faltered. You could almost see him smiling as he told his story; even though it was filled with the somber fates of many close friends and relatives. In a world where death is an every-day experience; this young boy manages to grow, mature and develop into a cautious, but optomistic man.

The story would be comparable to any classic tale of a boys journey into manhood; except this one is told in Korea, in the time of war, and from a boy who doesn't really fit in with his Korean surroundings,nor feel comfortable with the American part of his heritage. The folklore stories told from his grandfather everytime he seemed to be faced with a problem- were fitting and made the novel more ethnic and appealing. Although it lacked a lot of prtoagonist-antagonistic action, it was an entertaining and quick read. Through Heinz's experiences and feelings, I learned a bit about the Korean culture, and also got a first-hand account of the War in a way I never would have learned from a history book.