Author: Min Jin Lee
Ah, the belly has a better memory than the heart!”
I thought that no matter how many hills and brooks you crossed, the whole world was Korea and everyone in it was Korean.
ideas can make men forget their own interests.
Once-tenderhearted people seemed wary and tough.
Like a man starved, Noa filled his mind, ravenous for good books.
The commonplace idea that girls were neater than boys was not true in her case.
to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement
In life, there was so much insult and injury, and she had no choice but to collect what was hers. But now she wished to take Solomon’s shame, too, and add it to her pile, though she was already overwhelmed.
She had marveled at their miniature human form and their good health.
but had he? He had given her Noa; unless she had been pregnant, she wouldn’t have married Isak, and without Isak, she wouldn’t have had Mozasu and now her grandson Solomon.
“Of course, the worst one is the tax on the mediocre. Now, that one’s a bitch.”
Phoebe loved being with Solomon’s family. It was much smaller than her own, but everyone seemed closer, as if each member were organically attached to one seamless body, whereas her enormous extended family felt like cheerfully mismatched Lego bricks in a large bucket.
Without Hansu and Isak and Noa, there wouldn’t have been this pilgrimage to this land.