The Island of Sea Women
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Great Read from Lisa See
US author Lisa See’s new masterpiece is thrilling, shocking and contemplative, often all at once. This is a book you can’t stop thinking about and a story that reveals a fascinating foreign world where women appear to be in charge, but ultimately men find a brutal way to control. At its heart are extraordinary relationships and a message of forgiveness that is universal.
The story opens with Young-sook in her 80s sitting on her local beach, “a cushion strapped to her bottom, sorting algae”. A young girl – a tourist – approaches the old lady with a photo which she says shows Young-sook at her grandmother’s wedding. But Young-sook is giving nothing away. She is one of Jeju’s famous “haenyeo”, the female free divers who for centuries have made their living harvesting sea urchins, abalone, octopus and more in the freezing waters off the coast of Jeju island in South Korea, and thanks to a tumultuous period in Korea’s history, have developed a mistrust of outsiders. Thus begins the complex story of two women, bound by a friendship that is torn apart on one historic day of dark barbarism in Jeju in 1948, an incident which for decades was covered up, when between 30,000 and 80,000 people were killed.
This is also a tale steeped in the ancient art of the “haenyeo” and the powerful matrifocal community that has existed on the island within a deeply traditional culture. Author See was inspired by “a tiny article about the diving women of Jeju. I hung onto it for eight years before I decided that now was the time to write about the haenyeo. The women hold their breath for two minutes and dive down 18 metres (deep enough to get the bends). They are the breadwinners in their families, while their husbands take care of the children. In the past, women would retire at 55. Today, the youngest haenyeo is 55. I was and am amazed by their bravery and persistence, as well as the sisterhood that they share. It’s said that in about 15 years, this culture will be gone from the world. I felt compelled to write about them while I still could.”
The driving force for the novel is the complicated relationship between two best friends. “I think a lot about women’s friendship. We will tell a friend something that we wouldn’t tell a husband, boyfriend, mother, or child. Female friendship presents a particular kind of intimacy and it can leave us open to betrayal and other failures in courage. When that happens, how do we forgive that person – our friend?” says See.
It isn’t until the final pages that the pieces of this story come together in a beautiful scene that will make you cry.