The Naked Tree by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim and Janet Hong is a graphic novel adaptation of Pak Wan-Suh’s novel of the same name. I had no idea what the book was about, but the image of the cover of a young girl, with a wind-up key in her back was enticing. It also was as bit distributing. It gave me a feeling I knew what the book was going to be about, but when I was finally able to find a copy, it turned out to be something different.
However, there was no question that the book was both beautiful and slightly ugly. The everyday misadventures of love, loss, war, hate and all the in-between came alive on the page. Gendryu-Kim changed things slightly, with their adaptation (the order of how it started, having a few characters as more prominent characters) but the meat is there. We follow Pak Wan-Shu’s character from the late 1960s when she learns of a beloved friend’s death, to 1950s Korea. We see how she lived, loved, lost things and people, and tried to find a connection with people. Sometimes the wrong connection, because the one she wants is not available to her.
Though many people have not had to live with war and the pain,or the events she deals with, they are still familiar. Yet, they are new as well because we might not know the destruction of war, the culture of the Korean people, or be artists. Our knowledge, of course, differs, but we can relate, sympathize and even sometimes dislike the people we read about. And sometimes simultaneously.
The illustrations are unique. They are emotional, and at times I felt there was more needed, yet, they fit perfectly. Each person will experience them with their own bias and how the story affects them.
I am not sure if the novel is like this, but Gendry-Kim makes a love letter to a man their narrator loved and how that shaped things overall.
