NPR recently published an review of the best-selling Korean novel, Please Look After Mom, by Kyung-sook Shin, which was translated into English and published in the United States. The reviewer, Maureen Corrigan, apparently wasn’t a fan – which is fine, by all counts. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t pass judgment on her criticism of the novel’s literary merit, but what’s gotten everyone in a tizzy is the way Corrigan reviewed the popular novel.
“It wasn’t until the end of the novel, when Shin rolled out the Mother of all maternal suffering images — Michaelangelo’s Pieta — that I understood I was stranded in a Korean soap opera decked out as serious literary fiction.”
“Smith will get your book club on its feet and pumping its collective fists in the air, rather than knocking back the wine and reaching for the cheap consolations of kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction.”
Kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction??
Comments on the NPR board range from the incredulous to the outraged:
“This review positively reeks of ethnocentric small mindedness. Ugh, spare me the Western liberal “feminist” judgements, Maureen Corrigan.” –Jenny Han
“So, who appointed Ms. Corrigan the judge of Italian, Jewish, and Korean “mother guilt” anyway? Leaving aside the stereotypes and gratuitous cheap shots, Corrigan’s review doesn’t have much going for it–except, of course, the nice irony of a feminist adopting patronizing attitudes.” –George Viglirolo
“I heard this review on air and thought that Maureen’s quip of “kimchee-scented Kleenex” was offensive. But as for her review of the book and the writing I think she nailed it, it is right out the pages of any Korean soap opera/TV drama right down to the orphanage.” –Scott MacMullen
“I have no idea as to the correctness of Ms. Corrigan’s review as I have not read the novel “Please Look After Mom.” I do, however, as a person with Korean family members, find her rascist reference to “kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction” offense and wonder how such a comment got through NPR after the firing of Juan Williams over his “Muslim garb” comment. Is the two to three million strong Korean-American community not due the same deference that NPR is allegedly so concerned about with regards to Muslim-Americans? What if Ms. Corrigan had, in reference to Toni Morrison’s work, called it “water melon scented?” Or, in explaining this, what if one wrote Ms. Corrigan’s reviews are “Irish whiskey sotted”?
According to the Juan Willaims rule, Ms. Corrigan should be terminated for ethnically insensitive remarks. Thank God John Boehner is seeking to end tax-payer funding for NPR, which is a center of elite bias for selected favored ethnic groups only.” –Dennis Halpin
As of this posting, NPR has not yet released a statement or an apology regarding the review.
