Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin PDF Download
Please look after mom is the story of a Korean family. The main protagonist is Sonyo, a 69-year-old lady who is traveling to Seoul, with her unnamed husband. Their children live in Seoul and hardly make time for them so the elderly parents have decided to visit their children and celebrate Sonyo’s birthday there. You can download Please look after mom pdf from here.
| Book title | Please Look After Mom |
| Author | Kyung-Sook Shin |
| No. Of pages | 182 pages |
| PDF Size | 917 KB |
| Language | English |
| Category | Novel |
Book Summary
However, on arriving at Seoul’s station, Sonyo goes missing which makes everyone in the family stressed out. The entire story consists of four chapters and one epilogue. Each chapter has a different narrator where he or she recalls their memories of Sonyo and how they spent their life, without taking care of Sonyo.
After the family gets the news about Sonyo’s disappearance, Hyong Chol, the eldest son of the family prints banners and missing posters of Sonyo. They hang banners and spread posters all around Seoul city and even in the neighborhood so that somehow, they could reunite with their mother.
Hyong Promise
While searching for his mother, Hyong recalls the promise he made long ago with his mother; one day, he’ll become rich and take care of his mother. Today, although he has gained an impressive fortune, he forgot about the other part of his promise and doesn’t take care of Sonyo. Due to this reason, Hyong feels guilty about the disappearance of his mother.
On the other hand, Chi-hon, the eldest daughter of Sonyo, is also suffering from the guilt of not spending enough time with her mother. Chi-hon is a writer but she always felt resentful or angry with her mother and for the very same reason, she mostly avoided Sonyo. Now, since Sonyo is lost, Chi-hon is realizing that she has failed badly as a daughter.
Chi-hon Guilt
For example, Chi-hon knew about the memory issue Sonyo is suffering from but out of her arrogance, Chi-hon didn’t tell anyone about her mother’s illness. And now, since Sonyo is missing, the guilt for being arrogant towards Sonyo is eating Chi-hon day by day. She now realizes how, her whole life, she used to treat her mother like an object rather than a human being.
Likewise, Sonyo’s unnamed husband also now realizes how he didn’t love his wife as much as she deserved to be loved. Even when he got involved with another woman, Sonyo didn’t leave him and his children. The last chapter of the novel describes the narrative of Sonyo who is now dead and her body is still not found. She is now a soul who, although, wants to visit her children but can’t do so as their houses don’t look different from those of strangers.
Still, she can visit some other people who used to be kind to her, in her lifetime. One of those people is her younger daughter who is a reflection of Sonyo and is following in her footsteps by devoting her life to the family. Similarly, Sonyo can visit her secret best friend who used to bring a smile to Sonyo’s face when she passed through rough patches in her life.
Chi-hon visiting Rome
The novel ends with Chi-hon visiting Rome, still unaware of where her mother would be. There, Chi-hon bends down to the statue of mother Mary and calls a silent prayer with a heavy heart; please look after mom!
