SAME BED DIFFERENT DREAMS

by Ed Park

I should have realized I wouldn’t love Same Bed Different Dreams when I got 200 pages in and realized I had no idea who was who and what was going on.  But instead of closing the book and selecting a different book, I started it over!  

Same Bed Different Dreams traces the origins of the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) in 1919 to protest Japan’s occupation of Korea.  But after Japan was defeated in World War II, the KPG dissolved.  Ed Park writes his vision of what might have been if the KPG had not dissolved and continued to work towards unifying South and North Korea.  The book did much to educate me on the history of Korea. (Although, I often found myself asking, “Wait did this actually happen, or is Park just imagining it did?). Park uses three points of view to present a story within a story within a story.  In the end, I found the effort of patching it all together far exceeded the reward of understanding.  Park’s style reminded me of Italo Calvino’s in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.  That novel also required pulling and weaving strings in order to put the story together.  Except the payoff at the end of that book felt much more satisfying.  With reluctance, I have to say I found Same Bed Different Dreams was Not My Cup of Tea.  (Liz)