VOL.81/2025.04

Call My Name

After reading Kim Yi-Seol’s To the Lost Names

2025.03.10

I finished reading To the Lost Names (Moonji Publishing) on December 31, 2024 - the end of the year. I decided to read a book about women because December 22 is Mother’s Day in Indonesia. I chose this novel, among many others, simply because I was curious about why women lose their names when I read the title, “To the Lost Names.” By the book’s end, I felt I could relate and understand why it had such a title.

This series of four short stories has four female narrators, all of whom are either wives or mothers. Distress (우환), For Days of Delusion (기만한 날들을 위해), Missing Child (미아), and Aging Into Senility (경년) made me reflect on a lot of things about myself. Distress showed me the difficulties of being a mother after giving birth. So much changes that you can’t be the same woman you were before marriage. They are given a new identity as someone’s wife and someone’s mom, gradually losing their own identity. For Days of Delusion tells the story of a woman who takes care of her family to the extent that she is losing herself. After her children have grown up, she feels lonely and finds her life empty. Even her seemingly caring husband betrays her and meets a younger woman. When I read this story, I felt extremely lonely.
Missing Child is the third story in the novel, which tells the story of how stress after marriage torments the narrator. The narrator, who has lost her sense of joy, sadness, anger, and happiness, seems to be unable to get used to her new life after marriage without knowing what is causing it. Her husband, on the other hand, doesn’t help her even though he is aware of her depression. Her seemingly insignificant loneliness builds up over time and turns into depression.
As I read Aging Into Senility, I kept thinking, “How should we educate our children?” This story is about a mom with a son and a daughter. Each child has a unique personality. She raised her son freely, while being too strict with her daughter. It was a realistic story that made me wonder, “Have I raised them the right way?”
As a mom raising a daughter, I found this book to be like telling the story of my life. I sometimes feel so overwhelmed that I wonder, “Why did my life become like this?” After reading it, I realized that I’m definitely not the only one going through this. Maybe I’m lucky that I’m not alone and that most women go through the same thing.
“Am I happy now?” This novel seems to give me the strength to fight for my happiness. I wish all women, wives or mothers, could live with their own name.

Written by Herlinda Yuniasti (Reader of K-Book Trends)