1939년 명성아파트 by 무경 was so so great!!
I’ve been wanting to read more fiction set during the Japanese Occupation, especially about daily life and society, how people lived during this time, what life in Seoul/Gyeongseong was like and 1939년 명성아파트 is exactly that.
Our protagonist is a young Korean orphan working as a housemaid, and through her eyes, we see how traditional Korean lifestyle cohabited with Japanese and Western introductions: food, clothes, house equipment, and of course, language.
Even though it’s not a closed-circle mystery, the setting is pretty much limited to the Myeongseong Apartment and its direct neighbourhood, I don’t think there’a single scene taking place elsewhere. But the apartment serves as a microcosm of Gyeongseong society. The characters who live there come from different social groups, a haughty Japanese professor, a poor Korean writer, a young sophisticated woman working for a department store, the scary man from the 4th floor, and of course, our protagonist’s saviour, a mysterious woman who took her under her wing … Korean and Japanese live under the same roof, but as someone says, they never once gathered all together in a same place, and it soon becomes clear that they all have their secrets to hide.
And then murder happens. I wasn’t really expecting much from the plot part, I was happy enough with the setting and the characters, but the story really surprised me. It was a very good murder case with several layers of mystery. I really wasn’t expecting at all the revelations of the last chapter!
Everything in this book was a delight to read: compelling characters who all have their secrets, a portraying of society through the apartment residents, a really good murder mystery with twists… Both the characteristics of the period and the characteristic of the apartment were relevant for the plot, so the setting and the case are closely linked, making the novel feel very coherent.
In the afterword, the author hinted at a possible sequel, I would definitely read it if it happens!