Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea Paperback – September 21, 2010

Many books about North Korea that I have read display the absurdity, pain, sadness, and blight existence of a nation gone rogue and gone wrong. Its blatantly obvious through these texts, histories, and other news outlets that North Korea is one of the most odd nations in surviving in a post-Communist world for so long at the cost of a miserable livelihood brought together by mismanagement, extreme repression, and an Orwellian control system. Testimonies, documentaries, and research, as well as visits to the low-key state bring about the same motifs of blind acceptance of their dear leaders, paradoxes in reality vs. what they are told, showcase capitals, and the true existence of North Koreans in the most heinous of circumstances all due to neglect. So coming to read "Nothing To Envy," I expected another matter-of-fact, been there, read that book that re-hashed these themes. Instead I was truly surprised that Barbara Demick goes beyond her journalistic tendencies to create one of the finest works on North Korea out there. If I were to recommend a book to someone who has never heard of North Korea, or is curious about it, I would drop this book on them. Demick's collection of testimonies of several recent refugees from NK, weaving them into a novel-like narrative, while dropping crucial information between each section of dialog and story, is one that she pulls off well and draws out raw emotion from the reader without getting throwing politics in it. Rather than Demick posing that North Korea is an evil state by giving her opinion like a sauce that she wants you to taste, she let's the testimonies themselves let you decide what to think, and there were times I shuddered at their former life and became thankful for what I do have, and pray for the people of North Korea.What Demick does rightly in the beginning of the book is to lay her cards on the table of how long the book took to research, interview, and compile the information together. Also, she wisely says that though she has wholesale relationships and stories from the defectors, there are moments where she cannot corroborate them because obviously it is difficult to get information from within North Korea itself. Then she begins her narrative.She runs through several refugees and their former lives, mostly from the city of Chongjin which is right near the Tumen River on the Chinese border. Demick describes a young couple, Mi-ran, coming from a low-class of North Koreans because her father was a South Korean, and her boyfriend Jun-sang whose family had come from Japan. Then she later tells the tale of Mrs. Song, a woman who was a stout believer in the Communist regime to the dotted i. She thought that nothing could go wrong with their 'eternal' leader Kim Il-sung. There's Dr. Kim, a petit trained physician with an iron will to do what is right. Demick describes these and others as normal human beings where they grow up and knew nothing else of their outside world and what they believed what was normal.In between each story and chapter Demick describes in more details/historical analysis of North Korea that gives background to each person's existence, such as the Communist nation's supposed equal status for everyone though they officially classify people based on their loyalty to the state, which has effects even on how much food rations that they could receive. Or what happened to Mi-ran's father, a former South Korean POW, and what happened to these people of circumstance who were not allowed to go back home. She describes in great detail the political state structure that creates an environment of mismanagement, like the infamous collective farms or the post-war fall of Communist regimes that led to less support of the Korean regime. Demick balances a human narrative with a historical background so that you identify with the palate of emotions these people go through while getting the necessary information of understanding their circumstances.The book climaxes with the disastrous famine that occurred around the time of Kim Il-sung's death and towards 1998. Millions died. Famine became noticeable when their food rations were cut. This is the most difficult part to read: there were moments I cringed on how hunger made people turn to beasts or opportunists at the expense of others. People of Dr. Kim's profession, a noble one, were forced to hunt in the mountains and hills for food and medicine. Or watching young children die of malnutrition. At the same time Demick doesn't write a section on blasting Kim Jong-il's regime. Yet the horror stories of lack of food and the absurdity of the government's "let's eat two meals a day" paints the worst sin a government will be ultimately judged by: inaction and neglect. At this time the author puts in a new view of how North Koreans survived, and it was at times ugly and illegal (at least according to their law), but they managed to survive. She describes Chongjin's citizens doing what it takes to trade, barter, or steal to put some substance in their bellies, even if it couldn't be digested. The section about orphans who pick up scraps off the ground was heartbreaking.The final sections of the book describe the the eventual danger and migration of the refugees out from North Korea to China to South Korea. The dangers of crossing, checkpoints of getting across to another country and their repatriation laws, surviving to the dangers of exploitation, finally to the promise land. And even there our North Korean friends we read about have more gut-wrenching moments of regret in leaving their homeland and the culture shock that follows from adjusting from state control, "you follow me" to land of opportunity.Again, one of the best reads on North Korea to date. I enjoyed reading Demick's writing style and putting together a story, not an informative, static, long newspaper article about North Korea. Its quality is renowned for good use of language, like describing the love story of Jun-sang and Mi-ran that makes you know that under the umbrella of repression and absurd rules, love abounds. How Demick describes how the darkness of night due to the lack of electricity proves to be the couple's ally in having an innocent love.Sometimes its what we don't have, or what we read others don't have, that makes us appreciate life and moves us to change for something better.

"Nothing to Envy" is an outstanding, highly illuminating book about North Korea. One of the very best.It is well written and engaging. It covers multiple time periods, because she beautifully captures the life experiences of entire families of North Koreans, thereby capture a fascinating sense of history, along with more contemporary life there.Most importantly, Demick's book draws on multiple sources, mostly refugees, which makes it far stronger than most books about North Korea. Most books either focus on one refugee (or one family), while others focus on facts rather than personal stories, often based on unknown sources (where it is impossible to separate fact from opinion, and high quality information from low.) In a country where propaganda is the norm and where people can literally lose their lives by criticizing the government, it is critical to understand the quality of sources used, and it is usually impossible to share the exact source of the information, due to the understandable need to guard anonymity. By getting independent confirmation of key points using multiple sources, Demick is able to triangulate her story, and to provide much stronger support than most books written on this very complicated country.Perhaps most impressively, Demick manages to get more comprehensive coverage of life in North Korea than most sources by discussing the experiences of refugees from many different social classes, which is critically important in such an explicitly hierarchical country. Some books pay far too little attention to those critical social differences (for example, "North Korea Confidential" published in 2015 focuses primarily on the emerging upper middle class market class - see my Amazon review of that book here: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1CDBYCL1O95CV/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm), which Demick illustrates can be the difference between getting sent to a labor / death camp for the rest of your life along with three generations of your relatives, or not.I would recommend reading "Nothing to Envy" first, followed by "Only Beautiful Please", by John Everard, in 2012. The latter is a wonderfully rich book written by a former British Ambassador to North Korea. He is open about the fact that, as ambassador, he was primarily exposed to the lives of elite North Koreans, but he still brings a fascinating perspective to the table that compliments the stories told by Demick in many ways (and he is also a marvelous writer). Between the two books, one is provided with a reasonably comprehensive portrait of a fairly inscrutable country, so I highly recommend reading both. My Amazon review of Everard's also-wonderful book can be found here:https://www.amazon.com/review/R2PYGPBYSUGLY6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

The book follows the story of a few lives of people who were born and started life in North Korea and eventually, after years of social and economic deterioration struggle to survive, made the sacrifices and decisions to live in a free world. The progression of the state of the country, the people, and the economy is well represented. The personal accounts of the politics, the culture, and ultimately, the large amount of people starving to death and lack of food in general in the country is shocking and gut wrenching. Countries have sent so much aid to no avail and yet it is a country that continues to close off to the rest of the world.It took a couple chapters to warm up but soon I was intrigued and wanted to keep reading. The subject is very relevant today in 2013 and the insights, perspectives, and feelings offer a wide perspective. I would highly recommended read for anyone into current events and searching for a better understanding of the political, economical, and cultural exploration and discovery. I found the stories a bit thrilling at times and sobering and solemn in following along with the stories and lives of real people, some of whom eventually who got out. The perspective is someone outside of the inner and closely knit circles of conversation and only touches on Korean culture and behaviorism but still an admirable reporting and account of stories put together to form a picture of North Korean lives and living from an objective perspective.