Oh San is born in a small village to a woman abandoned by her husband. An outsider in a village dominated by the Yi clan, San gravitates toward another outsider, a girl named Sur Namae. One day, near a vast minari field, while drying their clothes after playing in a stream, they share an encounter that will change both of them. Namae rejects San and what they shared, but the encounter awakens within San a longing to be loved. Abandoned by her best friend – and by her single mother every time a new boyfriend comes along – San becomes accustomed to betrayal and loneliness. As soon as she graduates high school, she leaves the village for the big city of Seoul.
Wanting to be a writer, San applies for a job at a publishing company, hoping to work with the writers she so admires. When this attempt fails, she then turns her attention to a flower shop, where the owner can only communicate by writing. After an odd interview with the owner, San is hired on the spot. The flower shop becomes a place of refuge for San, who finds comfort and healing among the cultivated blossoms. Indeed, she gives the flowers all the love that has built up so achingly inside her, even though, as the owner’s niece points out, watering them too much causes them to rot.
Yet not all is paradise among the green plants and colorful flowers. San is content, but in this contentedness she finds that the “ink in her heart” has run dry, and no matter how often she sets pen to paper, she cannot seem to summon the words she wants to write. Also, the flower shop cannot keep out the outside world forever. Into San’s refuge comes Choi Hyun-li, an arrogant, presumptuous man who flirts with her brazenly, and a photographer who is far less interested in shooting the violets he has been assigned to photograph than he is in taking pictures of San. The latter’s appearance in particular is the first wind that heralds the coming of a storm. The only question is whether San will survive the tempest.
“Violets” was actually written in 2001, “a time when,” the author explains, “women and stories of women were being systemically discriminated against and silenced.” Seoul has changed considerably in the two decades that have passed since the book’s first appearance in Korea. Some things remain the same – for example, the restaurant, Pomodoro, is still behind the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. Others, like Korean society, have changed considerably. The #MeToo movement has given women more of a voice, more of an opportunity to tell their stories. But here as well, some things remain the same – stories of such victimization are still being written, and #MeToo is often seen as inconvenient, even prompting backlash among some. Thus, two decades later, “Violets” is still a story that needs to be told and, just as importantly, one that needs to be heard. No doubt it will remain so until that hoped-for day when it is no longer relevant.