A Tall Blue Ladder by Ji-young Gong Reader’s Report by Sora Kim-Russell

A Tall Blue Ladder, the latest novel from Ji-young Gong, one of South Korea’s most popular and successful female writers, offers an intimate glimpse into the world of Korean Catholicism through the eyes of a Benedictine monk. 

The novel showcases Gong’s lyrical prose style and her passionate commitment to politics. Two of her previous novels, Our Happy Time and The Crucible, were successfully adapted to film, and The Crucible even led to a change in South Korean law regarding the rights of the disabled. With Tall Blue Ladder, the novel opens on what initially appears to be a story of forbidden love between Brother John, a young Benedictine monk, and Sohee, a graduate student engaged to another man, but as with many of Gong’s books, the narrative broadens to encompass larger questions of social responsibility and political engagement. Later, following a series of tragedies, Brother John is sent to collect testimonies regarding the Hungnam Evacuation of 1950, whereupon he learns the full history of his monastery, Waegwan Abbey, and the reasons for his grandmother’s lifelong devotion to the church. The novel is a stirring and poetic meditation on love, faith, and the lengths a person will go to for the sake of another.