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Virgin Territory |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / REVIEWS |
| Author: Bruce Fulton |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 9/1/1991 |
| Size: 1,694 Words, 9,682 Characters |
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FESTIVAL FOR THREE THOUSAND MAIDENS
Richard Wiley
New York: Dutton, 1991
226 pp., $18.95
It is 1968, and Bobby Comstock, a virginal young white man, is in bed with Cherry Consiliak, a sophisticated young black woman. A vignette from the civil rights movement or the Kennedy campaign? No, this particular rendezvous takes place in rural Korea, and the two principals are Peace Corps volunteers.
This is just one of the many mind-expanding experiences that await Bobby Comstock in Festival for Three Thousand Maidens, Richard Wiley's wry novel about an American awakening to the heart and soul of a very different people and culture.
Bobby arrives in the country town of Taechon, South Korea, where he has been assigned to teach English in a middle school. There he meets a cast of improbable characters--the Goma, a stunted street urchin who is eighteen but looks twelve; the biting woman, a mad creature who haunts the local train station;...
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... countryside, there to "discuss the nature of the world."
The Koreans are so beguiled by Bobby's willingness to learn Korean, participate in the songfest, drink rice wine, and play a North Korean spy, that by novel's end they see Bobby as a kindred soul. This turnabout suggests that the vice-principal, and perhaps Koreans in general, are conquered not from without but through the heart.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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