MATER 2-10 is both a labor of love and a love letter to the laborers forgotten by Korean history. I loved the comprehensive historical context following railroad workers and the four generations in one family through early Japanese colonization until modern day South Korea.

The author mentioned that this book took him 30 years to write, evident in the expansive historical details and documents in MATER. For readers not as familiar with Korean history, this book provides ample background. Even as a reader who’s more well-versed in Asian history, I still learned a lot from MATER, especially the labor activists and communist movements during Japanese occupation.

However, MATER is at times too didactic in including historical events and sacrifices character/plot. The author tends to include a lot of details, and sometimes after reading those long paragraphs, I forgot where the characters are at with their journey. I also feel the characters are more vectors to convey different ideologies or to demonstrate historical events, rather than being fully-fleshed out individuals. MATER reads like 70% history and 30% fiction—I did find myself dosing off when the writing gets too wiki-like