This book is great at elucidating Korean-Japanese cultural dynamics and history, and that purposeful approach feels like it takes precedence over other aspects of some characters. I think it feels like this because around 40%-ish of the book doesn’t really do this and the later half, certainly the last quarter—with the later generation of the family—is very overt. So the contrast becomes somewhat glaring.

I think that it’s a pretty great feat to pack so much content in an epic with such a short page count. This could easily have spun out into a huge book, and so the restraint, methodology and precision which makes some of the characters sometimes feel like they are there to bring forward cultural aspects, also is a strength. It’s a decision that will probably polarize people who read epics a lot. I, for one, admire the execution of the authors intent. The prose suit this perfectly.