“Poison is everywhere, even in the places where you least expect it.”
Author: Monika Kim
In traditional Korean cooking, fish’s eyes are considered the most delicious and the most auspicious part of the dish. Sisters Ji-won and Ji-hyun consider this tradition stomach churning, making fun of their Umma for indulging. But they also want to be considered grown-ups. Ji-hyun can’t do it, but Ji-won is made of stronger stuff. She spears the salty eyeball, makes a wish, and lets the gelatinous mess slide down her throat. It’s a taste and a sensation she never forgets. It’s a right of passage, from childhood into adulthood, a moment that stands apart, a tradition that creates a woman and breeds an obsession.
Meanwhile, Umma is seeking meaning and stability through a new man. The sister’s traitorous father has fled the nest. His affair brought him more joy than his traditional life, and now Umma is also convinced that the traditional life holds no joy for her either. It’s a white, American man that she needs. Umma is convinced that this is the kind of man who will treat her well, and so she sees nothing wrong in George, with his piercing blue eyes, badly pronounced Korean, and obscene amount of money. She looks the other way when he flirts with Asian waitresses, when he makes snide comments about her own daughters, when his exoticism and infatuations and bad jokes slither one on top of the other, when his late nights and work projects go on and on, when his excuses pile one on top of the other. But Ji-won, she sees it all, and in her dreams, the fish eye morphs into the glistening blue eye of a man, speared and ready to eat. Dare she make fantasy into reality? Dare she make her own wishes come true, create her own luck?
The Eyes Are the Best Part is part revenge story, part degeneration into dream-like psychosis. The story has a bloody beating heart. It tackles some big subjects: marginalization and objectification of women, exoticism, hyper sexualization, cultural fetishization, racism, misogyny, child abandonment, stalking, materialism, insanity, cannibalism, and more. The overarching theme, however, is easily one of selfishness. Again and again, people in the story chose themselves, consequences to others be damned. Again and again, the pain, the suffering, the generational trauma, is intense.
There is selfishness on the part of the parents, who chose their own fulfillment over meeting the basic physical and emotional needs of their children (Umma being the prime example – a woman who can easily use denial and turning a blind eye to hook a rich man, regardless of the risk to her daughters). Even Ji-won, both the protagonist and the murderous villain, is driven by the second-generational impulse of selfishness, briefly revealed in a vignette where she destroys her friend’s happiness because she feels out of the loop, jealous because they get a good scholarship that she does not. There are layers here, self-destruction and unhealthy relationships and emotional needs breed further self-destruction and so forth. There is more here than dripping gore, and there is also self-fulfilling prophecy. Seeking your own needs above those of others creates monsters and those very monsters, born of a knowledge of their hideousness and a need for connection, mutate and devolve further. It’s deep stuff. But . . . Then, somebody has to eat an eyeball, am I right?
And believe me, somebody does. A lot of them. Because it’s not all about psychology and human need for love and understanding juxtaposed by the monster in us all, created by a mix of sin and selfish need. Nope. Part of it is a straight-up cannibalistic desire, and we get there through a merging of dreams and reality. Monkia Kim takes Ji-won through a mental journey that shows her psychosis merging with her rage. Dreams grow her desire and help her visualize it, stoking the fires of what could be – then opportunities emerge. Her rage mixes with opportunity, with daring, and before you know it – it’s eyeball time.
And so, you get a story of female rage and brilliance. I’m not saying Ji-won is a character you can totally empathize with – that little vignette with her friends gives you a glimpse into the layers of her own personality, showing you that she is just as flawed as the erstwhile Umma (a despicable and weak figure if there ever was one). Ji-won may be crazy, but she’s not sorry, and she’s not dumb, and I doubt I was the only read who shook her head and yet said, perhaps not inaudibly, “good for you girl,” after the last page settled.
So, yes, this is a story where a girl goes insane, targets men, and eats their eyeballs. But it’s got a lot more than that happening on many, many levels. You can have fun, read it on the surface, and enjoy a gory revenge tale, but with minimal effort, you can see so much more here, and with a re-reading or two, you can open up an entire discourse about what humans do to each other, about what men do to women, about how we use each other, and about the nature of need and obsession. So, let the madman or madwoman in your heart run free for a while, and treat yourself to The Eyes Are the Best Part.
“By the time you’re done with him, he’ll be begging for mercy. Who is he if he can’t control you? Is he even a man anymore? It will seem like a relief when you give him a hand, even if that hand is holding a blade. And when you take everything from him, you can say what these men say about us: He was asking for it. He was begging for it. He must have wanted it, since he didn’t fight back.” ~ The Eyes Are the Best Part
– Frances Carden
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