Imagine the film The Princess Bride, but with more malnutrition and predatory overtones ... The novel is brisk and crammed with ideas. It draws on and fictionalises elements of North Korean memoirs such as Jang Jin-sung’s Dear Leader, adds a touch of The Kite Runner’s coming-of-age melancholy and slots in some thriller-inspired set pieces. The depictions of famine are striking ... The narrative is taut, which is generally to the novel’s benefit. Unfortunately, the end arrives in a frantic rush. The final pages flirt with an emotional gut-punch, then resolve it before it has a chance to make an impact. It feels cheap, especially as there is already plenty of urgency supplied by the thrusting prose ... Theroux treats the fourth wall as a semi-permeable membrane with the narrator showing signs of being a fictionalised version of the author recounting Jun-su’s story.
Arguably the most thematically interesting aspect of The Sorcerer of Pyongyang is its examination of the fictive reality of North Korea ... The great irony central to life in North Korea is highlighted by the narrative structure ... Reading The Sorcerer of Pyongyang is an informative and entertaining way to learn about North Korea. Theroux’s painstaking research intimately reveals the workings of North Korean society, in the public and private spheres. Its greatest achievement, however, is occasionally its greatest weakness. The lively, page-turning narrative sometimes falters into thinly disguised nonfiction that overshadows the characters and the development of their relationships
... The storytelling is fast-paced, sometimes too much so. The action relies on improbable coincidences, and Jun-su’s motives are not always convincing, particularly in the concluding pages. Yet Theroux also writes with intelligence, compassion and an occasional quiet lyricism. Most crucially, the novel powerfully embodies the plight of North Koreans in the state’s vast shadow.
A meticulously researched novel ... Entertaining as The Sorcerer of Pyongyang is, the book elides greater insights into the North Korean refugee experience in favor of a fast, fairy-tale ending that fails to explain the narrator’s specific interest or relationship to Jun-su’s remarkable journey or drive home its thematic significance.
Marcel Theroux has written a truly enchanting book in The Sorcerer of Pyongyang, something completely unexpected ... Theroux has written a compelling book one that shows vividly how storytelling and the imagination are the sharpest tools to fight repression ... This book is impressive as a picture of life in North Korea, but it goes beyond that, elevating the story into one that gets to the heart of what is so corrosive about propaganda, what is so liberating about the imagination. It winds through its themes to land on a deeply satisfying ending, leaving the reader much to think about and savor. Ultimately, Theroux celebrates the incredible magic of storytelling by giving us this amazing story.
Theroux’s fiction searches for hope in the most oppressive environments ... This intriguing new work from Theroux plunges readers into a dystopian North Korea and extracts the emotional complexity of a single life intended to be lived as a secondary character within its state ideology.
A switch in narrator after the peak of Jun-su’s story is jarring but does not distract from the novel’s insight into the humanity of an isolated nation.
Humorous yet insightful ... It’s frustrating that Theroux never resolves this underlying tension, though continued references to the game shed light on Jun-su and his friends’ understanding of the world ... This entertains and edifies in equal measure.
Engrossing ... The heart of the story is consistently Jun-su, who navigates the traditional matters of maturity—love, sex, friendship—alongside a growing understanding of opportunities and mindsets that his friends and family aren’t privy to ... That makes the novel a remarkable bildungsroman; here, identity is both blossoming and severely suppressed ... Theroux’s deliberately flat, investigative-reporter tone clarifies the crisis ... A cleverly imagined tale of psychic repression and escape from it.
