"The beautiful and the ugly abide side-by-side in Le Cle?zio's Seoul. Through various stories told over the course of the novel by Bitna, a countryside teenager new to the city, we discover that her life in Seoul is a complex adventure, in which love and bitterness, life and death mingle in beautiful, unexpected ways. We discover Seoul from above as well as from within, and the novel even takes us as far as North Korea, in a dream that overcomes division. By the end, Bitna comes to see that parting and death, too, are fundamental aspects of life, and we sense that she is ready at last to set out on her own adventure in the vast city of Seoul."