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I Have the Right to Destroy Myself
A “mesmerizing” novel of a love triangle and a mysterious disappearance in South Korea (Booklist). In the fast-paced, high-urban landscape of Seoul, C and K are brothers who have fallen in love with the same beguiling drifter, Se-yeon, who gives herself freely to both of them. Then, just as they are trying desperately to forge a connection in an alienated world, Se-yeon suddenly disappears. All the while, a spectral, calculating narrator haunts the edges of their lives, working to help the lost and hurting find escape through suicide. When Se-yeon reemerges, it is as the narrator’s new client. Recalling the emotional tension of Milan Kundera and the existential anguish of Bret Easton Ellis, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself is a dreamlike “literary exploration of truth, death, desire and identity” (Publishers Weekly). Cinematic in its urgency, the novel offers “an atmosphere of menacing ennui [set] to a soundtrack of Leonard Cohen tunes” (Newark Star-Ledger). “Kim’s novel is art built upon art. His style is reminiscent of Kafka’s and also relies on images of paintings (Jacques-Louis David’s ‘The Death of Marat,’ Gustav Klimt’s ‘Judith’) and film (Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Stranger Than Paradise’). The philosophy—life is worthless and small—reminds us of Camus and Sartre, risky territory for a young writer. . . . But Kim has the advantage of the urban South Korean landscape. Fast cars, sex with lollipops and weather fronts from Siberia lend a unique flavor to good old-fashioned nihilism. Think of it as Korean noir.” —Los Angeles Times “Like Georges Simenon, [Kim’s] keen engagement with human perversity yields an abundance of thrills as well as chills (and, for good measure, a couple of memorable laughs). This is a real find.” —Han Ong, author of Fixer Chao
131 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 30, 1995
279 people are currently reading
14892 people want to read
About the author
Young-ha Kim
38 books550 followersKim Young-ha is the author of seven novels, including the acclaimed I Have the Right to Destroy Myself and Black Flower - and five short story collections.
He has won every major Korean literature award, and his works have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He lives in Seoul, South Korea.
He has won every major Korean literature award, and his works have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He lives in Seoul, South Korea.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 928 reviews
October 18, 2021
This website is a fresh and unique hell, and yet I adore it and use it every day.
This is for one or more of the following reasons:
- I love attention
- I'm addicted to lists and updating lists
- This is a site by and for people who love books, and that is, inherently, a good thing.
And yet there is also one thing, besides the lack of updates and the people getting angry at me every day and the John Green stans, that I do not like.
And that is the lack of differentiation between the narrator and the author when reviewing a book.
If an author who is sexist writes a book that is sexist, that is bad. That's bigotry. But if an author writes a book in which the NARRATOR is sexist, that doesn't have to be. That can be a well-done commentary.
This book, for example. If the author goes out of his way to tell you that our narrator ignored a woman's real name in order to nickname her after a sex object, you should listen to the author telling you that's how he perceives her - that he ignores her real identity in favor of her serving as a literally flat and surface level sexual figure.
And then if another female character is similar to that woman for a reason the narrator can't identify, and he also nicknames that woman after an art-based sex object, you have that in your toolbox.
See how f*cking pretentious this is? But god it is so goddamn frustrating to see people read without thinking. Isn't that why we read in the first place!?
Bottom line: I am sorry and at the same time I am not.
------------------
pre-review
i hate when i can't figure out why a book's average rating is so low. it makes me assume most people didn't get it, and i hate to be pretentious.
review to come / 3.5ish
------------------
tbr review
how am i supposed to resist a title / cover combination like that
This is for one or more of the following reasons:
- I love attention
- I'm addicted to lists and updating lists
- This is a site by and for people who love books, and that is, inherently, a good thing.
And yet there is also one thing, besides the lack of updates and the people getting angry at me every day and the John Green stans, that I do not like.
And that is the lack of differentiation between the narrator and the author when reviewing a book.
If an author who is sexist writes a book that is sexist, that is bad. That's bigotry. But if an author writes a book in which the NARRATOR is sexist, that doesn't have to be. That can be a well-done commentary.
This book, for example. If the author goes out of his way to tell you that our narrator ignored a woman's real name in order to nickname her after a sex object, you should listen to the author telling you that's how he perceives her - that he ignores her real identity in favor of her serving as a literally flat and surface level sexual figure.
And then if another female character is similar to that woman for a reason the narrator can't identify, and he also nicknames that woman after an art-based sex object, you have that in your toolbox.
See how f*cking pretentious this is? But god it is so goddamn frustrating to see people read without thinking. Isn't that why we read in the first place!?
Bottom line: I am sorry and at the same time I am not.
------------------
pre-review
i hate when i can't figure out why a book's average rating is so low. it makes me assume most people didn't get it, and i hate to be pretentious.
review to come / 3.5ish
------------------
tbr review
how am i supposed to resist a title / cover combination like that
December 3, 2007
Looking over other people's reviews, I'm kind of annoyed. People point out that it is quite disturbing, graphic, and often unpleasant. And cite that as a reason for it being bad. This kind of thinking is shallow and stupid. Yes, it's not about puppies. Not everything is about puppies, guys.
It was a good book. It all tied together very nicely (though it was a little confusing for a second), and had some very insightful lines/moments. This book is translated from Korean, so I wonder if anything was lost in translation? I didn't even notice any awkard language, I think the translation went quite well.
Also, the cover art is beautiful. I want it as a poster on my wall, sans the words.
Anyway, overall this book was a quick and mentally stimulating read. Memorable and unique, though definitely a bit pretentious, especially in its reflections on art, but that was easily one of the best parts. Oh, but for the record, Young-Ha kim, thank you for the image of a chick force-feeding a guy a bottle of his own cum out of an Evian bottle.
It was a good book. It all tied together very nicely (though it was a little confusing for a second), and had some very insightful lines/moments. This book is translated from Korean, so I wonder if anything was lost in translation? I didn't even notice any awkard language, I think the translation went quite well.
Also, the cover art is beautiful. I want it as a poster on my wall, sans the words.
Anyway, overall this book was a quick and mentally stimulating read. Memorable and unique, though definitely a bit pretentious, especially in its reflections on art, but that was easily one of the best parts. Oh, but for the record, Young-Ha kim, thank you for the image of a chick force-feeding a guy a bottle of his own cum out of an Evian bottle.
August 21, 2015
TRIGGERS: SUICIDE
But it was easy to move people back in those days, like the way Anne Frank's diary touched a nerve because of the Halocaust. But now it isn't so easy. Death has become pornographic, shown live on TV. Massacres, which used to be unearthed through rumor, are quickly reported in detail via satellite.
This book, which centers on a man who goes around finding "clients" whom he then helps commit suicide, is not as interesting or as revolutionary as I thought it would be.
For one thing, the premise sounds intriguing. This guy looks for people who he thinks should kill themselves. NOT because their lives are shitty, or he thinks they have nothing to live for or something. No, he thinks the potential to be a suicide is because... Well, he thinks it is a form of psychosis. People who should kill themselves (he says) are bored with life, get no joy or meaning out of life, and are just randomly wandering through life bored. That's his whole schtick. He finds these people and encourages/convinces them to commit suicide. This makes him deeply happy and excited, because he is a psychopath, too, just a different kind of psychopath.
"Did you see him?" I asked.
Mimi nodded. "It was a great project. But he can't save me."
"Nobody can save anyone," I replied.
So.
You may think that this book will be really interesting, but it's not.
Two people are convinced to commit suicide in this book - both are women. And there's this weird sexual undertone about death and sex being connected. I didn't like it. Not only because I thought it was sick, but also because it was just very cliched and boring.
There's some really gross stuff in here. Sick stuff. I'm warning you in case you have a sensitivity to that sort of thing. For instance, one woman becomes violently sick, vomiting every time she drinks water. She can never drink water. Why? TRUST ME, YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW. I toyed with the idea of hiding it in a spoiler, but I'm just not the kind of person who gets joy out of grossing out other people - and typing it out was making me feel a bit ill, so you'll just have to read the book if you want to know.
I am actually fine with gross stuff being in a book, but I only feel this way if I feel like it is integral to the plot, or is helping the plot move forward, or is important to know so that you can understand a character. Here, I feel it is just meaningless and meant to shock you.
Sex is also portrayed in this book as a kind of boring, dull, banal act that elicits no excitement from either party and is just done out of boredom.
There's no character development, and no attachments developed for any character.
Also, Kim uses dialogue NOT as a way of having people actually talk to each other, but so that his philosophies and ideas can be spouted off in long paragraphs of what essentially amounts to the author lecturing you about life. This makes the book not so much a novel as a philosophy thesis.
...
This book is South Korean. The author is South Korean and it takes place in South Korea. I don't usually read any South Korean books, so I was interested in picking this up because I always like to expand my reading horizons.
The cover is absolutely the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.
...
I took off my gloves when I left her apartment. I always wear gloves when I go to a client's place, to make sure my fingerprints aren't discovered. Sometimes there are clients who want sex, but I usually refuse. But if I can't, I use contraception. Not only do I want to be prepared for a possible autopsy, it's also indecent for a new life to awaken in a dead body.
Tl;dr - I feel like this book is trying to hard to "be artsy" or "be deep." I don't like books that do that. I'd rather read a novel. This only claims to be a novel, when really it's a philosophical treatise. It's just a masturbatory exercise on the part of the author, reveling in his deep thoughts and his creation of art. While he has some good ideas in here, he fails at writing dialogue, he fails at creating characters that the reader can connect with in even the smallest of ways, and his plot is neither cohesive nor gripping.
Available in Spanish as Tengo el derecho a destruirme.
But it was easy to move people back in those days, like the way Anne Frank's diary touched a nerve because of the Halocaust. But now it isn't so easy. Death has become pornographic, shown live on TV. Massacres, which used to be unearthed through rumor, are quickly reported in detail via satellite.
This book, which centers on a man who goes around finding "clients" whom he then helps commit suicide, is not as interesting or as revolutionary as I thought it would be.
For one thing, the premise sounds intriguing. This guy looks for people who he thinks should kill themselves. NOT because their lives are shitty, or he thinks they have nothing to live for or something. No, he thinks the potential to be a suicide is because... Well, he thinks it is a form of psychosis. People who should kill themselves (he says) are bored with life, get no joy or meaning out of life, and are just randomly wandering through life bored. That's his whole schtick. He finds these people and encourages/convinces them to commit suicide. This makes him deeply happy and excited, because he is a psychopath, too, just a different kind of psychopath.
"Did you see him?" I asked.
Mimi nodded. "It was a great project. But he can't save me."
"Nobody can save anyone," I replied.
So.
You may think that this book will be really interesting, but it's not.
Two people are convinced to commit suicide in this book - both are women. And there's this weird sexual undertone about death and sex being connected. I didn't like it. Not only because I thought it was sick, but also because it was just very cliched and boring.
There's some really gross stuff in here. Sick stuff. I'm warning you in case you have a sensitivity to that sort of thing. For instance, one woman becomes violently sick, vomiting every time she drinks water. She can never drink water. Why? TRUST ME, YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW. I toyed with the idea of hiding it in a spoiler, but I'm just not the kind of person who gets joy out of grossing out other people - and typing it out was making me feel a bit ill, so you'll just have to read the book if you want to know.
I am actually fine with gross stuff being in a book, but I only feel this way if I feel like it is integral to the plot, or is helping the plot move forward, or is important to know so that you can understand a character. Here, I feel it is just meaningless and meant to shock you.
Sex is also portrayed in this book as a kind of boring, dull, banal act that elicits no excitement from either party and is just done out of boredom.
There's no character development, and no attachments developed for any character.
Also, Kim uses dialogue NOT as a way of having people actually talk to each other, but so that his philosophies and ideas can be spouted off in long paragraphs of what essentially amounts to the author lecturing you about life. This makes the book not so much a novel as a philosophy thesis.
...
This book is South Korean. The author is South Korean and it takes place in South Korea. I don't usually read any South Korean books, so I was interested in picking this up because I always like to expand my reading horizons.
The cover is absolutely the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.
...
I took off my gloves when I left her apartment. I always wear gloves when I go to a client's place, to make sure my fingerprints aren't discovered. Sometimes there are clients who want sex, but I usually refuse. But if I can't, I use contraception. Not only do I want to be prepared for a possible autopsy, it's also indecent for a new life to awaken in a dead body.
Tl;dr - I feel like this book is trying to hard to "be artsy" or "be deep." I don't like books that do that. I'd rather read a novel. This only claims to be a novel, when really it's a philosophical treatise. It's just a masturbatory exercise on the part of the author, reveling in his deep thoughts and his creation of art. While he has some good ideas in here, he fails at writing dialogue, he fails at creating characters that the reader can connect with in even the smallest of ways, and his plot is neither cohesive nor gripping.
Available in Spanish as Tengo el derecho a destruirme.
July 5, 2009
Wow! I had no idea what I was getting into when I started reading I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, but I loved it.
It is a novella about life and living, told from the perspective a man who brings suicide to "clients" he meets, leading them to an end they are happy with and fulfilled by. But it's also a novel about the lives of people who are content to keep living even if they're incapable of loving.
Mostly, though, it's a story about living most at the moment of death.
And that is what Young-ha Kim gets in a way that so many don't -- death is life.
It is not just that death is the inevitable end of life, it is that death is life itself, and that suicide doesn't have to be an act of despair from a hollow or depressed or weak individual. It can be an embracing of life, a meeting of that ultimate moment of life on one's own terms. From Young-ha Kim's perspective, and the perspective of his nameless, faceless narrator, death/suicide is the ultimate artistic expression -- and what is art but a passionate expression of life and living?
This book is not for a wide audience, and it will fall into many hands that will revile it and many more hands that will simply not be in a place to embrace it.
I Have the Right to Destroy Myself is a piece of antagonistic art, a sort of literary Exotica, a sparing, Egoyan-esque journey through light posing as darkness, and it will someday be held responsible, I have no doubt, for the suicide of some teenager, in some middle class North American town.
But if you know you are capable of celebrating life in all its complexity, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself is a debut novel that will remind you that there are authors out there who can still feel. And this book will make you feel too.
It is a novella about life and living, told from the perspective a man who brings suicide to "clients" he meets, leading them to an end they are happy with and fulfilled by. But it's also a novel about the lives of people who are content to keep living even if they're incapable of loving.
Mostly, though, it's a story about living most at the moment of death.
And that is what Young-ha Kim gets in a way that so many don't -- death is life.
It is not just that death is the inevitable end of life, it is that death is life itself, and that suicide doesn't have to be an act of despair from a hollow or depressed or weak individual. It can be an embracing of life, a meeting of that ultimate moment of life on one's own terms. From Young-ha Kim's perspective, and the perspective of his nameless, faceless narrator, death/suicide is the ultimate artistic expression -- and what is art but a passionate expression of life and living?
This book is not for a wide audience, and it will fall into many hands that will revile it and many more hands that will simply not be in a place to embrace it.
I Have the Right to Destroy Myself is a piece of antagonistic art, a sort of literary Exotica, a sparing, Egoyan-esque journey through light posing as darkness, and it will someday be held responsible, I have no doubt, for the suicide of some teenager, in some middle class North American town.
But if you know you are capable of celebrating life in all its complexity, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself is a debut novel that will remind you that there are authors out there who can still feel. And this book will make you feel too.
January 30, 2025
“I always take a close look at those who lose themselves in self-portraits. They are solitary souls, prone to introspection, who have really grappled with their existence. And they know such introspection, though painful, is secretly exhilarating. And if someone asks me the kind of question I myself might pose, I can tell he's lonely.”
Reading this book was like gazing at one of those Surrealist paintings. They have such a beautiful air of sophistication about them, but could be easily perceived as a shallow, pretentious attempt at uniqueness if made by an artist who doesn't ring a bell in your head at first glance. But the good thing is that I don't consider my tastes in either art or books to be particularly refined. If I read a book and it screams "deep stuff" to me, there's a good chance I'll end up liking it.
It's hard to summarise what this book is about. It could be about our unnamed narrator, who assists people with committing suicides as a living and seems to like fine arts as much as I do. It could also be about the woman who likes to eat Chupa Chups while having sex and becomes a client of the former at some point. It could also tell us the story of K and C, two brothers trying to win against each other in life, and falling for the said Chupa Chups Girl.
Kim Young-Ha's writing is poetic, sometimes overtly so, casually weaving the stories of a cast of widely different characters through an apparently intangible string of melancholia. The male characters are sexist to the point where they even dehumanise the women around them, assigning them names inspired from haughty seductress figures from old European paintings. The female characters are all supremely enigmatic forces of nature, haunting their companions with their alluring, scandalous pasts. But that seemed to be kind of the point the author was deliberately trying to make, so I didn't mind it a bit.
This is so random, but if you like art history, weird people doing morally questionable things while being extremely pretentious about it, and flowery writing, you might like this book too.
3.75 stars, not rounded up because I like it that way.
Pre-reading Update
...Me every time I screw up with yet another important thing.
Reading this book was like gazing at one of those Surrealist paintings. They have such a beautiful air of sophistication about them, but could be easily perceived as a shallow, pretentious attempt at uniqueness if made by an artist who doesn't ring a bell in your head at first glance. But the good thing is that I don't consider my tastes in either art or books to be particularly refined. If I read a book and it screams "deep stuff" to me, there's a good chance I'll end up liking it.
It's hard to summarise what this book is about. It could be about our unnamed narrator, who assists people with committing suicides as a living and seems to like fine arts as much as I do. It could also be about the woman who likes to eat Chupa Chups while having sex and becomes a client of the former at some point. It could also tell us the story of K and C, two brothers trying to win against each other in life, and falling for the said Chupa Chups Girl.
Kim Young-Ha's writing is poetic, sometimes overtly so, casually weaving the stories of a cast of widely different characters through an apparently intangible string of melancholia. The male characters are sexist to the point where they even dehumanise the women around them, assigning them names inspired from haughty seductress figures from old European paintings. The female characters are all supremely enigmatic forces of nature, haunting their companions with their alluring, scandalous pasts. But that seemed to be kind of the point the author was deliberately trying to make, so I didn't mind it a bit.
This is so random, but if you like art history, weird people doing morally questionable things while being extremely pretentious about it, and flowery writing, you might like this book too.
3.75 stars, not rounded up because I like it that way.
Pre-reading Update
...Me every time I screw up with yet another important thing.
February 10, 2025
A professional accessory to suicides narrates the story of two women entangled with two brothers. Detachment from people, existential loneliness and being unmoored in society form major themes
“It was a great project. But he can’t save me.”
Nobody can save anyone,” I replied.
I am very sure that I read this book in Dutch somewhere 16 to 18 years ago (it feels crazy to say this, almost two decades...), but since I couldn’t recall anything besides the premise of the narrator aiding suicidal people, I’ve reread it. I Have The Right To Destroy Myself is a slim book, with a stories inside stories framing. We follow C, an older brother and video artist and K, younger brother and taxi driver who relaxes by crossing the speed limit (this is all pre-Uber so his drunk passengers experiencing this are not impacting his business too much apparently).
They are vying for the attention of Judith/Se-yeon, nicknamed after the Gustav Klimt painting. In the second part of the book we meet performance artist Mimi.
The narrator doesn’t really come into focus much himself (I initially thought it was a woman, but when he has sex in Vienna I concluded differently). The overall premise of his job, and the potential complications it would bring with it, including police investigations into money transfers to random strangers just before the suicides, are not further delved into unfortunately.
A bleak work, where existential unmooring is ubiquitous. One is hard pressed to really discover much of the Korean setting in the tale, in a sense it reminded me of the globalist stories in Ghostwritten from the turn of the millennium (I am a bit confused on the actual timing of the book, we have smoking in an European museum restaurant, which made me think this was set in the 1980s, but people do have cell phones, Macs, yet also use a paper map in a foreign city), and I can understand how I forgot the characters and more details of the plot. There are impressively done individual scenes in the book, including the paint, body and hair filled performance art of Mimi and one of the brothers and Judith being stranded in a snowstorm. And the potentially true story of how a woman gets sick by drinking water is also very disturbing.
Definitely not poorly written by Kim Young-ha, if maybe a bit top heavy in terms of depictions of sex, more an expression of wanting to escape everyday life than an outcome of actual lust or romantic feelings, and slightly pretentious/on the nose in the now in how Delacroix, David and Klimt are mixed with ChuppaChups as influences.
Quotes:
A revolution cannot progress without the fuel of terror. With time that relationship inverts: The revolution presses forward for the sake of terror. Like an artist, the man creating terror should be detached, cold-blooded. He must keep in mind that the energy of the terror he releases can consume him.
People who don’t know how to summarize have no dignity. Neither do people who needlessly drag on their messy lives. They who don’t know the beauty of simplification, of pruning away the unnecessary, die without ever comprehending the true meaning of life.
But I don’t encourage murder. This type of inflammatory comment is merely to weed out the kind of people I don’t want. I have no interest in one person killing another. I only want to draw out morbid desires, imprisoned deep in the unconscious. This lust, once freed, starts growing. The caller’s imagination runs free, and she soon discovers her potential.
I hide my tastes with constant talk. Uncomprehending, they shake their heads at me, because I keep dodging their expectations of who I am. But this is to be expected, as nobody really knows much about a god.
But no matter how you die, the world always stays the same.
“Doesn’t it make you tired?”
“Life is tiring. I’m used to it, anyway”
I would like to be bored for eternity
You guys seem different, but deep down, you’re identical. And people who can’t kill can’t ever truly love.
Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic.
It’s easy to have sex when you can’t really communicate
He hadn’t forgotten that the things he was attracted to were usually the very same ones that pushed him into an abyss.
All criticism of performance art starts with the fear of true beauty. People preserve beauty because of their obsession with immortality. They are slaves of dead art.
When he turned thirty, he had realized that the ability to love another is a skill.
Cruelty breeds a secret pleasure.
C thought his brother looked like a hyperrealist drawing.
“It was a great project. But he can’t save me.”
Nobody can save anyone,” I replied.
I am very sure that I read this book in Dutch somewhere 16 to 18 years ago (it feels crazy to say this, almost two decades...), but since I couldn’t recall anything besides the premise of the narrator aiding suicidal people, I’ve reread it. I Have The Right To Destroy Myself is a slim book, with a stories inside stories framing. We follow C, an older brother and video artist and K, younger brother and taxi driver who relaxes by crossing the speed limit (this is all pre-Uber so his drunk passengers experiencing this are not impacting his business too much apparently).
They are vying for the attention of Judith/Se-yeon, nicknamed after the Gustav Klimt painting. In the second part of the book we meet performance artist Mimi.
The narrator doesn’t really come into focus much himself (I initially thought it was a woman, but when he has sex in Vienna I concluded differently). The overall premise of his job, and the potential complications it would bring with it, including police investigations into money transfers to random strangers just before the suicides, are not further delved into unfortunately.
A bleak work, where existential unmooring is ubiquitous. One is hard pressed to really discover much of the Korean setting in the tale, in a sense it reminded me of the globalist stories in Ghostwritten from the turn of the millennium (I am a bit confused on the actual timing of the book, we have smoking in an European museum restaurant, which made me think this was set in the 1980s, but people do have cell phones, Macs, yet also use a paper map in a foreign city), and I can understand how I forgot the characters and more details of the plot. There are impressively done individual scenes in the book, including the paint, body and hair filled performance art of Mimi and one of the brothers and Judith being stranded in a snowstorm. And the potentially true story of how a woman gets sick by drinking water is also very disturbing.
Definitely not poorly written by Kim Young-ha, if maybe a bit top heavy in terms of depictions of sex, more an expression of wanting to escape everyday life than an outcome of actual lust or romantic feelings, and slightly pretentious/on the nose in the now in how Delacroix, David and Klimt are mixed with ChuppaChups as influences.
Quotes:
A revolution cannot progress without the fuel of terror. With time that relationship inverts: The revolution presses forward for the sake of terror. Like an artist, the man creating terror should be detached, cold-blooded. He must keep in mind that the energy of the terror he releases can consume him.
People who don’t know how to summarize have no dignity. Neither do people who needlessly drag on their messy lives. They who don’t know the beauty of simplification, of pruning away the unnecessary, die without ever comprehending the true meaning of life.
But I don’t encourage murder. This type of inflammatory comment is merely to weed out the kind of people I don’t want. I have no interest in one person killing another. I only want to draw out morbid desires, imprisoned deep in the unconscious. This lust, once freed, starts growing. The caller’s imagination runs free, and she soon discovers her potential.
I hide my tastes with constant talk. Uncomprehending, they shake their heads at me, because I keep dodging their expectations of who I am. But this is to be expected, as nobody really knows much about a god.
But no matter how you die, the world always stays the same.
“Doesn’t it make you tired?”
“Life is tiring. I’m used to it, anyway”
I would like to be bored for eternity
You guys seem different, but deep down, you’re identical. And people who can’t kill can’t ever truly love.
Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic.
It’s easy to have sex when you can’t really communicate
He hadn’t forgotten that the things he was attracted to were usually the very same ones that pushed him into an abyss.
All criticism of performance art starts with the fear of true beauty. People preserve beauty because of their obsession with immortality. They are slaves of dead art.
When he turned thirty, he had realized that the ability to love another is a skill.
Cruelty breeds a secret pleasure.
C thought his brother looked like a hyperrealist drawing.
January 15, 2023
This book has potential, but the author decided to make it shitty.
December 28, 2008
I'm willing to make the four star leap on this one, although I might change my mind after a re-read. I Have The Right To Destroy Myself reads like a Bergman film. In other words, it's slow, meditative, doesn't bother tying up every loose end, and sometimes leaves the reader working hard to create meaning.
The storyline/narrator involves a man who gets paid to advise people on how to best commit suicide. However, that angle never gets overplayed, as it might in the hand of a lesser writer, and Young-ha Kim doesn't stoop to shock. The novel seems more about art, change, and the many ways people attempt to express and satisfy their desires. At least that's what I thought. It's a slight book, only 130 pages or so, and I want to read it again. Some elements seemed to slip past me in the best way possible and a re-reading seems necessary to catch more of the book's strengths. I can see why some might see the author has some "first novel" self-consciousness, but I can more than live with that possibility.
I also appreciate the fact that Young-ha Kim is a Korean novelist who writes about his home country without ramming politics or social conditions down the reader's throat. Sometimes I feel that most popular books about foreign countries focus on the awful living conditions and political climate. I'm also resisting the urge to compare Young-ha Kim to Murakami, because I'm worried I'd do so only because both writers are Asian, but I think the comparison might have some merit in the writers' sparse, simple prose.
If you want to borrow this copy, and I know who you are, let me know, and I'll get it in the mail.
By the way, score one for the local independent bookstore. I doubt I would have ever found this book without the little recommendation card on the shelf. Neither the nearby Borders nor the local library system has a copy. So yay independent bookstore.
The storyline/narrator involves a man who gets paid to advise people on how to best commit suicide. However, that angle never gets overplayed, as it might in the hand of a lesser writer, and Young-ha Kim doesn't stoop to shock. The novel seems more about art, change, and the many ways people attempt to express and satisfy their desires. At least that's what I thought. It's a slight book, only 130 pages or so, and I want to read it again. Some elements seemed to slip past me in the best way possible and a re-reading seems necessary to catch more of the book's strengths. I can see why some might see the author has some "first novel" self-consciousness, but I can more than live with that possibility.
I also appreciate the fact that Young-ha Kim is a Korean novelist who writes about his home country without ramming politics or social conditions down the reader's throat. Sometimes I feel that most popular books about foreign countries focus on the awful living conditions and political climate. I'm also resisting the urge to compare Young-ha Kim to Murakami, because I'm worried I'd do so only because both writers are Asian, but I think the comparison might have some merit in the writers' sparse, simple prose.
If you want to borrow this copy, and I know who you are, let me know, and I'll get it in the mail.
By the way, score one for the local independent bookstore. I doubt I would have ever found this book without the little recommendation card on the shelf. Neither the nearby Borders nor the local library system has a copy. So yay independent bookstore.
September 1, 2021
No matter how you die. the world always stays the same.
This is about death. It's about the nothingness of life. So it was only normal that I gave it 5 stars.
The people who read it before me said it's disturbing. It could be. I didn't feel that way. For me, sometimes it felt like looking at a painting and discovering tiny little details that weren't there just seconds ago. But on other occasions, it was a lot like looking through a train window, seeing everything run in the opposite direction but when a new scene appeared, it was all the same.
Why does nothing change, even when you set out for a faraway land?
This doesn't try to find meaning in death. It doesn't search for the mystery of life either. It just says what it has to. And somehow that was enough for me. Somehow that soothed my melancholic heart. So when I read
My life has always been an uncontrollable mess. I'm always somewhere I don't want to be. followed by I would like to be bored for eternity. , it healed the burning contradiction in me.
This is about death. It's about the nothingness of life. So it was only normal that I gave it 5 stars.
The people who read it before me said it's disturbing. It could be. I didn't feel that way. For me, sometimes it felt like looking at a painting and discovering tiny little details that weren't there just seconds ago. But on other occasions, it was a lot like looking through a train window, seeing everything run in the opposite direction but when a new scene appeared, it was all the same.
Why does nothing change, even when you set out for a faraway land?
This doesn't try to find meaning in death. It doesn't search for the mystery of life either. It just says what it has to. And somehow that was enough for me. Somehow that soothed my melancholic heart. So when I read
My life has always been an uncontrollable mess. I'm always somewhere I don't want to be. followed by I would like to be bored for eternity. , it healed the burning contradiction in me.
March 27, 2008
The author, painfully self-aware yet vacuous (like a high-school goth reading Rilke) almost screams in your ear, "I'm sophisticated, see? I'm writing about French art and suicide...that's what sophisticated authors write about...just ask everybody!"
There seems to be a matrix or rubric against which he measured the manuscript giving the same inauthentic feel as a foreign movie the director of which borrowed too literally from a popular movie from the States or England.
"Oh, look, everyone is wearing black and looking severe. But where's the unnecessary "bullet-ti"...oh there it is!"
It reminds me of Banana Yoshinko but without the unnerving sense of cheerfulness in her bleak realities, which is to say it fails in it's goal of...well I have no idea. In that way it's like reading a manual of a 1950's US Army field telephone you found at the Goodwill: pointless.
It was, however, effective in one aspect: the protagonist is an assassin who implicitly believes evangelically in the suicide solution (will you never cease to ruin lives, Ozzy Osbourne?!). By the end of this novel I too realized that I do, indeed, have the right to destroy myself. Unfortunately I also wanted to do so.
There seems to be a matrix or rubric against which he measured the manuscript giving the same inauthentic feel as a foreign movie the director of which borrowed too literally from a popular movie from the States or England.
"Oh, look, everyone is wearing black and looking severe. But where's the unnecessary "bullet-ti"...oh there it is!"
It reminds me of Banana Yoshinko but without the unnerving sense of cheerfulness in her bleak realities, which is to say it fails in it's goal of...well I have no idea. In that way it's like reading a manual of a 1950's US Army field telephone you found at the Goodwill: pointless.
It was, however, effective in one aspect: the protagonist is an assassin who implicitly believes evangelically in the suicide solution (will you never cease to ruin lives, Ozzy Osbourne?!). By the end of this novel I too realized that I do, indeed, have the right to destroy myself. Unfortunately I also wanted to do so.
January 24, 2022
2/5stars
I literally finished this book in 30 minutes - if you want a quick read, this is the definition.
This story follows two brothers C and K who are both in love with the same woman, while at the same time a man is going around Seoul suggesting suicide to anyone who he deems suitable for it. This story was intriguing right from the get-go and, somehow, within 115 pages the author manages to show the brother's existing relationship and develop it according to this woman they both are in love with. I personally just wasn't a huge fan of this as I was unable to connect to the characters or really understand the point of the story.
I had to lower it's rating simply because there were so many unaswered questions and unneeded things within this book - it's only 115 pages and way too many of them were used on random sex scenes.
That being said, this book is definitely not for anyone under the age of 18 and also has a trigger warning for suicide.
I literally finished this book in 30 minutes - if you want a quick read, this is the definition.
This story follows two brothers C and K who are both in love with the same woman, while at the same time a man is going around Seoul suggesting suicide to anyone who he deems suitable for it. This story was intriguing right from the get-go and, somehow, within 115 pages the author manages to show the brother's existing relationship and develop it according to this woman they both are in love with. I personally just wasn't a huge fan of this as I was unable to connect to the characters or really understand the point of the story.
I had to lower it's rating simply because there were so many unaswered questions and unneeded things within this book - it's only 115 pages and way too many of them were used on random sex scenes.
That being said, this book is definitely not for anyone under the age of 18 and also has a trigger warning for suicide.
August 24, 2008
I like nitty-gritty. I like dark and rough, but (unfortunately) I also like well-written plots and characters to have shards of realism.
One of the good points is that the book is short; the author knew his limits. So, thank you, Mr. Kim.
However, there are some key problems, especially the women characters. Now, I might have passed this off as a cultural difference, but since the book is so heavily influenced by the U.S., I can't let it slide.
First off, we have "Judith", the insane, emo chick who has a weird obsession with lollipops (sucks on them even during sex), the North Pole (because it can't be tamed, basically), her birthday (when she wants sex, she says it's her birthday), and the obvious, sex (she likes to touch herself at random intervals). If he didn't try too hard with her, I could appreciate her desire for the North Pole, but everything she says sounds so over-the-top and cheesy. Here are some of her winning quotes and actions:
--"That was a game," Judith says, breaking the silence. The windshield is again covered in thick snowdrifts, and the inside of the car return to its pitch-black state. "When I slept with you for the first time, I mean. Remember I was eating a lollipop? I knew you were looking at me. So I decided to play a game and see whether I could win you over while I was eating candy, or afterward. I decided that if you came over to me while I was eating it, I would live with you, and if you came to me after I was done, I'd live with K. Fun, huh?"--
--"I just thought of something fun to do," she says, packing the snow into a ball, the size of a golf ball. She parts her legs, giggling. The snowball slides up inside her.--
Then, there's girl-addicted-to-coke...No, not the drug, the soda. I don't think she was ever given a name. She apparently grew up being a mannequin in bar where people would take off her clothes (each piece for a price), then she lived with this mafia guy just to sit around and eat his sperm. No joke. She was usually bitchy (yet still wanted sex with a stranger, our narrator) and had some interesting things to say:
--"When I love deeply, I vomit."--
--"You know when you feel like throwing everything up? My stomach is always full of weird things. That's when I feel the urge to have sex."--
The last girl is Mimi, who is pretty much a flighty/emo artist that paints with her hair. No, she doesn't have sex (surprising catch!) and she must not have said anything too out-there enough because I didn't write anything down, or maybe I was just too numb at that point.
The ending of the story felt forced. Basically, this is what K tells his brother, "I'm thinking of driving as fast as I possibly can today. I've always taken my foot off the gas at the last moment. But now I want to step on it to the end, until I really start flying."
His brother's response to K admitting he's going to try to commit suicide: "I can't stop you if you really want to do that." Nice brotherly love. I hated it because it was so damn passive.
I appreciate the 'right to die/choose' tones, but it could have been executed a lot more coherently and with better writing. I couldn't get into it and felt no loss for the characters. The emotional impact was more a dull thud against my heart as I closed the book and threw it on the pile to go back to the library. However, I did like the final sentence:
"Why does nothing change, even when you set out for a faraway place?"
But it doesn't salvage the book.
One of the good points is that the book is short; the author knew his limits. So, thank you, Mr. Kim.
However, there are some key problems, especially the women characters. Now, I might have passed this off as a cultural difference, but since the book is so heavily influenced by the U.S., I can't let it slide.
First off, we have "Judith", the insane, emo chick who has a weird obsession with lollipops (sucks on them even during sex), the North Pole (because it can't be tamed, basically), her birthday (when she wants sex, she says it's her birthday), and the obvious, sex (she likes to touch herself at random intervals). If he didn't try too hard with her, I could appreciate her desire for the North Pole, but everything she says sounds so over-the-top and cheesy. Here are some of her winning quotes and actions:
--"That was a game," Judith says, breaking the silence. The windshield is again covered in thick snowdrifts, and the inside of the car return to its pitch-black state. "When I slept with you for the first time, I mean. Remember I was eating a lollipop? I knew you were looking at me. So I decided to play a game and see whether I could win you over while I was eating candy, or afterward. I decided that if you came over to me while I was eating it, I would live with you, and if you came to me after I was done, I'd live with K. Fun, huh?"--
--"I just thought of something fun to do," she says, packing the snow into a ball, the size of a golf ball. She parts her legs, giggling. The snowball slides up inside her.--
Then, there's girl-addicted-to-coke...No, not the drug, the soda. I don't think she was ever given a name. She apparently grew up being a mannequin in bar where people would take off her clothes (each piece for a price), then she lived with this mafia guy just to sit around and eat his sperm. No joke. She was usually bitchy (yet still wanted sex with a stranger, our narrator) and had some interesting things to say:
--"When I love deeply, I vomit."--
--"You know when you feel like throwing everything up? My stomach is always full of weird things. That's when I feel the urge to have sex."--
The last girl is Mimi, who is pretty much a flighty/emo artist that paints with her hair. No, she doesn't have sex (surprising catch!) and she must not have said anything too out-there enough because I didn't write anything down, or maybe I was just too numb at that point.
The ending of the story felt forced. Basically, this is what K tells his brother, "I'm thinking of driving as fast as I possibly can today. I've always taken my foot off the gas at the last moment. But now I want to step on it to the end, until I really start flying."
His brother's response to K admitting he's going to try to commit suicide: "I can't stop you if you really want to do that." Nice brotherly love. I hated it because it was so damn passive.
I appreciate the 'right to die/choose' tones, but it could have been executed a lot more coherently and with better writing. I couldn't get into it and felt no loss for the characters. The emotional impact was more a dull thud against my heart as I closed the book and threw it on the pile to go back to the library. However, I did like the final sentence:
"Why does nothing change, even when you set out for a faraway place?"
But it doesn't salvage the book.
September 28, 2023
THIS WAS SO WEIRD BUT SO ENTERTAINING AT THE SAME TIME!!!
너무 재미있게 읽었습니다!!
너무 재미있게 읽었습니다!!
November 21, 2018
3 / 5 ❤
What a disturbingly interesting novel — I can’t think of a better way to sum up my thoughts. I literally flew through this one in a couple hours (it’s 120 pages, so it’s not impressive, lol), and the constant thought going through my mind was: Oh, my goodness. What is going on?
That being said, the weirdness and sometimes a little too disturbing moments were what made this novel captivating. The characters, while not memorable, were messed up and lost — like phantoms moving through life, finding pleasure through drinking, sex, and their strange imaginations.
The block quote above is originally what caught my interest — doesn’t it sound positively messed up? — but then as I started reading and hit the half-way point, I realized the novels best moment are the synopsis and the “prologue.” Most of the book is still captivating, though (then again, maybe it will stir you away, because the stories/characters are very strange and frankly feel pointless).
Overall, I’m not sure what I was supposed to get from this read, other than feeling uncomfortable and confused. I wish the ending could have been elaborated upon, but I think this is one of those books that really has no point — it feels like its main purpose is to just make you feel uneasy, which if so, it does a good job of.
I don’t encourage murder. I have no interest in one person killing another. I only want to draw out morbid desires, imprisoned deep in the unconscious. This lust, once freed, starts growing. Their imaginations runs free, and they soon discover their potential … They are waiting for someone like me.
What a disturbingly interesting novel — I can’t think of a better way to sum up my thoughts. I literally flew through this one in a couple hours (it’s 120 pages, so it’s not impressive, lol), and the constant thought going through my mind was: Oh, my goodness. What is going on?
That being said, the weirdness and sometimes a little too disturbing moments were what made this novel captivating. The characters, while not memorable, were messed up and lost — like phantoms moving through life, finding pleasure through drinking, sex, and their strange imaginations.
The block quote above is originally what caught my interest — doesn’t it sound positively messed up? — but then as I started reading and hit the half-way point, I realized the novels best moment are the synopsis and the “prologue.” Most of the book is still captivating, though (then again, maybe it will stir you away, because the stories/characters are very strange and frankly feel pointless).
Overall, I’m not sure what I was supposed to get from this read, other than feeling uncomfortable and confused. I wish the ending could have been elaborated upon, but I think this is one of those books that really has no point — it feels like its main purpose is to just make you feel uneasy, which if so, it does a good job of.
August 9, 2025
والا من واقعاً نمیدونم کسی در خاورمیانه چرا باید این کتاب رو بخونه، چه رسد به اینکه بشینه ترجمهش هم بکنه!
کم خودمون بدبختی داریم!
بعد کتاب با این محتوای حساس اصلا قابلیت چاپ زیر نظر ارشاد رو هم نداره. من واقعا نمیدونم چرا چنین کاری کردم :))
کتاب خیلی، حتی زیادی، سیاهه. یعنی حتی در میان هزاران صحنهی سکشوالی هم که داره یه جمله نیست تو خوشت بیاد. همواره معذبی از فضای سیاه کتاب.
بعد موضوع محوری هم همینطور که از اسم کتاب پیداست حق بر خودکشیه. که خب همین خودش واقعا حساسه!
من بعضی جاهای کتاب واقعا حالم بد بود از جزيیات و رنج جاری.
صدالبته منکر خلاقیت نویسنده نمیشم. هم در محتوا، هم در فرم و روایت، هم در شخصیتپردازی (هرچند خیلی کوتاه بود ولی از پسش بر اومده بود). ولی ببین اگه ببینمش یه سیلی میزنم تو صورتش :))
مزیت دیگر کتاب اینه که علیرغم اذیتهاش، خیلی روان و خوشخوانه و از ریتم نمیافته. یعنی مثلا اینطوریه که همینطوری که داری صورتتو چنگ میزنی و در دل التماس میکنی نویسنده بس کنه، همچنان به خوندن ادامه میدی.
البته شاید من چون ترجمه کردم انقدر زجر کشیدم و اگر فقط میخوندم ملایمتر بود.
کم خودمون بدبختی داریم!
بعد کتاب با این محتوای حساس اصلا قابلیت چاپ زیر نظر ارشاد رو هم نداره. من واقعا نمیدونم چرا چنین کاری کردم :))
کتاب خیلی، حتی زیادی، سیاهه. یعنی حتی در میان هزاران صحنهی سکشوالی هم که داره یه جمله نیست تو خوشت بیاد. همواره معذبی از فضای سیاه کتاب.
بعد موضوع محوری هم همینطور که از اسم کتاب پیداست حق بر خودکشیه. که خب همین خودش واقعا حساسه!
من بعضی جاهای کتاب واقعا حالم بد بود از جزيیات و رنج جاری.
صدالبته منکر خلاقیت نویسنده نمیشم. هم در محتوا، هم در فرم و روایت، هم در شخصیتپردازی (هرچند خیلی کوتاه بود ولی از پسش بر اومده بود). ولی ببین اگه ببینمش یه سیلی میزنم تو صورتش :))
مزیت دیگر کتاب اینه که علیرغم اذیتهاش، خیلی روان و خوشخوانه و از ریتم نمیافته. یعنی مثلا اینطوریه که همینطوری که داری صورتتو چنگ میزنی و در دل التماس میکنی نویسنده بس کنه، همچنان به خوندن ادامه میدی.
البته شاید من چون ترجمه کردم انقدر زجر کشیدم و اگر فقط میخوندم ملایمتر بود.
September 4, 2025
En la contraportada hay una texto de Los Angeles Review Books: "Sería fácil compararlo con Murakami". Debí verlo venir.
March 30, 2025
Un libro distinto con una atmósfera que se siente, recreada perfectamente.
Que incluye al arte y la filosofía como ejes y riendas.
El avance de la modernidad en Corea de los 90’ y con ello la fragilidad humana.
Debatimos este libro en mi club de lectura, un libro que abre conversación desde el contexto histórico y social de Corea, la salud mental desatendida, debates morales y de arte, los vínculos sociales y sexoafectivos, el existencialismo, la identidad, entre tantos otros aspectos.
Que incluye al arte y la filosofía como ejes y riendas.
El avance de la modernidad en Corea de los 90’ y con ello la fragilidad humana.
Debatimos este libro en mi club de lectura, un libro que abre conversación desde el contexto histórico y social de Corea, la salud mental desatendida, debates morales y de arte, los vínculos sociales y sexoafectivos, el existencialismo, la identidad, entre tantos otros aspectos.
June 24, 2024
افضل ما في الرواية بالنسبالي اسمها والغلاف وروح الانتحار والموت ، و ترجمة منار الديناري الجميلة .
برغم انى بحب الروايات الغريبة وبرغم انها جذبتني في البداية الا انها مملة ومستمتعتش بيها حتى .
٢٤ / ٦ / ٢٠٢٤
برغم انى بحب الروايات الغريبة وبرغم انها جذبتني في البداية الا انها مملة ومستمتعتش بيها حتى .
٢٤ / ٦ / ٢٠٢٤
May 21, 2023
I find it to be too complex and artistic. I had the impression that I was reading a salvation narrative(sorry if it's triggering).
November 18, 2008
The first half read like Asian fetish porn, the second half like a nausea-inducing conversation between two undergrads about The Meaning of Art. But, you know, it had some finer moments. And I'll never look at Chupa Chups the same way again.
November 20, 2019
An interesting premise, with a subpar execution. It feels like the author was trying too hard, but nor the narrative nor the characters ever really get any depth, rendering an unsatisfying reading experience.
March 10, 2016
Cuốn này nhìn chung là dễ đọc, nhẹ đầu :))) Bằng chứng là tôi đã dùng nó cùng với hai viên paracetamol để giết cơn đau đầu & một buổi chiều chán ngán.
Sách như tên: theo dấu quá trình một người hủy hoại chính mình và hủy hoại kẻ khác là nội dung chủ yếu của cuốn sách này. Ở đây, chất dữ dội của “Cái chết” đã bị làm nhạt đi nhờ hai yếu tố:
- Góc quan sát: Câu chuyện được kể lại thông qua con mắt quan sát của một kẻ đóng vai trò là “người môi giới” của Thần chết. Hắn chuyên nghiệp, tinh tường, tỉnh táo, không bao giờ để cảm xúc cá nhân tác động đến sự kiện sẽ xảy ra. Rất ít các đoạn mô tả tâm lí nhân vật, chủ yếu là liệt kê biểu cảm khuôn mặt hoặc hành vi của đối tượng quan sát. “Chết” được xem như một chi tiết không đủ quan trọng để khiến bản thân nạn nhân trực tiếp, nhân chứng lẫn những nhân vật có liên quan phải sửng sốt như đáng lẽ ra họ phải thế.
Mẹ kiếp, bọn họ đều còn rất trẻ, lại còn chết bằng cách tự sát đấy!
- Chủ thể: Điểm chung của phần lớn các nhân vật trong này là họ tuy còn trẻ nhưng đã sớm bơ vơ, ở trong đời nhưng hờ hững với đời. Họ không còn nhà để về, không có nơi để thiết tha đi đến (trừ Bắc Cực?!), họ từ chối “kể về mình” (hoặc có kể nhưng kể láo) cũng như không mấy mặn mà chuyện “thấu hiểu người khác” (hoặc có nghe nhưng bán tín bán nghi). Việc hai người cùng cha cùng mẹ hay cùng sống chung dưới cùng một mái nhà hay cùng làm tình trên một chiếc giường hay cùng đi chung một chuyến du lịch hay cùng ngủ với một cô gái,… cũng không khiến họ gần nhau hơn. Họ chỉ là những cá thể riêng rẽ ở cạnh nhau, lướt qua nhau, thế thôi. Với người trẻ, không phải nỗi buồn mà chính sự cô đơn mới xúi người ta tìm đến chết. Chắc ở đâu cũng thế.
Một người có cảm giác như thế nào khi lặng ngắm một bộ tiêu bản bướm thì hẳn cũng sẽ có cảm giác tương tự khi đọc cuốn sách này. Mỗi nhân vật là một con bướm đã được số mệnh định sẵn để làm tiêu bản: Tinh xảo, hoàn chỉnh, im lìm và chết cứng lúc đẹp nhất.
Sách như tên: theo dấu quá trình một người hủy hoại chính mình và hủy hoại kẻ khác là nội dung chủ yếu của cuốn sách này. Ở đây, chất dữ dội của “Cái chết” đã bị làm nhạt đi nhờ hai yếu tố:
- Góc quan sát: Câu chuyện được kể lại thông qua con mắt quan sát của một kẻ đóng vai trò là “người môi giới” của Thần chết. Hắn chuyên nghiệp, tinh tường, tỉnh táo, không bao giờ để cảm xúc cá nhân tác động đến sự kiện sẽ xảy ra. Rất ít các đoạn mô tả tâm lí nhân vật, chủ yếu là liệt kê biểu cảm khuôn mặt hoặc hành vi của đối tượng quan sát. “Chết” được xem như một chi tiết không đủ quan trọng để khiến bản thân nạn nhân trực tiếp, nhân chứng lẫn những nhân vật có liên quan phải sửng sốt như đáng lẽ ra họ phải thế.
Mẹ kiếp, bọn họ đều còn rất trẻ, lại còn chết bằng cách tự sát đấy!
- Chủ thể: Điểm chung của phần lớn các nhân vật trong này là họ tuy còn trẻ nhưng đã sớm bơ vơ, ở trong đời nhưng hờ hững với đời. Họ không còn nhà để về, không có nơi để thiết tha đi đến (trừ Bắc Cực?!), họ từ chối “kể về mình” (hoặc có kể nhưng kể láo) cũng như không mấy mặn mà chuyện “thấu hiểu người khác” (hoặc có nghe nhưng bán tín bán nghi). Việc hai người cùng cha cùng mẹ hay cùng sống chung dưới cùng một mái nhà hay cùng làm tình trên một chiếc giường hay cùng đi chung một chuyến du lịch hay cùng ngủ với một cô gái,… cũng không khiến họ gần nhau hơn. Họ chỉ là những cá thể riêng rẽ ở cạnh nhau, lướt qua nhau, thế thôi. Với người trẻ, không phải nỗi buồn mà chính sự cô đơn mới xúi người ta tìm đến chết. Chắc ở đâu cũng thế.
Một người có cảm giác như thế nào khi lặng ngắm một bộ tiêu bản bướm thì hẳn cũng sẽ có cảm giác tương tự khi đọc cuốn sách này. Mỗi nhân vật là một con bướm đã được số mệnh định sẵn để làm tiêu bản: Tinh xảo, hoàn chỉnh, im lìm và chết cứng lúc đẹp nhất.
May 19, 2025
El libro va sobre un hombre que tiene un trabajo extraño, convence a las personas (o trata) de un suicidio, el texto es uno de sus "trabajos". Me pareció bueno, sobre todo por la brevedad, creo no había más que decir. No es mucho el estilo de las cosas que leo, los personajes son seres atormentados por el vacío, no hay dios, no hay nada, entonces se ven enrollados en situaciones que me recuerdan a jóvenes deprimidos y hartos de todo, sin tener un astio que los lleve a nada más que al movimiento errático. Me parece una lectura que puede ser muy impactante siendo joven, a mí no se...
September 10, 2013
Such is a shame. This undernourished story is intriguing, though only a germ of a novel. Given my effusive lust for Korean cinema, I was excited to find Young-Ha Kim's debut on a remainder table for two dollars. What resulted is actually more akin to a screenplay than any plumbing of the darkened corridors of the mind. The suicide assistant would be a perfect role for Lee Byung-hun: shit, he's played variations on the role a number of times. That said, this clumsy collision of art, death and ennui didn't move me.
Ruminating on this a for a spell, I still love the section abroad much more than the snowstorm scene. Being dulled by vehicular speed, sex and stimulus, the characters look for the elegant departure.
Ruminating on this a for a spell, I still love the section abroad much more than the snowstorm scene. Being dulled by vehicular speed, sex and stimulus, the characters look for the elegant departure.
May 31, 2013
I knew this novel was going to uncover the themes of death and suicide, but I was quite surprised by the author's flair in capturing the sense of death for the characters as something both romantic and mysteriously desirous. That somehow, we are urged by this desire to destroy ourselves in order to uncover something that seems unreachable, far, far away...and that in itself is beautiful.
This novel isn't about the acceptance of death and suicide, but the underlying notions of what it means to be perfectly captured, to emulate beauty and the susceptibility of human nature, carnal desires from which we are never truly freed, and the intriguing desire to be immortalized, such like that of art which has, and will continue to be, captured throughout history.
This novel isn't about the acceptance of death and suicide, but the underlying notions of what it means to be perfectly captured, to emulate beauty and the susceptibility of human nature, carnal desires from which we are never truly freed, and the intriguing desire to be immortalized, such like that of art which has, and will continue to be, captured throughout history.
September 20, 2015
Eu dou muita atenção à média, aqui no Goodreads, para comprar livros; mas, não lhe dou atenção alguma para não os comprar. E o resultado é este...
Não posso dizer que estou decepcionada porque, na verdade, não tinha grandes expectativas sobre este livro. Tinha somente alguma curiosidade para conhecer um autor sul coreano e porque achei o tema interessante: eutanásia e morte assistida.
O narrador é um especialista do suicídio. Ajuda aqueles que estão fartos de viver a encontrarem a melhor forma de se libertarem. Tem escritório montado e anúncio de jornal para o ajudar a encontrar clientela. Bastam-lhe dois trabalhos por ano para garantir a sua subsistência.
Entretanto, faz "formação profissional", viajando, lendo muito, estudando para aumentar a sua cultura geral por forma a angariar, compreender e ajudar os seus clientes, aos quais apresenta um catálogo para que escolham a melhor forma de se livrarem da sua penosa vida: enforcamento, afogamento, envenenamento, esfaqueamento,...
As outras personagens:
os gémeos K (viciado em velocidade com a qual se estimula sexualmente) e C que têm sexo com Judite, a qual está sempre, mas sempre, a comer chupa-chupas...;
uma chinesa que não pode beber água por lhe trazer recordações de outra bebida...;
Mimi, uma artista que não se deixa filmar porque tem medo de se ver a si mesma...
Algumas destas criaturas, obviamente, são clientes do profissional da morte.
Com este enredo e estas personagens até podia ser um romance, dramático ou cómico, interessante não fosse a narrativa ser tão aborrecida; diálogos longos e sem sentido; descrições de obras de arte interessantes mas a despropósito,...
Não desisti. Li tudo mas, confesso que, pela rama.
Tão cedo não leio nada de coreanos. Vão-se matar...
Não posso dizer que estou decepcionada porque, na verdade, não tinha grandes expectativas sobre este livro. Tinha somente alguma curiosidade para conhecer um autor sul coreano e porque achei o tema interessante: eutanásia e morte assistida.
O narrador é um especialista do suicídio. Ajuda aqueles que estão fartos de viver a encontrarem a melhor forma de se libertarem. Tem escritório montado e anúncio de jornal para o ajudar a encontrar clientela. Bastam-lhe dois trabalhos por ano para garantir a sua subsistência.
Entretanto, faz "formação profissional", viajando, lendo muito, estudando para aumentar a sua cultura geral por forma a angariar, compreender e ajudar os seus clientes, aos quais apresenta um catálogo para que escolham a melhor forma de se livrarem da sua penosa vida: enforcamento, afogamento, envenenamento, esfaqueamento,...
As outras personagens:
os gémeos K (viciado em velocidade com a qual se estimula sexualmente) e C que têm sexo com Judite, a qual está sempre, mas sempre, a comer chupa-chupas...;
uma chinesa que não pode beber água por lhe trazer recordações de outra bebida...;
Mimi, uma artista que não se deixa filmar porque tem medo de se ver a si mesma...
Algumas destas criaturas, obviamente, são clientes do profissional da morte.
Com este enredo e estas personagens até podia ser um romance, dramático ou cómico, interessante não fosse a narrativa ser tão aborrecida; diálogos longos e sem sentido; descrições de obras de arte interessantes mas a despropósito,...
Não desisti. Li tudo mas, confesso que, pela rama.
Tão cedo não leio nada de coreanos. Vão-se matar...
January 19, 2018
Nunca sabemos quién es el narrador. Tampoco sabemos cómo se llama o dónde vive. Lo único que sabemos es que escribe y lo hace como anexo a su “trabajo”. Según él se dedica a ayudar a la gente y como gran recompensa recibe historias que le permiten escribir. Busca desesperado durante meses cruzarse con alguien que lo ayude en su bloqueo y es ahí donde esta novela crece. Hay dos historias paralelas: la del narrador y lo que él escribe. Todo se conecta y tiene su grado de ficción. Dice “A veces, la ficción es más persuasiva que la realidad” y logramos entender por qué sus diálogos se transforman en un intercambio de puntos de vista.
Tengo derecho a destruirme de Kim Young-Ha es una novela profunda y compleja, de un muy marcado occidentalismo para alguien que vive en Corea del Sur. Mezcla arte, música y filosofía para darle el toque nihilista dentro de un mundo circundado por la muerte. Como si el narrador fuese Marat y nosotros, lectores, Carlota Corday esperando a matarlo.
Tengo derecho a destruirme de Kim Young-Ha es una novela profunda y compleja, de un muy marcado occidentalismo para alguien que vive en Corea del Sur. Mezcla arte, música y filosofía para darle el toque nihilista dentro de un mundo circundado por la muerte. Como si el narrador fuese Marat y nosotros, lectores, Carlota Corday esperando a matarlo.
August 6, 2021
There are only two ways to be a god: through creation or murder.
It's always something of a joy, to pick up a book on a complete whim and end up really liking it. This is weird and disturbing, but really beautifully written and constructed. It follows two brothers, the woman they both love, and a shadowy narrator who tells their story, wreathed in death. It's about death and art and performance and suicide. I feel like if this had been written in any other genre, like mystery or horror or god forbid, thriller, I would have found it distasteful. But this was a perfect balance. The writing was really striking, and I loved how the author tied in various works of art and media.
Upsetting, but good. Wouldn't recommend for everyone.
Content warnings: .
March 20, 2024
هذا العمل أشبه بالحلم، حالة لا تتوقف من الغياب والرحيل.
المضي في الموت يكون بارداً ودافئاً معاً، والأصوات تبدو بعيدة وقريبة في ذات الوقت..
الوقت؟ لا يبدو واضحاً أبداً. الوقت محض تسلسل لا حاجة له تقريباً، فالجميع يبدو أنه ماضٍ.
المضي في الموت يكون بارداً ودافئاً معاً، والأصوات تبدو بعيدة وقريبة في ذات الوقت..
الوقت؟ لا يبدو واضحاً أبداً. الوقت محض تسلسل لا حاجة له تقريباً، فالجميع يبدو أنه ماضٍ.
July 5, 2013
The nameless narrator of I Have the Right to Destroy Myself has an unusual job. He seeks out people - or lets them come to him - who need help, who are in a rough spot, who contain within them the germ of death but who need just a bit of help getting there. His clients kill themselves, and his kind of therapy helps them do it. He's no murderer - in that he has never killed anyone himself, he's never passed over the bottle of pills or slit any wrists - but he's there, with them, in their final hour. Someone to say goodbye to perhaps. At the end of each "job", he takes a trip, sees another European country - he must make a lot of money from this "career".
He styles himself as a kind of god, or a god in the making. He seeks to give these poor souls a voice, and writes a novel recording their stories - and their deaths. And so we learn of Se-yeon, also known as Judith because of her resemblance to the Judith in Klimt's painting - at least, that is how C sees her when he walks into his apartment after his mother's funeral to find his younger brother, K, having sex with her on his lounge room floor. Se-yeon/Judith is a runaway, an abused teen being constantly taken advantage of. She possibly has an addiction to sex, which also bore her, and seems to be a compulsive liar. She almost always has a lollipop in her mouth - making sex with her dangerous unless you didn't mind losing an eye, or so C thinks. Both brothers are sleeping with her, but neither of them seems to really care about her - but both are lost when she dies.
C is an artist who works with video, and for an upcoming exhibition at a local gallery he meets a performance artist, Mimi, who's never been filmed or photographed and who uses her naked body to paint canvases. She agrees to let C film her and create a piece of video art to complement her own live performance, but seeing herself on film robs her of her soul and she too seeks death.
The narrator, meanwhile, takes a trip to Prague where he meets a young, cynical woman at a museum, looking at Klimt's painting of Judith, and starts one of his short holiday affairs with her. She only drinks Coke, lots and lots of Coke, and sees water as poison. Finally she tells him the story of why she can't drink water, a shocking and possibly true story that deeply unsettles him. But he writes his novel, prints it out and submits it to a publisher only with a kind of memorial sentiment.
This was Kim's first novel, published back in 1996, and was received very well apparently. For myself, it was just plain disappointing. I loved the beginning, it started with such promise and a deep and eery atmosphere - that sensation of possibility, of speculation, of wondering and feeling like you're on the edge of something dark, Murakami-style. I would have loved a bit of magical realism or something, to give it that kind of edge. Instead it turned out very pedestrian and rather dull.
The narrator was the only mildly interesting character, though the woman he sleeps with in Europe was rather curious too, in a manic, obsessive kind of way (she was a bit scary to be honest). You never really understand these people or even what exactly is going on. It's not that the story isn't told with the right details in the right places or that the non-linear structure is confusing - it isn't - but it just, ironically perhaps, lacked soul to me. It was superficial, aiming at the kind of writing that says a lot with few words, but failing to make any real connection or insightful commentary. I couldn't have cared less about these people, though I did feel sad for them, in a detached kind of way. The superfluous details in a "tell" style - and the narrator's habit of linking everything to famous old (European) paintings - seemed to be trying to get across a kind of meaningful, philosophical or at least a poetic kind of understanding, like reaching to deeper meaning through mundanity, but never offered any deeper meaning to me. The only thing to come over strongly was how depressing it all was.
At the front of the book are numerous quotes from journals and magazines from around the world, praising the novel and the author for "his amazing imagination", "uncommon creativity" and "grotesque images", his "joyful cynicism", for being "manipulative and twisted" and "cool, urban and very clever". One in particular struck me: "Fast-paced, comic, slick, and heavily under the American influence." Going back and reading these after finishing the book, I had one of those moments of feeling completely confused. We really do all read in different ways, and it's great that this book connected so vividly and richly with other readers/reviewers, but sadly it did not happen with me. It lacked in so many ways, failing to resonate with me or even impress me - I don't know how much the translation affects this, but I didn't even think the writing was particularly good (even when I dislike a book, I can still be impressed by the writing; not in this case).
All sorts of things could have made this book work better for me, including a stronger sense of atmosphere or even a Korean experience - this book could have been set almost anywhere, for the city was as faceless and nameless as the characters. I often wonder, with books like this, whether that's the author's intention, but even if it is it doesn't make this an interesting or particularly insightful read. The social commentary taking place didn't interest me, not because I'm not interested in what makes me people take their own lives, but because Kim made it really rather boring and uninspiring (of intellectual thought and even emotion). It's a subject matter that, when handled well, can be powerful and disturbingly beautiful, but in this case is rendered almost ordinary - not in a commonplace way, but in a (shrug) "so they're dead, who cares?" kind of way. And that glimpse of something dark and edgy in the beginning - that vanished, and the narrator too became just an ordinary, if slightly creepy, onlooker. In the end, it just wasn't creepy enough, atmospheric enough, insightful enough, to offer anything new. Such a disappointment.
He styles himself as a kind of god, or a god in the making. He seeks to give these poor souls a voice, and writes a novel recording their stories - and their deaths. And so we learn of Se-yeon, also known as Judith because of her resemblance to the Judith in Klimt's painting - at least, that is how C sees her when he walks into his apartment after his mother's funeral to find his younger brother, K, having sex with her on his lounge room floor. Se-yeon/Judith is a runaway, an abused teen being constantly taken advantage of. She possibly has an addiction to sex, which also bore her, and seems to be a compulsive liar. She almost always has a lollipop in her mouth - making sex with her dangerous unless you didn't mind losing an eye, or so C thinks. Both brothers are sleeping with her, but neither of them seems to really care about her - but both are lost when she dies.
C is an artist who works with video, and for an upcoming exhibition at a local gallery he meets a performance artist, Mimi, who's never been filmed or photographed and who uses her naked body to paint canvases. She agrees to let C film her and create a piece of video art to complement her own live performance, but seeing herself on film robs her of her soul and she too seeks death.
The narrator, meanwhile, takes a trip to Prague where he meets a young, cynical woman at a museum, looking at Klimt's painting of Judith, and starts one of his short holiday affairs with her. She only drinks Coke, lots and lots of Coke, and sees water as poison. Finally she tells him the story of why she can't drink water, a shocking and possibly true story that deeply unsettles him. But he writes his novel, prints it out and submits it to a publisher only with a kind of memorial sentiment.
When I finish a job, I travel. When I come back I write about the client and our time together. Through this act of creation, I strive to become more like a god. There are only two ways to be a god: through creation or murder.
Not all executed contracts become stories. Only clients who are worth the effort are reborn through my words. This part of my work is painful. But this arduous process bears witness to my sympathy and love for my clients. [p.10]
This was Kim's first novel, published back in 1996, and was received very well apparently. For myself, it was just plain disappointing. I loved the beginning, it started with such promise and a deep and eery atmosphere - that sensation of possibility, of speculation, of wondering and feeling like you're on the edge of something dark, Murakami-style. I would have loved a bit of magical realism or something, to give it that kind of edge. Instead it turned out very pedestrian and rather dull.
The narrator was the only mildly interesting character, though the woman he sleeps with in Europe was rather curious too, in a manic, obsessive kind of way (she was a bit scary to be honest). You never really understand these people or even what exactly is going on. It's not that the story isn't told with the right details in the right places or that the non-linear structure is confusing - it isn't - but it just, ironically perhaps, lacked soul to me. It was superficial, aiming at the kind of writing that says a lot with few words, but failing to make any real connection or insightful commentary. I couldn't have cared less about these people, though I did feel sad for them, in a detached kind of way. The superfluous details in a "tell" style - and the narrator's habit of linking everything to famous old (European) paintings - seemed to be trying to get across a kind of meaningful, philosophical or at least a poetic kind of understanding, like reaching to deeper meaning through mundanity, but never offered any deeper meaning to me. The only thing to come over strongly was how depressing it all was.
C thought back to that snowy day. Judith, who had disappeared five months ago, riding away on the snowplow, seemed more and more real. He felt her absence infiltrating his life, though he hadn't thought about her in months. He burrowed into the sofa and tried to remember Judith. But he couldn't remember anything specific, not even her face. Instead, images of the North Pole, Chupa Chups, a snowball and dull sex circled in his head. [p.80]
At the front of the book are numerous quotes from journals and magazines from around the world, praising the novel and the author for "his amazing imagination", "uncommon creativity" and "grotesque images", his "joyful cynicism", for being "manipulative and twisted" and "cool, urban and very clever". One in particular struck me: "Fast-paced, comic, slick, and heavily under the American influence." Going back and reading these after finishing the book, I had one of those moments of feeling completely confused. We really do all read in different ways, and it's great that this book connected so vividly and richly with other readers/reviewers, but sadly it did not happen with me. It lacked in so many ways, failing to resonate with me or even impress me - I don't know how much the translation affects this, but I didn't even think the writing was particularly good (even when I dislike a book, I can still be impressed by the writing; not in this case).
All sorts of things could have made this book work better for me, including a stronger sense of atmosphere or even a Korean experience - this book could have been set almost anywhere, for the city was as faceless and nameless as the characters. I often wonder, with books like this, whether that's the author's intention, but even if it is it doesn't make this an interesting or particularly insightful read. The social commentary taking place didn't interest me, not because I'm not interested in what makes me people take their own lives, but because Kim made it really rather boring and uninspiring (of intellectual thought and even emotion). It's a subject matter that, when handled well, can be powerful and disturbingly beautiful, but in this case is rendered almost ordinary - not in a commonplace way, but in a (shrug) "so they're dead, who cares?" kind of way. And that glimpse of something dark and edgy in the beginning - that vanished, and the narrator too became just an ordinary, if slightly creepy, onlooker. In the end, it just wasn't creepy enough, atmospheric enough, insightful enough, to offer anything new. Such a disappointment.
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