Stingray

by Kim Joo-Young, Louis Vinciguerra (Translator), Inrae You Vinciguerra (Translation)

Hailed by critics, "Stingray" has been described by its author as "a critical biography of my loving mother." With his father having abandoned his family for another woman, Se-young and his mother are forced to subsist on their own in the harsh environment of a small Korean farming village in the 1950s. Determined to wait for her husband's return, Se-young's mother hangs a dried stingray on the kitchen doorjamb; to her, it's a reminder of the fact that she still has a husband, and that she must behave as a married woman would, despite all. Also, she claims, when the family is reunited, the fish will be their first, celebratory meal together. But when a beggar girl, Sam-rae, sneaks into their house during a blizzard, the first thing she does is eat the stingray, and what follows is a struggle, at once sentimental and ideological, for the soul of the household.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Historical, Adult, Historical Fiction

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Kim Joo-Young was born in 1939, and graduated from the Sorabol Art College majoring in creative writing, and made his literary début with Resting Stage, which won the 1971 New Writer’s Award. A leading and popular exponent of “documentary” fiction, set in meticulously researched historical periods, Kim has also served as the director of the Paradise Culture Foundation in Seoul since 2005.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book I read when the year was new, and yet moments of the story are still so clear. Though it is ostensibly a story about a mother and a son, it sticks with you like a story drenched in place. The setting is so well-worn and pulled in tight to the plot that I still can't shake the map of where the pains of the young man's growth occurred. There is the small house: the main room set off from the kitchen where discoveries were so often made. Nearby, the house of the neighbor who is in turn both rough and essential. Scattered around, other houses of estranged neighbors -- their roofs useful only to hide letters and search for birds between the layers of straw.

And there is the road. The road down to the main town. Well-worn, well-traveled, and deep set in emotional memory months after reading: we go down the road to search for something. If you are searching for a mirror to help you understand your mother or a friend who has left you behind, Stingray will reflect for you.

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You idiot, a fourteen-year-old boy still doesn’t know that? If the stars don’t take shits, why do we see stars shitting down at night like birds?”

Atmospheric, and so fucking frosty (more precisely, wintry — which I love in every way — aesthetically, literarily, and literally). The ending was (satisfyingly) poignant. It finishes off with something akin to a quiet redemption(?) — kind of cinematic, almost (is it alright to describe writing as being cinematic? Maybe I should say it’s silently dramatic — but that also doesn’t feel right either — weirdly oxymoronic). Perhaps not to/for the narrator, but to at least in some way(s) to a few of the characters? But it also seems to me like a somewhat open ending — which inadvertently(?) adds to the ‘beauty’ of the writing/book. Whatever it is, the entire book is so saturated with domestic bleakness, which gets diluted here and there, but can never really be washed off.

‘People often say weeds are nameless, but there’s no weed without a name. That worthless flower, the cockscomb, even has a name. And you, a human being, shouldn’t drift about without one. This must be the reason you’ve been wandering as a beggar until today—because you didn’t have your own name, a girl like you, who can speak clearly.’

Brilliant characterisation. None of the characters felt unnecessary (to the plot) — their roles no matter how small — contributes significantly to the progression of the plot. And that in itself feels (for the lack of a better term) poetic as fuck. I would think it fair to liken the novel to a ‘Ghibli’ film/production, almost; plot-wise especially, and in many ways the setting as well (in the sense that the environment/nature are written as if they’re always so connected to the characters — so powerfully ‘animated’. Mesmerisingly ethereal, despite the constancy of bleakness, and the characters’ wistful coils of emotions that fogs up the entire vibe of the novel like endless smoke) — so carefully composed. Madly beautiful.

‘Where was — ? Where would such a woman have spent a cold snowy night, a woman who’s not afraid of any change that life has to offer?

— I finally called out her name loud enough that all my intestines and organs felt like they would pop out through my mouth. But she vanished without a trace, taking the millet and rice fields with her. All I saw was the snow-covered road lying wretchedly in the cold moonlight, a road that once had made me feel secure.’

A massive part of the book explores the societal ‘focus’ and/or value on ‘shame’ and reputation — to ridiculously absurd degrees that it just goes on (and on) to exacerbate the already declining relationships (not ‘romantic’ ones, more like ‘familial’ and ‘plationic’ ones). I think this has something to do with the ‘conservative ideals’, and some late forms of ‘Confucianism’ (but I’m not clever or culturally-aware of it, so I will just leave it at that). I feel like if I knew a bit more about the historical context, I would be able to pick up some of the things I inevitably lost because of my ignorance. And maybe that’s why feel a bit hesitant about rounding this off to a 5*.

‘The light looked like a red radish dangling in the moonlit night. For a moment the red radish ceased moving and remained still but soon appeared as if it was swaying while pushing away the moonlight, little by little. Nu-rung-jy shook the snow off his body before he and I began running home.’

The collaborative translation work is fascinating (to me). I don’t know how they did it, the process of it all — but I don’t really have anything to complain about. Except that (very minor complaint) sometimes they use ‘noona’, and sometimes they use ‘sister’ (in the dialogues) which I don’t know if it was intentional or if it was a mistake? The inconsistency threw me off a little, but it wasn’t so much that it affected my reading experience. I think it’s incredible how well they’ve translated and depicted the ‘setting’, really impressive. It’s been a while since I’ve read something so richly ‘atmospheric’. A book I never knew I needed. Also, I don’t usually gravitate towards novels with ‘child narrators’, but this one’s alright, brilliant actually. His hopeless helplessness paired with his acute sensitivity to the people and environment around him brings the readers uncomfortably close to the characters’ conflicted conditions. Well-written, well-translated, wouldn’t mind a re-read at a later date.

‘As the match’s tip, burning like a tantalising red mulberry, gradually lost its colour, the feathers of darkness, which had temporarily withdrawn, rushed back like a swarm of dayflies, and with this, the yellow poppy flower also vanished.

— I kept striking matches, one after another, each of which bloomed a beautiful but sad yellow flame. And this mysterious atmosphere created by the match flames brought back memories of the time I spent with her, memories that were fading away.’

[Barry Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Nde...

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kim Joo-young's Stingray (translated by Inrae You Vinciguerra and Louis Vinciguerra, review copy courtesy of the publisher) takes place in a small Korean village in the 1950s. Se-young, a teenager living alone with his mother, is alarmed one morning by his mother's cries, and when he goes to see what has happened, he discovers an unexpected intruder - a young woman who has crept in to shelter from the cold.

Her name is Sam-rae, and after initial arguments, she temporarily becomes a part of the family, helping out with the housework. She eventually disappears, leaving Se-young and his mother to fend for themselves, and it seems as if this has just been a brief, memorable interlude in their lives. However, Sam-rae is to return, and her initial arrival is just the start of a chain of events which have a huge impact on the young boy's life.

Stingray, at 124 pages, is more of a novella than a novel, and it could definitely be seen as a sort of Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. Throughout the work, Se-young begins to understand more about the world around him, forced to grow up a little more quickly by the events unfolding at home and wider afield. By the end of the novella, circumstances have changed completely, but the reader feels that Se-young is better equipped to deal with whatever happens next.

The title has a significance as the stingray is a fish which is left tied to a door handle as a symbol of the father's possible return. While Se-young has few memories of his father, nevertheless, he longs for his return, flying the kites which act as a symbol of his childhood:

"On those days I would often lose my kites, their strings usually snapping after becoming too taut when the kites soared so high. After the kites broke free, they would fly away over the mountain ridges, flapping up and down as they did, and I used to watch them vanish from my sight while feeling a great loss, and all this always reminded me of my father, who had left us behind a long time before."
p.9 (Dalkey Archive, 2013)

While the mother rarely mentions her absent husband, she is complicit in Se-young's behaviour, dropping her sewing and making new kites whenever he loses one...

One of the unanswered questions of the story is why Se-young's father left (we know who he left with...). One thing that is clear is that he is another example of a common K-Lit figure, the no-good, drunken, lazy husband - if there's one thing I've learned from my recent reading, it's that Korean writers don't think much of family men of the past century. Of course, this is contrasted with the saintly, hard-working, long-suffering (and domineering) mother, again, a typical literary character (c.f. The House with a Sunken Courtyard). Se-young's mother is another overworked character of the type, in ill health and socially isolated.

Se-young himself doesn't quite get everything that is happening (and has already happened), but the beauty of the story is that neither do we. The reader is frequently (deliberately) left in the dark, forcing us to identify even more closely with the adolescent hero and underlining Se-young's innocence and naivety. In fact, what appears to be a fairly simple story turns out to have a lot going on beneath the surface.

The actual writing, and translation, is fairly accomplished and elegant, with some nice, poetic observations:

"Two days later it snowed again. Being naturally shy, snow always fell during the night and thus people could only see her figure in the morning." (p.47)

Stingray is far from plotless, however, the plot is far from the only concern of the book. It's a story which flows along slowly, with the reader constantly aware of something happening away from the main events, an effect achieved in part by the indirect language used, drifting (like the snow...).

A book I was reminded of on reading Stingray was Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country, another elegant, wintry novella. There's the snowy setting, of course, but there's also a sense that there's far more to the story than the Western reader is able to glean on a first reading. One surprise is that a few of the major characters are a lot more tangential than most readers would expect. Both Sam-rae and Se-young's neighbour, Jang, turn out to have much smaller roles than I would have thought half-way through the book. It's all part of getting to grips with a slightly different literary culture :)

Stingray is one of my favourites from the series so far, at the same time simple and enjoyable, yet puzzling and slightly inaccessible. This is partly due to cultural differences, but I'm convinced that this was also Kim's intention, putting the reader in the shoes of an adolescent attempting to come to terms with life and the big, wide world, without all the tools required to fully understand the games people play in society. It all makes for another great entry in Dalkey's K-Lit library - can't wait for the next one ;)

*****
This review first appeared on my blog, Tony's Reading List :)

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book covers the trauma (and healing, kind of?) of a young boy and his mother in a snowy Korean town. They are marked by the circumstances of the boy's father leaving prior to the events of the book. The duo subsists in comfortable, painful complacency until a young girl breaks in and eats the titular stingray.

There is a lot to unpack here. Mainly, I would note that nearly everything that happens in the book appears to be symbolic, but it is easy to fly by those symbols. Many of my fellow reviewers noted that it is to be savored not rushed through, but I unfortunately was already in the rushing mindset as it was meant to be my rest book in between the first two volumes of The Story of the Stone. I can wholeheartedly agree that when read at a fast pace, the symbolism and atmosphere get tossed aside in favor of making it to the next page. Furthermore, it is told from the perspective of a young boy, so while all of this symbolism is included, at times the narration was a bit too repetitive for my liking. And too many sentences starting with "and" (yes, I know what I just did).

Overall, I would solidly rate this as an okay book. I wouldn't read it again and I wouldn't push it on others, but I wouldn't groan if someone else brought it up. At best, I'm ambivalent about the whole thing. At worst, I was a bit disappointed. I did genuinely enjoy what was done with the narration of the rooster incident, so at least there was that.

[Hannah Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4⭐ Se-young definitely has mommy issues but this was an interesting read. The writing was beautiful and really fit the setting of a small village in the mountains in the winter. I kind of wish more stuff had happened with the stingray, and a lot of stuff in this book was symbolic so I probably didn't totally get it... still worth reading though

[Frida A · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Hace unas semanas leí este libro surcoreano, estoy intentando expander mis horizontes en cuanto a literatura, por lo que pretendo leer algo de diferentes países y regiones. Éste fue mi primer acercamiento a la literatura surcoreana y a continuación les diré qué me pareció este libro.

"La raya" narra la historia de una familia surcoreana en tiempos de después de la guerra (yo me imagino que es la guerra entre el sur y el norte, pero en realidad nunca se especifica claramente). Sin embargo, la guerra no juega un papel importante en este relato, pues se le menciona únicamente en dos ocasiones e incluso entonces es un comentario aleatorio, no realmente algo significativo.

La historia es contada a través de Seyong, un chico de 12 ó 13 años que vive únicamente con su madre. Viven en un pueblo humilde donde está constantemente nevando (o al menos las partes importantes de la vida de Seyong se ven envueltas entre la época de nieve). El padre de Seyong los abandonó hace años y la madre pone rayas (el animal) en la cocina, que según Seyong, representan a su padre; asimismo, él las usa como cometas. Debido a esto, Seyong relaciona las cometas con su padre perdido, y a éste con las rayas.

Al principio de la historia, una chica (que después es bautizada como Samne) entra a la casa de Seyong para refugiarse de la nieve. La madre y Samne desarrollan a lo largo de la historia una relación un poco extraña, es como de madre e hija, pero Samne parece nunca interesarse por la madre y ve por ella misma; mientras que la madre no puede tenerla como hija porque podría traer deshonor a la familia, y lo que piensen los vecinos y la sociedad es de suma importancia.

Lo que me llamó la atención del libro (POSIBLES SPOILERS):

*Primero me gustaría resaltar que al principio del libro me gustaba el estilo de escritura, sin embargo en ocasiones lo encontraba muy barroco. Claro que eso se puede deber a que no lo leí en el idioma original.
* La madre es un personaje muy orgulloso, no expresa claramente sus sentimientos (quizá debido a la importancia del honor en la cultura coreana), incluso se llega a pensar que para ella quienes expresan sus sentimientos son personas sumamente imprudentes. Esta característica hizo que fuera un poco difícil descifrarla y entenderla, de alguna manera, siempre fue un misterio.
*De alguna forma, la historia me recuerda a Penélope y a Ulises, en el sentido de que ella podría estar esperando al esposo eternamente; pero no saldría a buscarlo.
*En una parte de la historia en que Samne se escapa, el esposo de ésta va a la casa de Seyong para buscarla, y la mamá lo trata muy bien. En el momento, yo tenía la percepción de que la madre lo trata bien porque él la busca y siente que eso debió hacer su esposo con ella: buscarla. Más tarde esta percepción resulta verdad.
*Como ya se mencionó, el orgullo resulta ser un leitmotiv en la historia.

La historia al final dio un par de vuelcos que no veía venir y que fueron sorpresivos. Como con casi toda la literatura asiática del siglo XX (al menos la que he leído), hay una parte que siento que no se puede vislumbrar correctamente si no se pertenece a dicha cultura, siempre hay un velo que permanece intacto e invisible para otros lectores. En este caso, para mí, fue el final.

[m · Rating 4 out of 5]

At those times, when my kites were flying away from me, their faces fluttering in the wind, I felt they were laughing at me.

Strangely enough, it's a calming read, though it is not cozy. The writing was a bit too sparse for my personal liking although it fit the setting... an apt atmosphere-- weary hearts buried in years of snow, but the characters, too, were only faintly adumbrated, which of course fits them nicely into the place, but left me wondering how and when and why the feelings sprouted.

Maybe it's not so important, because how do we really know when and where and why feelings start, but it was especially jarring in part one. Preferred all the other parts, though, maybe its because the characters grew on me. Suppose it is a bit like Winter in Sokcho in that sense, which I loved, since if given the choice I prefer detached writing over sparse writing.

Technically I would give this 5 stars considering the themes and atmosphere and how the characters fit into it but... I have to dock a star for my enjoyment and near-dropping of it at the start.

[Infame Descalzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

En algún punto subestimé a este librito. Pensé que no me iba a dejar nada, sin embargo finalmente logré transmitirme los pensamientos del niño protagonista, plantearme en un escenario de un perdido pueblo de la montaña cubierto eternamente de nieve. Se ha dicho que es una exaltación de la mujer coreana y en cierto sentido es así hasta la parte final de la obra, cuando a mi juicio cambia la cuestión. Pero no espoilearé. Me gustaron las referencias animales que se suceden en la imaginación del niño, que empiezan por la raya pero se extienden por los cóndores (aves ajenas al paisaje coreano, que el autor apreció en su viaje a Perú) y finalmente una imagen muy simpática de los osos, que para los coreanos no son animales temerarios o cariñosos, más bien son medio tontos, que se mueven lento...

En definitiva, disfruté de su lectura, lo hice tanto que reservé su espacio para el café en Seongnam.

[Erik Wirfs-Brock · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first foray into my nice big shipment of Korean literature from the Dalkey Archives, I found this short novel somewhat baffling. The story concerned the experiences of a mother and child in a small mountain village after his father abandons them, and the various surrogates that come into the household which they transfer their emotions to. It had some nice imagery of the natural landscape and the boys dream of escape, but the plot was almost completely non eventful. I can only imagine it is one of those books where the translation doesn't quite capture the magic of the prose in its original language, or that this is a story whose themes resonate more strongly in Korea.

[Emily W · Rating 3 out of 5]

2020 reading challenge: Read a book selected at random from the shelf.

I went to the library one afternoon, selected a book shelf and stared at the spines, knowing that whatever book I touched would be the one I committed to for this challenge.
Some of the books had titles that gave a bit more away about their contents, but for some reason, this one caught my eye - Stingray.

This is the first time I've read a Korean book, so I feel like I was missing some of the context. There were some beautiful descriptions in the book and relationships between characters, but sometimes I didn't quite understand what was happening.

[Rei ⭐ [TrulyBooked] · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book to read if you are looking for plot. It feels like you're walking beside Se-young and his mother throughout the novel, spying on their innermost thoughts. The action in this book is next to nonexistent, but that's okay because that's not what the book is about. It is the story of a person as told by another person with all their faults, their biases, and their foolishness plain to see.

It's a beautiful book and highly recommended, but it feels more like walking through snow than a sprint.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. No idea how the translation would be viewed, but certainly great themes were communicated, not least the absent father, loss, discontentment and restlessness, and the humbleness of country folk. More interesting was the continual backdrop of Winter, and how the narrative would undergo short bursts of a kind of magic realism before “ditching” the “magic” and going back to gritty reality…

The first in what must be a great series in translation from Dalkey Press.

[Fred Daly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short (120 pages). At first I wasn't crazy about this, but later on I liked it, and the ending is great. Set in the 1950s in a small village in Korea, it's about a boy and his mother who have been abandoned by the father. The boy fantasizes a lot, and the mother's motivations are often mysterious. This is a culture in which people rarely say what they're thinking.

[Charles Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful story that combines some very traditional Korean tropes (including some that are traditional but looked down on), with a family story and lovely surprise ending. One of the best three of the first Dalkey Collection.

[Janday · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the coldest book I've ever read. I mean, temperature-wise. All the events take place in the winter. The Korean winter. I'm going to reread it in the Texas wintertime when it's still 70 degrees out.

Haunting and lyrical and beautiful.

[Shankar Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it!!! It is a bittersweet symphony which reminds you about the complexity of human heart. The person who had been waiting for something for so long suddenly realises it's delusion. Simple and smooth narrative.Highly recommended.

[Ocean G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this. At first I thought it would just be a melancholy book with random depressing episodes. But it is much more than that (although the atmosphere is rather melancholy until the end).

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

so quiet and measured, not a lot happens in this novella but it is atmospheric and melancholy and well crafted as a sort of wintry coming-of-age story for this teenage boy whose mother continues to struggle with a husband who left them years ago.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good shot novel, decent narrative structure, not a ton happens but that's alright with me. I am really glad that the Dalkey Archive is publishing this series of Korean literature in translation.

[Kat Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

heavy-handed but poignant

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had this story been told with the mother as the POV character rather than the unloved and clueless teenaged son, it would have read as a lesbian feminist folktale.

[Morgan King · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so beautiful, I recommend reading it slowly

[Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was terribly boring but I still liked it. Everyone in this book hates each other. Somehow it cancels out into a feeling of love.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A captivating story about familial trauma and the process of healing, Stingray is a beautifully translated novel about a fourteen-year-old boy who lives alone with his mother in 1950s snowy rural Korea after they are abandoned by his father for another woman.