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Highway with Green Apples
This story was originally published in Day One, a weekly literary journal dedicated to short fiction and poetry from emerging writers.
Award-winning Korean writer Bae Suah tells the story of a young woman in search of meaning as she considers her fate in modern Seoul. For this aspiring artist, there seems to be no escape from life’s monotony. After leaving her family under the pretense of having fallen in love, she resigns herself to a solitary life rather than succumb to the relentless cultural pressure she feels to exchange her freedom for marriage. Numb to sex and unmoved by love, she begins to lose her grip on reality as those around her fall short of their own aspirations. Confused about the interplay between past and present and unsure of her own desire to live into the future, Highway with Green Apples is a surreal and mesmerizing tale of a young life slowly unraveling.
Award-winning Korean writer Bae Suah tells the story of a young woman in search of meaning as she considers her fate in modern Seoul. For this aspiring artist, there seems to be no escape from life’s monotony. After leaving her family under the pretense of having fallen in love, she resigns herself to a solitary life rather than succumb to the relentless cultural pressure she feels to exchange her freedom for marriage. Numb to sex and unmoved by love, she begins to lose her grip on reality as those around her fall short of their own aspirations. Confused about the interplay between past and present and unsure of her own desire to live into the future, Highway with Green Apples is a surreal and mesmerizing tale of a young life slowly unraveling.
54 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Bae Suah
16 books367 followersBae Suah, one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary Korean authors, has published more than a dozen works and won several prestigious awards. She has also translated several books from the German, including works by W. G. Sebald, Franz Kafka, and Jenny Erpenbeck. Her first book to appear in English, Nowhere to be Found, was longlisted for a PEN Translation Prize and the Best Translated Book Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 180 reviews
January 29, 2022
Very confusing narration making the reading experience uncomfortable.
September 3, 2022
I think I just like books about the musings of apathetic, depressed women trying to get through life.
July 20, 2019
Because life has not turned out the way I wanted it to. Because that’s how it always is—as a child, you get no love from your parents, and at school, you get bad grades and never catch anyone’s eye. And after you’re all grown up, you keep peeking in the door of the gynecology clinic, and then wait for an hour, and another hour, at the café where a man has promised to meet you, gulping down several cups of weak coffee before leaving alone in the dark. Then, to top it off, the cat that crosses your path one day on a highway with green apples turns out to be a black cat.
Highway with Green Apples is translated by Sora Kim-Russell from the 1994 short novella 푸른 사과가 있는 국도 by 배수아 (Bae Suah).
This is the 7th book by Bae Suah I have read, through Kim-Russell’s and Deborah Smith’s translations. Highway with Green Apples is a somewhat more conventional story than some of her other works, a tale narrated by a woman in her mid 20s, who, when the novel is open is driving with her then partner:
The road ends at a rundown street that leads to a small, unfamiliar town, where women selling green apples will be sitting along the side of the street. I am one week away from my twenty-fifth birthday. I hate being that age. That age is neither as fresh and full of life as fifteen years nor as jaded as the afternoon of thirty-five years. I never know what the next day will bring, so I am always uneasy.
Their relationship, although two years old, is a very loose one and indeed he breaks up with her, for another woman, immediately after the trip, telling her:
“She really puts me at ease. It’s different than when I’m with you. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I had a problem with you. Not at all. It’s just that, with her, I never feel anxious about what I’m supposed to do next. I could never cheat on someone like her.”
The rest of the novel roams back and forth through the narrator’s life and relationships, 배수아 very effectively switching between different times (with the green apples sold at the side of the highway a recurring image) to the extent that even the narrator is confused at times of the order of events (Or maybe I was remembering it all wrong. The bar with the piano might have happened long after that day I bought green apples on the west coast highway.)
This includes a brief glimpse back to her earlier life with her parents and chauvinistic brother, from which she fled fearing a life of being married to a man like him:
Brother, I thought, you may be able to strut around in front of us and take the last chicken leg for yourself and never once wash your own socks, but no matter how loudly you yell, you cannot stop me from leaving. I leaned against the rusted kitchen door and listened to my brother slurp his hot coffee for the last time.
The narrator works in a department store and now lives alone, although she previously shared accommodation with a friend:
The fire escape with its rusted, broken railing was barely hanging on, and the building housed a poker den where salarymen who worked in a nearby office park would gather, their eyes bloodshot and ties loosened, and a piano school on the second floor where primary school students carrying little keyboards in their bags would show up like a relentless swarm of bugs once the deathly silence of midday had passed. The monotonous Czerny étude that would start to drone in the early evenings was probably overheard by a typist in the bathroom of a small office nearby, where she was touching up her lipstick and anxiously checking the clock.
The novella ends:
To the final darkness of summer before the oncoming dawn, I whisper: “I don’t know anything.” I’m not thrilled by sex, and I’m not moved by love. I gaze down at the road stretching off into the distance and stand still in the bleak, dusty wind. I think I can smell the green of the river and the scent of old grass. “Is the ocean this way?” they pull over and ask. The wind ruffles my hair and flattens the tall, dry grass along the side of the road. Rachmaninov blares out the car windows, and they buy green apples.
Overall a relatively early and less well developed work but still worth reading. 3.5 stars relative to her stronger stories.
Highway with Green Apples is translated by Sora Kim-Russell from the 1994 short novella 푸른 사과가 있는 국도 by 배수아 (Bae Suah).
This is the 7th book by Bae Suah I have read, through Kim-Russell’s and Deborah Smith’s translations. Highway with Green Apples is a somewhat more conventional story than some of her other works, a tale narrated by a woman in her mid 20s, who, when the novel is open is driving with her then partner:
The road ends at a rundown street that leads to a small, unfamiliar town, where women selling green apples will be sitting along the side of the street. I am one week away from my twenty-fifth birthday. I hate being that age. That age is neither as fresh and full of life as fifteen years nor as jaded as the afternoon of thirty-five years. I never know what the next day will bring, so I am always uneasy.
Their relationship, although two years old, is a very loose one and indeed he breaks up with her, for another woman, immediately after the trip, telling her:
“She really puts me at ease. It’s different than when I’m with you. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I had a problem with you. Not at all. It’s just that, with her, I never feel anxious about what I’m supposed to do next. I could never cheat on someone like her.”
The rest of the novel roams back and forth through the narrator’s life and relationships, 배수아 very effectively switching between different times (with the green apples sold at the side of the highway a recurring image) to the extent that even the narrator is confused at times of the order of events (Or maybe I was remembering it all wrong. The bar with the piano might have happened long after that day I bought green apples on the west coast highway.)
This includes a brief glimpse back to her earlier life with her parents and chauvinistic brother, from which she fled fearing a life of being married to a man like him:
Brother, I thought, you may be able to strut around in front of us and take the last chicken leg for yourself and never once wash your own socks, but no matter how loudly you yell, you cannot stop me from leaving. I leaned against the rusted kitchen door and listened to my brother slurp his hot coffee for the last time.
The narrator works in a department store and now lives alone, although she previously shared accommodation with a friend:
The fire escape with its rusted, broken railing was barely hanging on, and the building housed a poker den where salarymen who worked in a nearby office park would gather, their eyes bloodshot and ties loosened, and a piano school on the second floor where primary school students carrying little keyboards in their bags would show up like a relentless swarm of bugs once the deathly silence of midday had passed. The monotonous Czerny étude that would start to drone in the early evenings was probably overheard by a typist in the bathroom of a small office nearby, where she was touching up her lipstick and anxiously checking the clock.
The novella ends:
To the final darkness of summer before the oncoming dawn, I whisper: “I don’t know anything.” I’m not thrilled by sex, and I’m not moved by love. I gaze down at the road stretching off into the distance and stand still in the bleak, dusty wind. I think I can smell the green of the river and the scent of old grass. “Is the ocean this way?” they pull over and ask. The wind ruffles my hair and flattens the tall, dry grass along the side of the road. Rachmaninov blares out the car windows, and they buy green apples.
Overall a relatively early and less well developed work but still worth reading. 3.5 stars relative to her stronger stories.
October 12, 2018
Bae Suah is simply amazing. She has such a gift for evoking that commingling of emotion and memory that is so hard to articulate and yet which informs our perceptions of people and relationships. What do green apples ostensibly have to do with a young woman's existential crisis? It's the vividness of their color to her as an artist; eating them on the final, lonely trip with her ex-boyfriend during which he mostly ignored her; and the odd yet resigned sense of possibly ending up as a poor old woman selling food on the roadside. It's not conventional stream-of-consciousness but more a juxtaposition of thoughts and events that forms a coherent whole. Does that make sense? Bae Suah is difficult to describe.
December 18, 2020
(I feel like I'm making the most out of my Kindle Unlimited subscription, at least before it gets taken away from me...heh.)
This is one of the books that got my attention as it is set in Korea and describes pretty much places I've been to (in South Korea lol). I never really like how some books in Korean get translated into English. Not every book is meant to be translated, I guess (which is also why I try to learn other languages or at least research about the context of a literature before I delve deeper into its story). Lexical gaps occur very often in translated texts. Reading a book like this (especially when you're not familiar with its cultural background) can get pretty boring for a normal reader.
It felt like I was stuck in a Reply episode (yes, include all three of them, 1997, 1994, and 1988). It's like everyone asks the quarter-life crisis question, "What happens at/after twenty-five?" "Am I going to be okay?" (Everyone else is getting married, everyone else is doing a great job, everyone else has found their purpose in life...well not me?). I can't help but also think that it's like a Haruki Murakami novel set in South Korea.
Reading the Kindle Unlimited version of this, I cannot help but look and focus at the most highlighted passages. And it makes me think about what was going through the minds of those who previously read it. Are they going through those questions, too? Were they looking for answers, too?
It's a short story, you can finish it in a few minutes or less than an hour if you're seriously dedicated to finishing it. It can get boring (it did bore me) but it's a good read.
This is one of the books that got my attention as it is set in Korea and describes pretty much places I've been to (in South Korea lol). I never really like how some books in Korean get translated into English. Not every book is meant to be translated, I guess (which is also why I try to learn other languages or at least research about the context of a literature before I delve deeper into its story). Lexical gaps occur very often in translated texts. Reading a book like this (especially when you're not familiar with its cultural background) can get pretty boring for a normal reader.
It felt like I was stuck in a Reply episode (yes, include all three of them, 1997, 1994, and 1988). It's like everyone asks the quarter-life crisis question, "What happens at/after twenty-five?" "Am I going to be okay?" (Everyone else is getting married, everyone else is doing a great job, everyone else has found their purpose in life...well not me?). I can't help but also think that it's like a Haruki Murakami novel set in South Korea.
Reading the Kindle Unlimited version of this, I cannot help but look and focus at the most highlighted passages. And it makes me think about what was going through the minds of those who previously read it. Are they going through those questions, too? Were they looking for answers, too?
It's a short story, you can finish it in a few minutes or less than an hour if you're seriously dedicated to finishing it. It can get boring (it did bore me) but it's a good read.
February 9, 2022
“Tell me what you like, what you want to do.”
“I like having a cigarette and a cup of coffee in the morning. And I like watching the rain through a big plate-glass window.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“I like having a cigarette and a cup of coffee in the morning. And I like watching the rain through a big plate-glass window.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
October 27, 2024
Distilled existential dread. We all feel this in varying intensities from time to time... it's really up to us to not be consumed by this. When we review our life it's pretty rare that we can conclude that we deserve our own wikipedia page lol I guess that's difficult for some people but I digress. This novel captures that feeling of "why am I even here" when life's offerings are not exactly desirable nor have any rewarding impact. This voice is very familiar it's pretty much in the zeitgeist of 90s media... this type of girl is well represented in movies starring Janeane Garofalo and cartoons like Daria. I sorta miss that but this story is such a slog to get through maybe it's by design maybe im in a peaceful no angst era that I didn't appreciate this but I'm sticking to a 2 haha.
May 12, 2023
although nothing really happened nor did i feel connected to the characters at all, there was something charming about the mundanity of everything and there definitely were a couple quotes that were relatable
May 27, 2022
3.5⭐️
A young woman floats through her mundane life and questions her purpose.
It’s beautifully written in how the story blurs and flows together while we watch the narrator navigate the world while being lost in love and life. Despite this, though, she is comfortable with where she stands.
Short, poetic, and easily quotable.
CW: references to infidelity, misogyny, suicide
A young woman floats through her mundane life and questions her purpose.
It’s beautifully written in how the story blurs and flows together while we watch the narrator navigate the world while being lost in love and life. Despite this, though, she is comfortable with where she stands.
Short, poetic, and easily quotable.
CW: references to infidelity, misogyny, suicide
November 2, 2023
A sweet story but the constant change of narrative make it difficult to follow at times.
August 13, 2023
3.5/5
This was a short story, a nice quick read. I thought it was pretty interesting. It was stream of consciousness which made it sometimes hard to follow along, as it kept jumping from thought to thought.
It was not really a story, but more of a person recalling events in their life. It was a interesting POV from the narrator. The narrator is depressed and is not getting much from life. We see through her life of love and work as she deals with pressures from societal norms around her.
Its set in Seoul, the main character runs away from her expectations and pressures from family, in hope to gain more from life. We see how she viewsd those around her based on her own thoughts and feelings.
It was hard to tell which characters are likeable and which arent since we are only seeing them through the narrators POV. At first I was not a fan of some characters or loved some characters until I realized that my view of them is being shaded from the narrator.
The narrator does not see herself having much of a life. She had interesting thoughts about love and how to live life, though it seems like from how she tells the story, its just her trying to get by based on these ideals of maybe she will one day become something. She does not have much passion or motivation, but does not seem to mind that much.
One thing that really stuck out to me is the portrayal of her best friend, how she views her best friend is how we view her best friend until someone else tells her about how her best friend really is. I dont know if that made since, im trying to explain my thoughts without spoilers.
Overall, I think this story did a good portrayal on how one views others, and how one lives with what they expect from themselves vs what expected of them from others. It was also a very good portrayal on growing up and maturing, and how your views change as you mature.
This was a short story, a nice quick read. I thought it was pretty interesting. It was stream of consciousness which made it sometimes hard to follow along, as it kept jumping from thought to thought.
It was not really a story, but more of a person recalling events in their life. It was a interesting POV from the narrator. The narrator is depressed and is not getting much from life. We see through her life of love and work as she deals with pressures from societal norms around her.
Its set in Seoul, the main character runs away from her expectations and pressures from family, in hope to gain more from life. We see how she viewsd those around her based on her own thoughts and feelings.
It was hard to tell which characters are likeable and which arent since we are only seeing them through the narrators POV. At first I was not a fan of some characters or loved some characters until I realized that my view of them is being shaded from the narrator.
The narrator does not see herself having much of a life. She had interesting thoughts about love and how to live life, though it seems like from how she tells the story, its just her trying to get by based on these ideals of maybe she will one day become something. She does not have much passion or motivation, but does not seem to mind that much.
One thing that really stuck out to me is the portrayal of her best friend, how she views her best friend is how we view her best friend until someone else tells her about how her best friend really is. I dont know if that made since, im trying to explain my thoughts without spoilers.
Overall, I think this story did a good portrayal on how one views others, and how one lives with what they expect from themselves vs what expected of them from others. It was also a very good portrayal on growing up and maturing, and how your views change as you mature.
April 26, 2023
Short read but with very confusing narration 😒
June 22, 2023
I agree with many of the other reviews I've seen in which the narration is described as confusing.. I don't really know where I thought this story was going, but it didn't go there.
December 14, 2023
Recommend this to the Sylvia Plath girlies
February 19, 2025
"On that autumn day of my twenty-fifth year, I have a lump in my throat."
"How long is an ocean of time? Feelings as countless as grains of sand. Distances as far-flung as the sky. How much is that? I wonder."
"A premonition came over me - a vague sadness, as if this exact feeling, this same summer day, would come around again sometime."
Honest and feeling.
"How long is an ocean of time? Feelings as countless as grains of sand. Distances as far-flung as the sky. How much is that? I wonder."
"A premonition came over me - a vague sadness, as if this exact feeling, this same summer day, would come around again sometime."
Honest and feeling.
August 6, 2022
I felt certain that just because practically every single person found someone to marry did not mean that they’d found a love as gentle as a spring breeze or that shook them up like a midsummer storm.
i think if you liked convenience store woman by sayaka murata, you'll like this one
i think if you liked convenience store woman by sayaka murata, you'll like this one
March 27, 2024
2.75🌟
August 31, 2024
2.5⭐️
Not bad at all but inconsistent as hell. It’s giving adhd.
Not bad at all but inconsistent as hell. It’s giving adhd.
June 12, 2025
Meh! The main character was depressing and insufferable. And the constant shift in narrative made it quite confusing. Nothing remarkable about this story.
April 1, 2024
I'm not in the mind space to digest this properly so the constant nonlinear timeline shifting of the narrative literally within a single paragraph left me more annoyed than anything.
That being said, this is one I would try again in the future to see if I could make more sense of it.
That being said, this is one I would try again in the future to see if I could make more sense of it.
November 26, 2014
A decent enough book, but it is definitely for a reader of a certain age and sex, likely a woman in her 20's and 30's, partly because this is the topic of the novella: the existential crisis a 25 year old is going through realizing that she is no longer exactly young, and has no vision or meaning that can help her to see the future.
A chance meeting with a peddler of apples, starts a chain of reminiscences that lead to a melancholic, perhaps even bleak ending. This is a good example of a certain genre (though it would never be called that in Korea) of work in which a woman (or sometimes man), can't find psychological, emotional, or even physical space to call their own.
A good introduction to that genre, at the price, and if you have a Kindle.
A chance meeting with a peddler of apples, starts a chain of reminiscences that lead to a melancholic, perhaps even bleak ending. This is a good example of a certain genre (though it would never be called that in Korea) of work in which a woman (or sometimes man), can't find psychological, emotional, or even physical space to call their own.
A good introduction to that genre, at the price, and if you have a Kindle.
September 26, 2022
2.5/5
Technically flawed yet quite compelling coming-of-age story of a woman who is struggling to build deeper bonds with family members, friends and a strain of lovers. Smells, colors and lingering feelings drift idly through the pages as the reader is confronted with frequently raised concerns of post-modern youth.
Technically flawed yet quite compelling coming-of-age story of a woman who is struggling to build deeper bonds with family members, friends and a strain of lovers. Smells, colors and lingering feelings drift idly through the pages as the reader is confronted with frequently raised concerns of post-modern youth.
October 2, 2021
This became my first korean story to read and I'm so glad that it is. This is perfect for the 20+yr olds still finding their selves. A lot of ways I relate to the main character especially her background. I'll be looking forward to read more of Bae Suah's works.
September 18, 2015
Very good short story
April 22, 2022
ughhh this was so good i wish it was longer!!!!!!!!
June 11, 2022
Did not understand anything haha
April 8, 2023
A bit shit
May 23, 2023
A visually rich story that doesn't go anywhere.
March 21, 2024
1.5/5
very dull
very dull
Displaying 1 - 30 of 180 reviews