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The Cabinet
Cabinet 13 looks like an old, ordinary cabinet. But it is filled with stories – peculiar, strange, eye popping, disgusting, enraging, and touching stories. The life of the man who manages cabinet 13, an ordinary office manager, is similarly filled with stories. Kim Un-Su intricately interweaves the all these stories with precise prose and in rich style, and will leave you thinking about the stories inside your own cabinet long after you turn the final page.
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First published January 1, 2006
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About the author
Kim Un-Su
6 books250 followersUn-su Kim was born in 1972 in Busan and is the author of several highly praised novels. He has won the Munhakdongne Novel Prize, Korea’s most prestigious literary prize, and was nominated for the 2016 Grand Prix de la Littéraire Policière. He lives in Jinhae-gu, South Korea.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,054 reviews
November 4, 2021
Un-su Kim’s award-winning novel’s episodic and slightly surreal with a strange, fable-like quality. At its core’s Kong Deok-Geun, an ordinary, Seoul office worker who ends up as assistant to mysterious Professor Kwon. Kwon’s custodian of cabinet 13, a secret section of Deok-Geun’s company that coordinates research into a bizarre group, who may or may not be the product of covert experiments. Deok-Geun’s job’s to document and support these subjects: people who’ve reinvented themselves by surgically removing their memories; Rip-Van-Winkle type “torporers” who fall into deep, long-lasting sleep; men and women who find themselves losing time; a gay man who falls for his doppelganger; and those who swear a strict diet of gasoline or glass is the only way to survive. Deok-Geun’s work’s complicated by the string of cabinet 13 wannabes desperate for entry to this select circle, like the man looking for a spell to transform himself into one of the cats adored by the woman who rejected him.
Deok-Geun’s life experiences unfold alongside a series of anecdotes, and pseudo-scientific reports focused on members of cabinet 13. Kim grounds these sections in reality by mixing fact and fiction, giving equal weight to mythic and academic explanations. He even inserts real-life figures like Ludger Sylbaris sole survivor of a catastrophic volcanic eruption - who became an attraction in Barnum’s circus sideshow - but then gives him a rather different history.
It’s not a very well-balanced piece but I think Kim compensates for that in his inventive, playful treatment of his material. This starts out as light, frequently amusing, fantasy but evolves into an oblique commentary on contemporary alienation, the absurdity of life in a frenzied, capitalist society. So that cabinet 13’s subjects seem less weird or monstrous distortions, more enviable escape artists, evading the demands of an overwhelmingly stressful, conformist world. Kim avoids the pitfalls of standard, realist depictions of South Korea as “Hell Joseon” which can tend towards cliché; instead he uses Deok-Geun’s increasingly nightmarish situation to construct a refreshingly unconventional, convincing portrait of anomie and the unrelenting loneliness of urban existence. Kim's book's ably translated from the original Korean by Sean Lin Halbert.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Angry Robot for the arc.
Rating: 4.5
Deok-Geun’s life experiences unfold alongside a series of anecdotes, and pseudo-scientific reports focused on members of cabinet 13. Kim grounds these sections in reality by mixing fact and fiction, giving equal weight to mythic and academic explanations. He even inserts real-life figures like Ludger Sylbaris sole survivor of a catastrophic volcanic eruption - who became an attraction in Barnum’s circus sideshow - but then gives him a rather different history.
It’s not a very well-balanced piece but I think Kim compensates for that in his inventive, playful treatment of his material. This starts out as light, frequently amusing, fantasy but evolves into an oblique commentary on contemporary alienation, the absurdity of life in a frenzied, capitalist society. So that cabinet 13’s subjects seem less weird or monstrous distortions, more enviable escape artists, evading the demands of an overwhelmingly stressful, conformist world. Kim avoids the pitfalls of standard, realist depictions of South Korea as “Hell Joseon” which can tend towards cliché; instead he uses Deok-Geun’s increasingly nightmarish situation to construct a refreshingly unconventional, convincing portrait of anomie and the unrelenting loneliness of urban existence. Kim's book's ably translated from the original Korean by Sean Lin Halbert.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Angry Robot for the arc.
Rating: 4.5
August 15, 2021
Oh my. This collection of anecdotal wonders seemed both extraordinarily inventive and slightly pointless to me, both at once. I was left impatient by the perky-yet-detached narrative voice as it reminded me of the default voice of many other contemporary writing inventions that I’ve read recently so it could just be bad timing that I didn’t enjoy this more.
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June 23, 2023
South Korean author Un-su Kim, born 1972
The Cabinet - mosaic novel containing elements of the absurd, fantastical , grotesque, the strange, freaky and kooky along with bits of science fiction, all orbiting at the far reaches of flaky weirdness - and that's mosaic novel as in composed of seemingly autonomous stories, but, upon closer inspection, all share themes and motifs that together form a cohesive, integral whole, most especially when the final chapter circles back to incorporate elements and threads from previous chapters.
Un-su Kim employs a three-part structure featuring a narrator by the name of Deok-geun Kong, a clerk in an unnamed research center. Kong begins by recounting the life of Ludger Sylbarious and then moves on to provide detail on what are called symptomers (oddities - more below), information he gleans from a secret cabinet containing 375 files. The novel's second part squeezes and torques everything in Part 1 as Kong becomes a more active player in the unfolding drama, a drama spiraling down into fear and repulsion. Part 3 of Kong's tale twists once again and the more we read, the more the title of this part, BOOBYTRAP, can be seen as disturbingly ironic since it will bring to mind a Venus flytrap with Kong taking on the role of fly.
Kong's job at the research center amounts to nothing more than logging in the institute's daily shipment of lab supplies, work that takes no more than ten minutes every day. He's free the remaining hours – the ultimate slacker job. However, Kong might be an ordinary kind of guy, a mediocre, a square but he isn't a slacker. He wants a little struggle in his life. Thus he sneaks into an area of the building generally off limits and discovers half-hidden cabinet 13 and reads through files containing bizarre transcripts and medical reports. All this leads Kong into a heap of trouble.
What's particularly fascinating and memorable in Kim's novel: Kong talking about what he found in Cabinet 13 and also Kong's account of Ludger Sylbaris where the clerk (and indirectly author Un-su Kim) leaven historical fact with generous helpings of fiction.
Oh, yes, Ludger Sylbarius, the prisoner who in Kong's version spent the last thirty years of his life writing a brutal history of Saint-Pierre while living in seclusion at the edge of a desert in Mexico. Kong's final reflection: “Then why, I wonder, after thirty years had the people of Saint-Pierre changed into monsters? What happened as Ludger Sylbaris walked endlessly through the labyrinth of his imagination? Why, Ludger Sylbaris, why?”
Are you serious, Kong? You just recounted how, at the tender age of sixteen, Ludger Sylbarius was locked away in a prison tower for twenty-four years, held prisoner on false charges of repeatedly sneaking into a convent to rape nuns, a ludicrous fabrication concocted because the teenager insulted a priest in public. Of course in Ludger Sylbarius' imagination the people of Saint-Pierre will be monsters living disgusting, stinking lives and walking around with degrading deformities - things like two penises, four testes, badger tails. What do you expect, Kong? Your words betrays a definite naivete. On top of this, your judgement that Ludger Sylbarius' life as a hermit farmer in Mexico was a miserable life amounts to nothing more than your own suffocating projection: just because you are easily bored with silence and solitude doesn't mean other people share your limitation.
What are symptomers? Kong provides ample examples: a London accountant drinks gasoline instead of water, in the last ten years even more gasoline than his BMW sedan; a Hong Kong resident eats nothing but glass; a guy in Australia snacks on steel, biting off bits of steel with his teeth as if enjoying a candy bar; a gal in Inner Mongolia eats more than a kilogram of dirt every day; in Finland, a man consumes 300 watt-hours of electricity for breakfast; a number of people have cactuses or grapevines growing from their fingers and others have lizard-like body parts, and still others can smell, taste, and see with their fingers.
Zeroing in on his own city of Seoul, Kong cites more of the freakish: one man grows a ginkgo tree from his pinky; individuals lose hours of the day as if time itself slides into a mysterious black hole; a man's life desire is to become a cat; people sleep for weeks or even months at a time (herein called torporers).
As readers we can ask: Where is all of this leading? At one point Kong reflects that our human remains will be put on display in a museum of some future species, assuming that future advanced species would show even a slight interest in humans; perhaps the beings of the future will use humans as a bad example, telling their children not to live like Homo sapiens, a truly pathetic species.
However, as we're reading, it becomes clear Kong is what some people refer to as a goober - and he seems to alternate between wide-eyed amazement and a dry retelling of events no matter how extreme. Above all else, Un-su Kim has given us a narrator with a unique voice, a narrator who at one point tells us about the symptomers:
"This is a story about a new species, one that has been hitherto considered an abomination, a disease, a form of madness. It is a story about people who have suffered from the side effects of that evolution. A story about people who have been ensnared in a powerful and nameless magical spell, unable to receive insurance benefits, proper treatment, or counseling. A story about people who have been physically and mentally devastated, and who have willingly or unwillingly lived a lonely and melancholic life away from the rest of the world. A story about people who - because they exist in an intolerant scientific world that brands anything that exists beyond its microscope as mysticism and heresy - must shut themselves in a cramped room to live a hard life, never having anyone to call for help."
When we finish the concluding chapter, would it be fair to consider Deok-geun Kong himself as one of the symptomers? A question to keep in mind while reading this highly unusual novel.
July 3, 2022
Fun and quirky, with just a tad of dark humor. Exactly what I was needing.
October 21, 2022
Everything about The Cabinet makes it sound like the perfect kind of book for me: it sounds monumentally quirky, and seems to be told in short story-ish format. I mean, look at this line from the introduction:
"All the information contained in the novel has been manufactured, modified, or distorted in some way, and should not be used as evidence in any argument, be it in a respected academic journal or a heated bar fight."
That's fun! But what you get, is a book about the person looking after the Cabinet, and very few actually quirky stories. And the man looking after the Cabinet isn't a very interesting character.
"There’s Xin Tiandi who lives in Hong Kong and eats glass. In fact, not only does he eat glass, he eats nothing but glass. Xin Tiandi’s existence has led some scientists to claim that there are special calories in glass – calories humankind has yet to discover."
The few strange stories you do get, are inventive and interesting, and I wish there were more of them. There is an overarching story about the mysterious Cabinet, but it's not very thrilling.
The book teases the reader with possiblities, but ends up as a collection of missed opportunities.
(Thanks to Angry Robot for providing me with an ARC through NetGalley)
"All the information contained in the novel has been manufactured, modified, or distorted in some way, and should not be used as evidence in any argument, be it in a respected academic journal or a heated bar fight."
That's fun! But what you get, is a book about the person looking after the Cabinet, and very few actually quirky stories. And the man looking after the Cabinet isn't a very interesting character.
"There’s Xin Tiandi who lives in Hong Kong and eats glass. In fact, not only does he eat glass, he eats nothing but glass. Xin Tiandi’s existence has led some scientists to claim that there are special calories in glass – calories humankind has yet to discover."
The few strange stories you do get, are inventive and interesting, and I wish there were more of them. There is an overarching story about the mysterious Cabinet, but it's not very thrilling.
The book teases the reader with possiblities, but ends up as a collection of missed opportunities.
(Thanks to Angry Robot for providing me with an ARC through NetGalley)
July 11, 2021
Cold noodles in a bowl for beef broth are not cold noodles. It’s just really poorly made beef broth.
곰탕 뚝배기에 냉면을 담아오면 그것은 냉면이 아니다. 그것은 잘못 만들어진 곰탕일 뿐이다
The Cabinet is a transation by Sean Lin Halbert of 캐비닛 (the Hangeul phonetic rendition of 'cabinet') by 김언수 (Un-su Kim).
I have previously read 김언수's fascinating thriller The Plotters in Sora Kim-Russell's translation - my review.
This is I believe the debut translation by Sean Lin Halbert, who in 2018 was a Fiction Commendation Award winner in the Korea Times' 49th translation awards.
Cabinet begins with a wonderful disclaimer: All the information contained in the novel has been manufactured, modified, or distorted in some way, and should not be used as evidence in any argument, be it in a respected academic journal or a heated bar fight.
The relevance of this immediately becomes apparent in the opening story about Ludger Sylbaris who, in real-life, was one of the few survivors of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée which otherwise killed almost all the population of St Pierre in Martinique, Sylbaris surviving as he'd been incarcerated overnight inan underground cell. But in Kim's retelling, Sylbaris's prison was a tower not a dungeon and he was locked away in the prison tower for twenty-four long years. He was put in prison at the age of sixteen, and it wasn’t until he turned forty that he was able to leave its confines. In fact, he was only able to escape with the help of the volcano, and not because he had served out his sentence.
The main strand of the novel consists of a number of similar, but entirely fictitious vignettes, drawn from the files of Cabinet 13, an otherwise unassuming filing cabinet in a municipal records office.
It is called Cabinet 13. But there is no particular reason for the number 13. It only means it’s the thirteenth cabinet from the left. This would probably be a better introduction if it had a fancier name. But then again, what would you expect from a cabinet?
A professor at the office has been researching for over 40 years people he dubs as "symptomers", people who have evolved in mysterious ways past our human norms. And our narrator, Kong Deok-geun, stumbles across the archive and ends up working as a filing assistant for Professor Kwon, who explains to him:
Modern evolutionists like Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould have argued that species can evolve suddenly after million years of evolutionary dormancy– a theory they called “punctuated equilibrium.”
...
People are showing the symptoms of an evolving species. Without a suitable term from academia, we have decided to call these individuals “people with symptoms” or just “symptomers.” Symptomers break slightly from Homo sapiens as defined by biologists and anthropologists. They exist between the humans of today and the humans of the future– that is, they exist on the branch between species. They are both the last humans and the first of a new kind.
The trigger for such evolution being our hyper-intensive fast-changing capitalist modern world, an example being a group of people who have taken to bear-like hibernation, falling asleep for months on end:
Modern people cannot fall into a deep sleep. Ever since the invention of electricity and the emergence of monolithic cities, the modern night has fallen into a state of constant unrest. In my opinion, the most lasting legacy of capitalism will be angst. Insurance, stocks, real estate, investments… The entire modern economy is based on anxiety, and as everyone knows, anxiety is the mortal enemy of a good night’s sleep. And insomnia only leads to more anxiety– it’s a vicious cycle. Thus, we are always anxious, internally and externally. Conversely, primitive humans were much more spiritual beings. They worked when the sun was out, and they dreamed and rested once it set. In other words, in order to live properly, you have to follow divine providence and live half your life working, and the other half dreaming.
Another series of stories concerns those whose diet consists of one, seemingly inedible or nutritionless, items - In Singapore there is a man who lives off newspapers. By now this one should seem quite normal. Compared to ingesting gasoline, glass, and steel, eating newspapers seems almost cute.
...
What should we think of phenomena like these? How can people forgo perfectly fine foods like jjajangmyeon, spaghetti, and stir-fried octopus for gasoline, glass, newspapers, and sawdust? Usually, humans (actually not just humans, all animals) can recognize immediately what they can and can’t eat. It’s what we call the Garcia Effect.
Another is people for whom the border between reality and fiction has dissolved. These people meet their fears, or perhaps the illusion of their fears, in the physical world, including a class who really are eaten by the monsters under their bed.
One particularly poignant story concerns a man with a ginko tree growing from his finger, which he concerns Kong as the tree is taking is literally sucking the life out of the man, although the subject himself is naively delighted:
“Isn’t it splendid! This month it also grew an amazing amount. I guess the manure I applied to it was effective– smelly but effective.
[...]
I have so many questions. How much light should my ginkgo tree be getting? And I heard ginkgo trees are dioecious; do I need to cross-fertilize my ginkgo tree then? If I wave my arm in the air, will it cross-fertilize itself? Or do I need bees or butterflies? Oh, but I hate bees. What then? But it should fine. I can stand butterflies.”
“정말 굉장해요. 이번 달에도 엄청나게 자랐어요. 똥을 썩힌 거름을 바른 게 효과가 있나봐요. 냄새가 좀 나긴 하지만요, 하하.
[...]
물어보고 싶은 게 많아요. 햇빛은 어느 정도 받아야 하는 건지, 은행나무는 암수딴그루라고 하는데 그렇다면 교배는 어떻게 해야 하는 건지, 팔을 벌리고 있으면 알아서 교배를 해주는 건지, 아니라면 벌이나 나비가 해주는 건지. 저는 벌을 싫어하는데 어떻게 하죠? 하지만 괜찮아요. 나비는 좋아하니까요.”
And this story turns out to be the one that gives the novel, otherwise a fascinating collection of odd stories, a narrative spine, as a crime syndicate becomes interested in these hybrid human beings, convinced the Professor created rather than merely catalogued them. The resulting intrigue involves a relationship for Kong with a co-worker suffering from autism spectrum disorders and a torture scene that perhaps needs a trigger warning for the squeamish.
A clever cabinet of curiosities and conspiracies. 4+ stars and recommended.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
곰탕 뚝배기에 냉면을 담아오면 그것은 냉면이 아니다. 그것은 잘못 만들어진 곰탕일 뿐이다
The Cabinet is a transation by Sean Lin Halbert of 캐비닛 (the Hangeul phonetic rendition of 'cabinet') by 김언수 (Un-su Kim).
I have previously read 김언수's fascinating thriller The Plotters in Sora Kim-Russell's translation - my review.
This is I believe the debut translation by Sean Lin Halbert, who in 2018 was a Fiction Commendation Award winner in the Korea Times' 49th translation awards.
Cabinet begins with a wonderful disclaimer: All the information contained in the novel has been manufactured, modified, or distorted in some way, and should not be used as evidence in any argument, be it in a respected academic journal or a heated bar fight.
The relevance of this immediately becomes apparent in the opening story about Ludger Sylbaris who, in real-life, was one of the few survivors of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée which otherwise killed almost all the population of St Pierre in Martinique, Sylbaris surviving as he'd been incarcerated overnight inan underground cell. But in Kim's retelling, Sylbaris's prison was a tower not a dungeon and he was locked away in the prison tower for twenty-four long years. He was put in prison at the age of sixteen, and it wasn’t until he turned forty that he was able to leave its confines. In fact, he was only able to escape with the help of the volcano, and not because he had served out his sentence.
The main strand of the novel consists of a number of similar, but entirely fictitious vignettes, drawn from the files of Cabinet 13, an otherwise unassuming filing cabinet in a municipal records office.
It is called Cabinet 13. But there is no particular reason for the number 13. It only means it’s the thirteenth cabinet from the left. This would probably be a better introduction if it had a fancier name. But then again, what would you expect from a cabinet?
A professor at the office has been researching for over 40 years people he dubs as "symptomers", people who have evolved in mysterious ways past our human norms. And our narrator, Kong Deok-geun, stumbles across the archive and ends up working as a filing assistant for Professor Kwon, who explains to him:
Modern evolutionists like Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould have argued that species can evolve suddenly after million years of evolutionary dormancy– a theory they called “punctuated equilibrium.”
...
People are showing the symptoms of an evolving species. Without a suitable term from academia, we have decided to call these individuals “people with symptoms” or just “symptomers.” Symptomers break slightly from Homo sapiens as defined by biologists and anthropologists. They exist between the humans of today and the humans of the future– that is, they exist on the branch between species. They are both the last humans and the first of a new kind.
The trigger for such evolution being our hyper-intensive fast-changing capitalist modern world, an example being a group of people who have taken to bear-like hibernation, falling asleep for months on end:
Modern people cannot fall into a deep sleep. Ever since the invention of electricity and the emergence of monolithic cities, the modern night has fallen into a state of constant unrest. In my opinion, the most lasting legacy of capitalism will be angst. Insurance, stocks, real estate, investments… The entire modern economy is based on anxiety, and as everyone knows, anxiety is the mortal enemy of a good night’s sleep. And insomnia only leads to more anxiety– it’s a vicious cycle. Thus, we are always anxious, internally and externally. Conversely, primitive humans were much more spiritual beings. They worked when the sun was out, and they dreamed and rested once it set. In other words, in order to live properly, you have to follow divine providence and live half your life working, and the other half dreaming.
Another series of stories concerns those whose diet consists of one, seemingly inedible or nutritionless, items - In Singapore there is a man who lives off newspapers. By now this one should seem quite normal. Compared to ingesting gasoline, glass, and steel, eating newspapers seems almost cute.
...
What should we think of phenomena like these? How can people forgo perfectly fine foods like jjajangmyeon, spaghetti, and stir-fried octopus for gasoline, glass, newspapers, and sawdust? Usually, humans (actually not just humans, all animals) can recognize immediately what they can and can’t eat. It’s what we call the Garcia Effect.
Another is people for whom the border between reality and fiction has dissolved. These people meet their fears, or perhaps the illusion of their fears, in the physical world, including a class who really are eaten by the monsters under their bed.
One particularly poignant story concerns a man with a ginko tree growing from his finger, which he concerns Kong as the tree is taking is literally sucking the life out of the man, although the subject himself is naively delighted:
“Isn’t it splendid! This month it also grew an amazing amount. I guess the manure I applied to it was effective– smelly but effective.
[...]
I have so many questions. How much light should my ginkgo tree be getting? And I heard ginkgo trees are dioecious; do I need to cross-fertilize my ginkgo tree then? If I wave my arm in the air, will it cross-fertilize itself? Or do I need bees or butterflies? Oh, but I hate bees. What then? But it should fine. I can stand butterflies.”
“정말 굉장해요. 이번 달에도 엄청나게 자랐어요. 똥을 썩힌 거름을 바른 게 효과가 있나봐요. 냄새가 좀 나긴 하지만요, 하하.
[...]
물어보고 싶은 게 많아요. 햇빛은 어느 정도 받아야 하는 건지, 은행나무는 암수딴그루라고 하는데 그렇다면 교배는 어떻게 해야 하는 건지, 팔을 벌리고 있으면 알아서 교배를 해주는 건지, 아니라면 벌이나 나비가 해주는 건지. 저는 벌을 싫어하는데 어떻게 하죠? 하지만 괜찮아요. 나비는 좋아하니까요.”
And this story turns out to be the one that gives the novel, otherwise a fascinating collection of odd stories, a narrative spine, as a crime syndicate becomes interested in these hybrid human beings, convinced the Professor created rather than merely catalogued them. The resulting intrigue involves a relationship for Kong with a co-worker suffering from autism spectrum disorders and a torture scene that perhaps needs a trigger warning for the squeamish.
A clever cabinet of curiosities and conspiracies. 4+ stars and recommended.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
October 12, 2021
5/10 stars
My full review on my blog.
Among my recent reads this novel turned out to be the strangest one; for me, it resembles mostly an early attempt at a Frankenstein’s monster: sewn together from disparate parts it ends up having three arms, one leg, and an off-color head tacked on back to front. The first 60% were highly enjoyable, but afterwards, an inexorable downward spiral got me in the end to a somewhat disheartening feeling of “wtf did I just read?”
It’s a pity, really, because the premise of Kim’s novel is quite promising, with a lot of potential: the life in modern cities became so unbearable for humans that their evolution accelerated rapidly, creating first cases of a post-homo sapiens species. The mutations don’t seem to be adaptive, at the moment, but as evolution works through trial and error, we might see some that would become highly effective.
For now, we meet “symptomers” with a range of strange skills or traits. It’s a Korean novel, so be prepared for what would usually fall into the category of body horror: a ginkgo tree growing from a man’s finger, slowly leeching him to death; a woman relieving a soul-body separation, in which her body remains in a factory, engaged in a mind-numbingly repetitive work, while her materialized soul can roam free and far, but inevitably must soon die and be buried by the body left behind. There is a man who wants to become a cat, though it seems to me that it’s the woman whom he loves who is the real symptomer here: she feels no emotions toward humans, only toward cats, so in order to form a meaningful relationship with her he feels he needs to turn into one. Another woman has a lizard instead of a tongue: she allowed the lizard to live in the cavity of her mouth, and the lizard slowly ate her tongue away, nesting in the hole it made.
Yup, body horror is about right.
Whatever you may feel about body horror, those early pages of the book make for a fascinating read; there is a clear direction, a clear goal, and the parabolic character of the story interspersed with lightly philosophical musings about the nature of our modern life makes it all the more engaging. There are the torporers, who sleep for months on end, and time-skippers, who, in especially stressful situations can suddenly miss chunks of time – from minutes to years. Doesn’t this feel like a natural continuation of the strangely meaningless and yet horribly stressful lives? 😉
[...]
But after the 60% mark the book develops worrisome symptoms (forgive the pun), which are certainly not adaptive – on the contrary. Changing into a plot-driven novel it introduces an arc of corporate espionage, torture (LOTS of digits cut off there, so beware), valuable files and safe houses, and loses all its soul in the process. Some of the “symptomers” cases, the “chimera” cases like the ginkgo man or the lizard-tongued girl turn out to be valuable to a shady “syndicate” willing to experiment on people, and our protagonist is drawn into a dangerous search for them. But, I’m sorry to say, at this point the novel becomes a caricature of itself, its previous direction completely lost and no new direction introduced, its plot derivative and soulless, its protagonist undeveloped and uninteresting. And in a way, it’s inevitable, because the novel started as something completely different. To suddenly try to make a 180 degrees turn in the middle of a book is always a very risky, if not an outright doomed move. It almost seems as if the author had been pressed to write some kind of “making sense” conclusion to his work, because it has this forced, rushed, unloved feel. And because the beginning is so different, the disparate parts are never seamlessly joined; the stitches are skewed and ugly and oozing, and the final monster fails to elicit compassion or comprehension.
[...]
I received a copy of this book from the publisher Angry Robot through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.
My full review on my blog.
Among my recent reads this novel turned out to be the strangest one; for me, it resembles mostly an early attempt at a Frankenstein’s monster: sewn together from disparate parts it ends up having three arms, one leg, and an off-color head tacked on back to front. The first 60% were highly enjoyable, but afterwards, an inexorable downward spiral got me in the end to a somewhat disheartening feeling of “wtf did I just read?”
It’s a pity, really, because the premise of Kim’s novel is quite promising, with a lot of potential: the life in modern cities became so unbearable for humans that their evolution accelerated rapidly, creating first cases of a post-homo sapiens species. The mutations don’t seem to be adaptive, at the moment, but as evolution works through trial and error, we might see some that would become highly effective.
For now, we meet “symptomers” with a range of strange skills or traits. It’s a Korean novel, so be prepared for what would usually fall into the category of body horror: a ginkgo tree growing from a man’s finger, slowly leeching him to death; a woman relieving a soul-body separation, in which her body remains in a factory, engaged in a mind-numbingly repetitive work, while her materialized soul can roam free and far, but inevitably must soon die and be buried by the body left behind. There is a man who wants to become a cat, though it seems to me that it’s the woman whom he loves who is the real symptomer here: she feels no emotions toward humans, only toward cats, so in order to form a meaningful relationship with her he feels he needs to turn into one. Another woman has a lizard instead of a tongue: she allowed the lizard to live in the cavity of her mouth, and the lizard slowly ate her tongue away, nesting in the hole it made.
Yup, body horror is about right.
Whatever you may feel about body horror, those early pages of the book make for a fascinating read; there is a clear direction, a clear goal, and the parabolic character of the story interspersed with lightly philosophical musings about the nature of our modern life makes it all the more engaging. There are the torporers, who sleep for months on end, and time-skippers, who, in especially stressful situations can suddenly miss chunks of time – from minutes to years. Doesn’t this feel like a natural continuation of the strangely meaningless and yet horribly stressful lives? 😉
[...]
But after the 60% mark the book develops worrisome symptoms (forgive the pun), which are certainly not adaptive – on the contrary. Changing into a plot-driven novel it introduces an arc of corporate espionage, torture (LOTS of digits cut off there, so beware), valuable files and safe houses, and loses all its soul in the process. Some of the “symptomers” cases, the “chimera” cases like the ginkgo man or the lizard-tongued girl turn out to be valuable to a shady “syndicate” willing to experiment on people, and our protagonist is drawn into a dangerous search for them. But, I’m sorry to say, at this point the novel becomes a caricature of itself, its previous direction completely lost and no new direction introduced, its plot derivative and soulless, its protagonist undeveloped and uninteresting. And in a way, it’s inevitable, because the novel started as something completely different. To suddenly try to make a 180 degrees turn in the middle of a book is always a very risky, if not an outright doomed move. It almost seems as if the author had been pressed to write some kind of “making sense” conclusion to his work, because it has this forced, rushed, unloved feel. And because the beginning is so different, the disparate parts are never seamlessly joined; the stitches are skewed and ugly and oozing, and the final monster fails to elicit compassion or comprehension.
[...]
I received a copy of this book from the publisher Angry Robot through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.
August 8, 2022
“Recently I’ve been eating moonlight.”
“Moon… light?”
“Bingo. Light from a full moon might be plentiful, but it’s not very tasty. No, if you want to know the taste of moonlight, there’s nothing better than light from a new moon. There’s not a lot of it, but even one bite of it is enough to… how should I put it… enough to know the true taste of moonlight.”
I think this extract from The Cabinet by Kim Un-su works like a litmus paper. If you frowned, it would be advisable to reach for another book. If you smiled, it looks promising.
I would not recommend this collection of interconnected short stories, bursting with Kim Un-su's creativity and dark sense of humour, to readers who perceive reality as a logically ordered, predictable unit. Personally, I beg to disagree and this may be one of the reasons I like surrealism and magical realism so much.
While reading this book, I felt as if Kim Un-su invited me to a spectacular firework display and entertained me with explosions of his imagination instead of real glittering lights. I felt amazed and flabbergasted at first but then, gradually, rather overwhelmed and exhausted. Especially at the end, the author got carried away — no idea what the point of the nauseating torture scene was except for shocking the readers. When I finished The Cabinet, I felt sort of relieved although I quite enjoyed this book.
The stories are hilarious at times, they made me giggle, but on the other hand, Kim Un-su tries to sensitize us to serious issues like our lack of tolerance for otherness and uniqueness. Besides, ecological problems are addressed in this collection which reads like a thriller.
In one of the stories a local delicacy, ox blood soup (which I would never try, not for all the world), is mentioned with a comment: you either like it or you absolutely hate it and in my opinion, this is exactly the case with surrealistic literature and a kind of madness it worships. As Cervantes observes in Don Quixote, When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!
Painting by Rafael Silveira.
“Moon… light?”
“Bingo. Light from a full moon might be plentiful, but it’s not very tasty. No, if you want to know the taste of moonlight, there’s nothing better than light from a new moon. There’s not a lot of it, but even one bite of it is enough to… how should I put it… enough to know the true taste of moonlight.”
I think this extract from The Cabinet by Kim Un-su works like a litmus paper. If you frowned, it would be advisable to reach for another book. If you smiled, it looks promising.
I would not recommend this collection of interconnected short stories, bursting with Kim Un-su's creativity and dark sense of humour, to readers who perceive reality as a logically ordered, predictable unit. Personally, I beg to disagree and this may be one of the reasons I like surrealism and magical realism so much.
While reading this book, I felt as if Kim Un-su invited me to a spectacular firework display and entertained me with explosions of his imagination instead of real glittering lights. I felt amazed and flabbergasted at first but then, gradually, rather overwhelmed and exhausted. Especially at the end, the author got carried away — no idea what the point of the nauseating torture scene was except for shocking the readers. When I finished The Cabinet, I felt sort of relieved although I quite enjoyed this book.
The stories are hilarious at times, they made me giggle, but on the other hand, Kim Un-su tries to sensitize us to serious issues like our lack of tolerance for otherness and uniqueness. Besides, ecological problems are addressed in this collection which reads like a thriller.
In one of the stories a local delicacy, ox blood soup (which I would never try, not for all the world), is mentioned with a comment: you either like it or you absolutely hate it and in my opinion, this is exactly the case with surrealistic literature and a kind of madness it worships. As Cervantes observes in Don Quixote, When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!
Painting by Rafael Silveira.
Read
October 18, 2021Weird book translated from the Korean. This is hard to pin down (felt like the main unifying factor is basically that people are awful and everything is terrible). It starts as magic-realist/surreal stories of people with peculiar attributes likes trees growing from their hands, morphs into a powerful critique of city life and toxic work cultures, there's a whole rather grim sequence around a woman with binge eating disorder being horribly bullied at work, and then it takes a sharp left into spy thriller territory and a truly horrible extended torture/body horror sequence, at which point I put it down with ten pages to go because I can't read that shit.
I'm assuming this holds together more in the original. Or possibly I need a more flexible approach to structure. Not for me, anyway.
I'm assuming this holds together more in the original. Or possibly I need a more flexible approach to structure. Not for me, anyway.
November 5, 2021
Trust me, you don't know where this one is going. We open with Ludger Sylbaris, the lone survivor of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee who escaped to Mexico where he posthumously wrote a book about the inhabitants of Saint-Pierre spouting badger tails, or having two penises. Is this early evidence of symptomers or a clue to the raving paranoia of those locked in their own tiny cages?
Symptomers, it's posited, are humanity's next stage, a new species of people who consume gasoline, eat steel, edit their memories, or have trees growing out from them. And they're all there in Cabinet 13 for Deok-Geun to discover. The book moves along in a series of vignettes that linger at the edges of surreal and disaffected. Someone wants to become a cat, someone else spends half a year methodically drinking 12,000 beers, there's a gluttonous episode in a sushi bar and a violent interrogation. But why? It's a mad, mad world.
Symptomers, it's posited, are humanity's next stage, a new species of people who consume gasoline, eat steel, edit their memories, or have trees growing out from them. And they're all there in Cabinet 13 for Deok-Geun to discover. The book moves along in a series of vignettes that linger at the edges of surreal and disaffected. Someone wants to become a cat, someone else spends half a year methodically drinking 12,000 beers, there's a gluttonous episode in a sushi bar and a violent interrogation. But why? It's a mad, mad world.
Read
November 3, 2023Un-su Kim’s The Cabinet is a fantastic and engaging blend of speculative short stories and a longer, underlying thread. Our protagonist, Mr. Kong, is a simple office worker who has wound up as the caretaker of a filing cabinet full of accounts of strange people known as “symptomers”: human beings with odd conditions and abilities.
The novel contains many stories dedicated to symptomers: a man with a gingko tree growing out of his finger; people who seem to jump forward in time at random; people who sustain themselves off glass, steel, or gasoline. These stories make up half the narrative, and paint a vivid picture of a world that is far stranger than what we see and believe in our day-to-day.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/korean-novels...
The novel contains many stories dedicated to symptomers: a man with a gingko tree growing out of his finger; people who seem to jump forward in time at random; people who sustain themselves off glass, steel, or gasoline. These stories make up half the narrative, and paint a vivid picture of a world that is far stranger than what we see and believe in our day-to-day.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/korean-novels...
October 12, 2021
The Cabinet is a riveting, surreal and deeply prescient novel as well as a brilliant award-winning literary sci-fi/literary social commentary that doesn't fit neatly into any genre boxes as it very much does its own thing. It is a political social commentary of our world today swaddled in the mist of allegory. The Cabinet is a story about the documents that record people known as symptomers - those who display strange symptoms that are the harbinger of a new era in humanity - and the man who manages the documents in Cabinet 13. This seemingly ordinary, old cabinet is filled with stories that are peculiar, strange, eye-popping, disgusting, enraging and touching. However, the fast-changing world is also full of all sorts of unbelievable things. Perhaps symptomers exist not only in the novel but also in the real world. Perhaps some of us do not accept our past and instead, erase our memories and create new ones.
Some of us might want to become a wooden doll or a cat rather than live in pain as a human. And if you look around, you can find those who can love no one but themselves or their alter egos. The narrator is an office worker in his 30s, as ordinary as the cabinet. But he once spent 178 days drinking nothing but cans of beer. And his colleague Son Jeong-eun is a quiet, chubby girl who draws nobody’s attention. But she also has a strange habit of devouring more than 100 pieces of sushi at once. In this novel, the cabinet is a container that holds all the truths of the world. Kim Un-su puts truth into the cabinet “as it is” and keeps it fresh under proper temperature and moisture, utilising his precise prose and rich style. Each episode, preposterous and weird, is intricately interwoven with the narrator’s own story and constructed like Lego blocks that form a perfectly assembled structure.
Unfolding peculiar and heart-freezing episodes, the author tells us that this is an ‘ordinary’ story and at the same time, the truth “as it is,” as natural as the wind blowing, flowers blossoming and snow falling. The moment you turn the last page of the book, you will come to think about which strange stories are inside your own cabinet. And you will be also curious about what story the author will pull out of his cabinet next time. This is an utterly engrossing read. Ever since I fell head over heels in love with Murakami years ago, original and slightly unusual Asian stories make me extremely excited more so than almost any other fiction, so I was hoping to be scintillated and captivated by this, and it certainly didn't disappoint; it even features some pulse-pounding moments that give it the feel of a thriller at times. It's imaginative and wholly original through and through yet behind its incredible and absurd appearance, the author paints a bittersweet, heartrending portrait of Korean society.
It's a bitter critique of our so-called post-modern society delivered in a caustic tone, so much so that the novel is reminiscent of Chaplin's Modern Times. The symptomatic are the lost puppets who face the reality of our society. Chaplin, but also Cervantes or Flaubert, The Cabinet is a gothic and crazy novel, devoid of rules, free. And the truths of the symptomatic come to life through the author's writing. Funny and spicy, Kim Un-su gives the narrator a special distance. It evokes a gamut of emotions including sorrow, joy and amusement as it is reflective of the changing emotions of real life and is both moving and humorously witty. Against a backdrop of a secret society and hidden files, deliciously fantastic and cleverly paranoid, this is a one-of-a-kind noir novel, pure Kim Un-su from beginning to denouement. Highly recommended.
Some of us might want to become a wooden doll or a cat rather than live in pain as a human. And if you look around, you can find those who can love no one but themselves or their alter egos. The narrator is an office worker in his 30s, as ordinary as the cabinet. But he once spent 178 days drinking nothing but cans of beer. And his colleague Son Jeong-eun is a quiet, chubby girl who draws nobody’s attention. But she also has a strange habit of devouring more than 100 pieces of sushi at once. In this novel, the cabinet is a container that holds all the truths of the world. Kim Un-su puts truth into the cabinet “as it is” and keeps it fresh under proper temperature and moisture, utilising his precise prose and rich style. Each episode, preposterous and weird, is intricately interwoven with the narrator’s own story and constructed like Lego blocks that form a perfectly assembled structure.
Unfolding peculiar and heart-freezing episodes, the author tells us that this is an ‘ordinary’ story and at the same time, the truth “as it is,” as natural as the wind blowing, flowers blossoming and snow falling. The moment you turn the last page of the book, you will come to think about which strange stories are inside your own cabinet. And you will be also curious about what story the author will pull out of his cabinet next time. This is an utterly engrossing read. Ever since I fell head over heels in love with Murakami years ago, original and slightly unusual Asian stories make me extremely excited more so than almost any other fiction, so I was hoping to be scintillated and captivated by this, and it certainly didn't disappoint; it even features some pulse-pounding moments that give it the feel of a thriller at times. It's imaginative and wholly original through and through yet behind its incredible and absurd appearance, the author paints a bittersweet, heartrending portrait of Korean society.
It's a bitter critique of our so-called post-modern society delivered in a caustic tone, so much so that the novel is reminiscent of Chaplin's Modern Times. The symptomatic are the lost puppets who face the reality of our society. Chaplin, but also Cervantes or Flaubert, The Cabinet is a gothic and crazy novel, devoid of rules, free. And the truths of the symptomatic come to life through the author's writing. Funny and spicy, Kim Un-su gives the narrator a special distance. It evokes a gamut of emotions including sorrow, joy and amusement as it is reflective of the changing emotions of real life and is both moving and humorously witty. Against a backdrop of a secret society and hidden files, deliciously fantastic and cleverly paranoid, this is a one-of-a-kind noir novel, pure Kim Un-su from beginning to denouement. Highly recommended.
November 8, 2021
4/5stars
This was such a fun and wholesome but also thought-provoking book. Although I do not like short story collections, I found that the setup of this novel made the episodic and short story-esque chapters to be okay. This novel really reminds me of the k-drama mystic pop-up bar not because of the actual story but the setup is similar. I enjoy getting to know new characters and seeing their problems and their stories but also having an overarching story and characters that develop. I really liked this one and definitely recommend it.
This was such a fun and wholesome but also thought-provoking book. Although I do not like short story collections, I found that the setup of this novel made the episodic and short story-esque chapters to be okay. This novel really reminds me of the k-drama mystic pop-up bar not because of the actual story but the setup is similar. I enjoy getting to know new characters and seeing their problems and their stories but also having an overarching story and characters that develop. I really liked this one and definitely recommend it.
August 9, 2021
I requested this book because I loved Un-su Kim's novel 'The Plotters' which was a very original, yet relatively straightforward Korean crime novel.
This one is much weirder. It is creative, original, strange and crazy, but at the same time extremely readable. It has a whole cast of bizarre characters called 'symptomers', i.e. humans that have started to evolve in different ways in reaction to the circumstances of our species that have radically changed over the past decades. Some skip time, others eat steel and others yet have gingko trees growing from their fingers. On all of these ‘symptomers’ there is a file in 'the Cabinet' where our main character works.
Perhaps the underlying message is to be open-minded and not dismiss people who are a bit different from the rest. Or perhaps there is no underlying message, I don't really care, because I enjoyed the stories and the good writing as such. However, I did find myself wondering repeatedly what the point was of reading these stories. It would have been nice if the central plot had been more prominent - now only two-thirds in things start to make (some) sense - although the overarching storyline wasn't too convincing (unless somebody can at some point share huis eyeopening perspective - that's the problem of ARCs: there are relatively few people or reviews to consult).
Overall very readable also thanks to what seems to be an excellent translation.
Many thanks to Angry Robot and Netgalley for the ARC.
This one is much weirder. It is creative, original, strange and crazy, but at the same time extremely readable. It has a whole cast of bizarre characters called 'symptomers', i.e. humans that have started to evolve in different ways in reaction to the circumstances of our species that have radically changed over the past decades. Some skip time, others eat steel and others yet have gingko trees growing from their fingers. On all of these ‘symptomers’ there is a file in 'the Cabinet' where our main character works.
Perhaps the underlying message is to be open-minded and not dismiss people who are a bit different from the rest. Or perhaps there is no underlying message, I don't really care, because I enjoyed the stories and the good writing as such. However, I did find myself wondering repeatedly what the point was of reading these stories. It would have been nice if the central plot had been more prominent - now only two-thirds in things start to make (some) sense - although the overarching storyline wasn't too convincing (unless somebody can at some point share huis eyeopening perspective - that's the problem of ARCs: there are relatively few people or reviews to consult).
Overall very readable also thanks to what seems to be an excellent translation.
Many thanks to Angry Robot and Netgalley for the ARC.
March 26, 2022
I have no idea how to describe this book adequately, but it’s a new favorite.
A mosaic of short stories framed by a larger narrative of loneliness and hope. A book about what the absurd can tell us about human nature.
[Thanks to Angry Robot Books for providing a copy! I’ll be posting a video review soon.]
A mosaic of short stories framed by a larger narrative of loneliness and hope. A book about what the absurd can tell us about human nature.
[Thanks to Angry Robot Books for providing a copy! I’ll be posting a video review soon.]
Read
May 30, 2022A bit like Strange Beasts of China, recognising The Cabinets constituent parts doesn't quite help in picturing the whole. It mixes the humdrum of (office) life with the bizarre and extreme. It tells you pretty early on that it's going to do this and that you probably won't get much out of it.
I don't know what I read or whether I liked it.
I don't know what I read or whether I liked it.
November 23, 2021
Un-Su Kim has a wild imagination, a fantastic sense of humor, an amazing skill with the written word and enormous creativity. I can’t begin to summarize this book. I suspect that it won’t be for most readers. But, I greatly enjoyed it.
October 14, 2021
“The most lasting legacy of capitalism will be angst”
Would you believe that there are gingko trees that can grow out one of your fingers?
Read this amazing novel and see for yourself. Kong, a quiet, unassuming employee with a job that is the opposite of demanding, is in charge of the mysterious cabinet 13. As he opens it out of sheer boredom, the cabinet turns out to contain classified information on symptomers, human beings that have undergone mutations of different kinds. Are they natural evolutions or are they lab experiments? Knowledge comes at a risk.
The storyline is simple and alternates discoveries from the files, which are microstories on symptomers (going from new weird to social criticism), with scenes from Kong’s work life. The plot picks up and becomes more propulsive toward the end, but I ended up being totally swept away and engrossed in the reading - and this is because Un-Su Kim’s voice is engaging, spirited, unique and sagacious, and his observations thought-provoking, learned, brilliantly acute, and infused with an incredible irony.
Symptomers allow the author to explore a whole range of 21-st century issues and debates, from posthumanism to entanglement and hybridity, feminism, body horror, modern angst, alienation, dehumanising hypercapitalism and exploitation in an extraordinary mix of new weird, social criticism, surrealism, magical realism, satire and speculative fiction.
The translation by Sean Lin Halbert is excellent. The author has been the recipient of Korea’s foremost literary prize, the Munhakdongne Novel Award, and this is a novel that I would like to see in the International Booker Shortlist or similar. My first read and certainly not the last from Angry Robot. Highly recommended. 4.5 rounded up
My thanks to Angry Robot for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Would you believe that there are gingko trees that can grow out one of your fingers?
Read this amazing novel and see for yourself. Kong, a quiet, unassuming employee with a job that is the opposite of demanding, is in charge of the mysterious cabinet 13. As he opens it out of sheer boredom, the cabinet turns out to contain classified information on symptomers, human beings that have undergone mutations of different kinds. Are they natural evolutions or are they lab experiments? Knowledge comes at a risk.
The storyline is simple and alternates discoveries from the files, which are microstories on symptomers (going from new weird to social criticism), with scenes from Kong’s work life. The plot picks up and becomes more propulsive toward the end, but I ended up being totally swept away and engrossed in the reading - and this is because Un-Su Kim’s voice is engaging, spirited, unique and sagacious, and his observations thought-provoking, learned, brilliantly acute, and infused with an incredible irony.
Symptomers allow the author to explore a whole range of 21-st century issues and debates, from posthumanism to entanglement and hybridity, feminism, body horror, modern angst, alienation, dehumanising hypercapitalism and exploitation in an extraordinary mix of new weird, social criticism, surrealism, magical realism, satire and speculative fiction.
The translation by Sean Lin Halbert is excellent. The author has been the recipient of Korea’s foremost literary prize, the Munhakdongne Novel Award, and this is a novel that I would like to see in the International Booker Shortlist or similar. My first read and certainly not the last from Angry Robot. Highly recommended. 4.5 rounded up
My thanks to Angry Robot for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
September 2, 2021
3.5*
The Cabinet is a simple story: cabinet 13 holds files about certain people. Special people. And the main character guards the Cabinet and organizes it.
It's quirky, fun, and interesting, while also deep and thought-provoking. The translation is great, too. But other than being fun and easy to read, I did not connect with the characters nor really liked the ending (or understood what the point of anything was).
I do want to mention that the book talks about a Chinese restaurant that gives you free fried chicken and dumplings if you order jjajjangmyeon - does this exist in Seoul? where? Please tell me.
*Book received for free from NetGalley.
The Cabinet is a simple story: cabinet 13 holds files about certain people. Special people. And the main character guards the Cabinet and organizes it.
It's quirky, fun, and interesting, while also deep and thought-provoking. The translation is great, too. But other than being fun and easy to read, I did not connect with the characters nor really liked the ending (or understood what the point of anything was).
I do want to mention that the book talks about a Chinese restaurant that gives you free fried chicken and dumplings if you order jjajjangmyeon - does this exist in Seoul? where? Please tell me.
*Book received for free from NetGalley.
October 28, 2022
Might change the rating after I've thought some more. Some commentary on modern society and capitalism which was nice I guess, but was it a pleasant experience? Was it meant to be? Does it need to be? Idk man.
September 6, 2021
4.5 rounded up to 5 for Goodreads - this book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion, there it is :
"Yesterday upon the stairs
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that he would go away".
When I started reading this novel, these lines by Hughes Mearns came back to me instantly. If you don't like absurd, kafkaian, nonsense universes, pass your way. If your mind is open to it, enjoy !
But even if it isn't, please stick to reading some more because everything isn't about absurd situations, or possible weird human mutations, it's a reflection of how life can appear to people who wish for a different existence but are stuck with no possibility of escaping.
In this cabinet are files about symptomers, people who lose time, or grow things/animals inside their body, eat weird things, stuff like that, people who are misfits in this Korean society filled with pressure and find it hard to adapt. Is working in a firm that pays you for doing absolutely nothing all day such a nightmare - one of the favourite Korean expressions being "work hard" ! The stories in these files are centered around a professor researching those symptomers and hiring a new assistant whose boredom pushes him to read the files.
All this is told in a funny, inventive way even if the universe itself is really dark. I loved the craziness of this book but also the deeper meaning and I'm very glad I requested it and discovered this author.
"Yesterday upon the stairs
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that he would go away".
When I started reading this novel, these lines by Hughes Mearns came back to me instantly. If you don't like absurd, kafkaian, nonsense universes, pass your way. If your mind is open to it, enjoy !
But even if it isn't, please stick to reading some more because everything isn't about absurd situations, or possible weird human mutations, it's a reflection of how life can appear to people who wish for a different existence but are stuck with no possibility of escaping.
In this cabinet are files about symptomers, people who lose time, or grow things/animals inside their body, eat weird things, stuff like that, people who are misfits in this Korean society filled with pressure and find it hard to adapt. Is working in a firm that pays you for doing absolutely nothing all day such a nightmare - one of the favourite Korean expressions being "work hard" ! The stories in these files are centered around a professor researching those symptomers and hiring a new assistant whose boredom pushes him to read the files.
All this is told in a funny, inventive way even if the universe itself is really dark. I loved the craziness of this book but also the deeper meaning and I'm very glad I requested it and discovered this author.
abandoned
October 1, 2024I think I just don't connect with this author. I abandoned his book The Plotters & am abandoning this one too. It's like the writing is trying to hard to be weird & often ends up boring instead. Gonna have to pass on this one.
Like his previous book I tried, this also has awesome cover art.
Like his previous book I tried, this also has awesome cover art.
August 4, 2021
I love the idea of this book, but I wasn’t crazy about the execution. I guess it all comes down to the fact that I was bored more often than not. It wasn’t weird enough, which is odd to say about a book like this. The stories are about symptomers, people "showing the symptoms of an evolving species", like the guy who had a gingko tree growing from his finger and people who eat inorganic substances like glass. But it felt like I was reading a Ripley’s Believe It or Not book, or the Guinness Book of World Records. My favorite story was actually the very first one about Ludger Sylbaris, which I really enjoyed. The book took a different turn though after that one. To be honest, after the 6th story (“Torporer”) I started to read the first page or so of a story, and if it sounded the same as the others but with a few things changed (like only the strange trait of the symptomer was different), I skipped it and moved on to the next. So there are some stories I never actually finished. I also found the stories about our narrator's life to be the toughest to get through. It just wasn't weird enough for me, and it seemed to meander, therefore I felt bored.
I would read more from this author (I actually bought Un-su Kim’s The Plotters already, which looks very different from this) even though this one wasn’t as big of a hit for me. I had such high expectations for this that I might’ve set it up for failure by that alone. The cover is my kind of style, so I was drawn to it for that reason first, then I read that it had new weird vibes, which is something I’m always looking for. And I somewhat recently read another Korean translation I got on Netgalley that is now among my favorite books of all time. I think I just hyped up The Cabinet too much because of those reasons and it couldn’t possibly live up to that.
I would read more from this author (I actually bought Un-su Kim’s The Plotters already, which looks very different from this) even though this one wasn’t as big of a hit for me. I had such high expectations for this that I might’ve set it up for failure by that alone. The cover is my kind of style, so I was drawn to it for that reason first, then I read that it had new weird vibes, which is something I’m always looking for. And I somewhat recently read another Korean translation I got on Netgalley that is now among my favorite books of all time. I think I just hyped up The Cabinet too much because of those reasons and it couldn’t possibly live up to that.
March 25, 2022
This started out well. It was humorously absurd, exploring the files of Cabinet 13.
Cabinet 13 contains case studies of people who are either evolving to our next form(s) or who are cryptids of some sort.
There's a man with a gingko tree growing out of his finger. There are people who fall into comas for no reason, a little like Rip Van Winkle but without the fairies. There are the time jumpers who are all quite frustrated with all the time they keep losing. There's a man who is actively turning himself into a cat so that the woman he loves will love him back (she doesn't love people, only cats. I think I am actively turning into her)
The files aren't the point of the book, though; they're a vehicle for tracking the progress of the protagonist, a run-of-the-mill unambitious office worker who is bored at his office job where he does nothing all day and watches his coworkers also do nothing all day. He starts poking around and finds an old cabinet with files inside and he starts to read them. He finds out that the incredibly surly Dr. Kwon has been keeping these files and now Dr. Kwon wants the unambitious office worker to be his assistant.
For the first third, or so, of the book, I was thinking to myself, "Is this South Korea's Christopher Moore? Perhaps there's a Terry Pratchettish streak to this tale?" I was amused with the strange tales of even stranger people. However, as the story shifted away from the files and more toward the assistant and his bored outlook on life, things became both bland and bleak.
I struggled to make it to the end; I read the first part in a couple of weeks while the rest took well over a month.
Cabinet 13 contains case studies of people who are either evolving to our next form(s) or who are cryptids of some sort.
There's a man with a gingko tree growing out of his finger. There are people who fall into comas for no reason, a little like Rip Van Winkle but without the fairies. There are the time jumpers who are all quite frustrated with all the time they keep losing. There's a man who is actively turning himself into a cat so that the woman he loves will love him back (she doesn't love people, only cats. I think I am actively turning into her)
The files aren't the point of the book, though; they're a vehicle for tracking the progress of the protagonist, a run-of-the-mill unambitious office worker who is bored at his office job where he does nothing all day and watches his coworkers also do nothing all day. He starts poking around and finds an old cabinet with files inside and he starts to read them. He finds out that the incredibly surly Dr. Kwon has been keeping these files and now Dr. Kwon wants the unambitious office worker to be his assistant.
For the first third, or so, of the book, I was thinking to myself, "Is this South Korea's Christopher Moore? Perhaps there's a Terry Pratchettish streak to this tale?" I was amused with the strange tales of even stranger people. However, as the story shifted away from the files and more toward the assistant and his bored outlook on life, things became both bland and bleak.
I struggled to make it to the end; I read the first part in a couple of weeks while the rest took well over a month.
October 10, 2021
After reading The Plotters, I was excited to get my hands on a copy of this one. Kim returns with the same humor from his last novel, but with a wildly different premise: Our protagonist is the guardian of a special cabinet containing files on ‘symptomers’- humans with strange symptoms who may be the next evolution of humanity.
Kim weaves together the plot for the protagonist through his recollection of the symptomers’ stories, chaining them together until we're brought to our conclusion. That surely sounds intriguing, but with how loosely everything is connected together and how little emphasis is put on the protagonist himself- the end result left something to be desired.
The stories of the symptomers are fun and bizarre, but I would say it is better to read this as a collection of stories rather than one narrative with a steady plotline.
Come for the weird shit, stay for the weird shit. Certainly curious what Un-Su Kim will cook up next.
*I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Kim weaves together the plot for the protagonist through his recollection of the symptomers’ stories, chaining them together until we're brought to our conclusion. That surely sounds intriguing, but with how loosely everything is connected together and how little emphasis is put on the protagonist himself- the end result left something to be desired.
The stories of the symptomers are fun and bizarre, but I would say it is better to read this as a collection of stories rather than one narrative with a steady plotline.
Come for the weird shit, stay for the weird shit. Certainly curious what Un-Su Kim will cook up next.
*I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
August 26, 2025
Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQHOm...
KBS Korea 24 @KBSKorea24
“We have another #scifi book for #KoreaBookClub this week! @barrypwelsh introduces us to ‘The Cabinet' by Kim Un-su, which tells the story of an office worker tasked with watching over a group of individuals going through strange mutations. #캐비닛 #김언수작가 @angryrobotbooks”
#KBSWORLDRadio #KBS월드라디오 #Korea24 #코리아24 #책추천 #책스타그램 #북스타그램 #bookstagram #book #reading #KoreanLiterature
19:10-20:00 KST, Mon-Fri on KBS WORLD Radio.
Download the KBS Kong / KBS WORLD Radio Mobile apps or subscribe to the Korea 24 podcast for your daily updates!
http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/progra...
KBS Korea 24 @KBSKorea24
“We have another #scifi book for #KoreaBookClub this week! @barrypwelsh introduces us to ‘The Cabinet' by Kim Un-su, which tells the story of an office worker tasked with watching over a group of individuals going through strange mutations. #캐비닛 #김언수작가 @angryrobotbooks”
#KBSWORLDRadio #KBS월드라디오 #Korea24 #코리아24 #책추천 #책스타그램 #북스타그램 #bookstagram #book #reading #KoreanLiterature
19:10-20:00 KST, Mon-Fri on KBS WORLD Radio.
Download the KBS Kong / KBS WORLD Radio Mobile apps or subscribe to the Korea 24 podcast for your daily updates!
http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/progra...
August 9, 2022
The cover art of The Cabinet is the best I've seen out of the 130+ books I've read this year. Unfortunately, the eARC I have doesn't list the artist (I will add it to my review when I find out) but whoever it is deserves a prize*. The black cat peeking cheekily from above the title, the chameleon with a filing cabinet print on its body, the entire aesthetic is just fabulous.
* Update Aug 2022: GR friend Jola has kindly informed me that her copy has the cover artist listed as Glen Wilkins. Thanks, Jola.
I have previously read Kim Un-Su's crime novel, The Plotters, which I disliked for its brutal senseless violence and macho writing.
The Cabinet is translated from Korean by Sean Lin Halbert and opens with the story of Ludger Sylbaris, one of the survivors of a 1902 volcanic eruption which annihilated the city of St Pierre on the island of Martinique and its inhabitants. Sylbaris survives due to a quirk of fate of being incarcerated in a stone prison, which turns out to be protective against the pyroclastic flow. Kim has exercised some artistic license in the telling of this real life story. Then we turn to modern day South Korea where a young bored salaryman Kong Deok-geun stumbles upon a locked filing cabinet at the research center where he works and unwittingly becomes an assistant to Dr Kwon, who researches 'symptomers.' Symptomers are presented as humans in the next stage of evolutionary biology. Some are 'chimeras,' a human in a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with another living being, such as a woman with a lizard growing at the base of her tongue or a man who has a miniature gingko tree growing from his finger. There's those who lose enormous chunks of time in their life against their will - the 'torporers' who slumber for inordinately long periods as well as 'time skippers.' 'Memory mosaicers' modify and erase their unpleasant memories. There's case studies of people who ingest glass, steel, roof tiles etc as regular sustenance. A man wants to turn into a cat in order to be with his crush. A group of antisocial people who believe they are offspring of aliens stranded on earth spend their paychecks broadcasting signals to outer space. A woman who works at a conveyer belt can split her consciousness and body into two, another has a doppelgänger. These are individually given a chapter of their own, giving the impression of episodic vignettes.
The common thread to these cases is Kong, who is given the task of organizing the files and talking to the people under study when they call. The narrative voice of Kong rubs me the wrong way, not only because he is presented as an apathetic nihilistic young man but he lacks the training and compassion to counsel these scared lonely people. The Cabinet attempts to bugle the message of why we can't just let people be and accept people who are different. In a conformist society like South Korea where appearance, social status and hierarchy are paramount, the pervasiveness of loneliness and existential angst (what is the meaning of life?) ropes through every story. I was quite put off by how Kong's friend Hwang Bong-gon and colleague Son Jeong-eun were continually fat-shamed in the text. The office bullying of the pathologically shy Ms Son was particularly disturbing as well as a subsequent scene of her eating disorder. There are some common elements I recognize from reading Kim's previous work, like Kong shutting himself in his apartment for half a year after his mother's death subsisting on twelve thousand cans of beer and peanuts. The assassin from The Plotters did the same after a job, I gather this is Kim's way of having his characters express trauma. Kong is afraid of insignificance, as his experience in mandatory military service shows. The author also continues an obsession with the cremation process, shadowy criminal syndicates and bombs, with Kong telling us his theory of life being full of bomb booby traps. There is no point, like there is no moral to the story, Kim intones to us after a shocking bout of gratuitous medical violence.
Thanks to Angry Robots for providing an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
* Update Aug 2022: GR friend Jola has kindly informed me that her copy has the cover artist listed as Glen Wilkins. Thanks, Jola.
I have previously read Kim Un-Su's crime novel, The Plotters, which I disliked for its brutal senseless violence and macho writing.
The Cabinet is translated from Korean by Sean Lin Halbert and opens with the story of Ludger Sylbaris, one of the survivors of a 1902 volcanic eruption which annihilated the city of St Pierre on the island of Martinique and its inhabitants. Sylbaris survives due to a quirk of fate of being incarcerated in a stone prison, which turns out to be protective against the pyroclastic flow. Kim has exercised some artistic license in the telling of this real life story. Then we turn to modern day South Korea where a young bored salaryman Kong Deok-geun stumbles upon a locked filing cabinet at the research center where he works and unwittingly becomes an assistant to Dr Kwon, who researches 'symptomers.' Symptomers are presented as humans in the next stage of evolutionary biology. Some are 'chimeras,' a human in a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with another living being, such as a woman with a lizard growing at the base of her tongue or a man who has a miniature gingko tree growing from his finger. There's those who lose enormous chunks of time in their life against their will - the 'torporers' who slumber for inordinately long periods as well as 'time skippers.' 'Memory mosaicers' modify and erase their unpleasant memories. There's case studies of people who ingest glass, steel, roof tiles etc as regular sustenance. A man wants to turn into a cat in order to be with his crush. A group of antisocial people who believe they are offspring of aliens stranded on earth spend their paychecks broadcasting signals to outer space. A woman who works at a conveyer belt can split her consciousness and body into two, another has a doppelgänger. These are individually given a chapter of their own, giving the impression of episodic vignettes.
The common thread to these cases is Kong, who is given the task of organizing the files and talking to the people under study when they call. The narrative voice of Kong rubs me the wrong way, not only because he is presented as an apathetic nihilistic young man but he lacks the training and compassion to counsel these scared lonely people. The Cabinet attempts to bugle the message of why we can't just let people be and accept people who are different. In a conformist society like South Korea where appearance, social status and hierarchy are paramount, the pervasiveness of loneliness and existential angst (what is the meaning of life?) ropes through every story. I was quite put off by how Kong's friend Hwang Bong-gon and colleague Son Jeong-eun were continually fat-shamed in the text. The office bullying of the pathologically shy Ms Son was particularly disturbing as well as a subsequent scene of her eating disorder. There are some common elements I recognize from reading Kim's previous work, like Kong shutting himself in his apartment for half a year after his mother's death subsisting on twelve thousand cans of beer and peanuts. The assassin from The Plotters did the same after a job, I gather this is Kim's way of having his characters express trauma. Kong is afraid of insignificance, as his experience in mandatory military service shows. The author also continues an obsession with the cremation process, shadowy criminal syndicates and bombs, with Kong telling us his theory of life being full of bomb booby traps. There is no point, like there is no moral to the story, Kim intones to us after a shocking bout of gratuitous medical violence.
Thanks to Angry Robots for providing an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
October 21, 2021
The Cabinet is a quirky and subtle social commentary. Told mainly through vignettes that slowly coalesce into the story of Deok-Geun, a bored worker who discovers the contents of the locked cabinet in his care at a research lab. We read accounts directly from the files of strange humans known as symptomers, who each have different types of very odd situations. These all seem to have context in some way that comments on labor culture and societal pressures - such as a man who is overworked and miserable, till a tree begins growing from his finger, pushing him to move his work closer to a window, be less focused on his work, eventually leave behind the job he hates. These elements feel quite fable-like.
On the other hand we have Deok-Geun, who feels guilt that his unusual job leaves him with nothing to do but sit in boredom while everyone he knows is overworked. That is till he breaks into the cabinet and begins to read the accounts of the strange symptomers and answering their calls. This seems to re-invigorate his life, build empathy, but also puts him in a precarious position.
I really enjoyed this and feel like it is interesting to compare with similar commentary in works like the recent film Parasite as a reflection of a culture of worker exploitation, the social and work hierarchy, and the false care & control toward those in low status. As well in a similar way, the tension goes from basically none for most of the novel, then ramps up suddenly at the end. Even being relatively unfamiliar with South Korea, there is a lot in here that is so incredibly relatable especially for people just entering the work force, the themes of exploitative capitalism throughout left me thinking of how much the corporate world has moved to considering people as "head count" in the workforce, though the book never specifically brings that up.
On the other hand we have Deok-Geun, who feels guilt that his unusual job leaves him with nothing to do but sit in boredom while everyone he knows is overworked. That is till he breaks into the cabinet and begins to read the accounts of the strange symptomers and answering their calls. This seems to re-invigorate his life, build empathy, but also puts him in a precarious position.
I really enjoyed this and feel like it is interesting to compare with similar commentary in works like the recent film Parasite as a reflection of a culture of worker exploitation, the social and work hierarchy, and the false care & control toward those in low status. As well in a similar way, the tension goes from basically none for most of the novel, then ramps up suddenly at the end. Even being relatively unfamiliar with South Korea, there is a lot in here that is so incredibly relatable especially for people just entering the work force, the themes of exploitative capitalism throughout left me thinking of how much the corporate world has moved to considering people as "head count" in the workforce, though the book never specifically brings that up.
December 19, 2021
3.5*
"We're all riding the same subway train!"
Eilinis eilinio Seulo ofiso darbuotojas Mr Kong spintelėje Nr.13 užtinka labai jau keistų žmonių grupės istorijų aplankus. Beskaitynėdamas juos jis greit įsivelia į paslaptingą trilerį...
Kaleidoskopinis Pietų Korėjos rašytojo romanas, apdovanotas prestižine Munhakdonge literatūrine premija. Mano galva, jis labai charakteringas šio regiono (P. Korėjos, Japonijos) šiuolaikinei literatūrai - kur susipina realybė, fantastika, absurdas ir visokie kitokie keistumai.
Čiūdni 13-tos spintelės radiniai-bylutės: apie merginą, kuriai po liežuviu apsigyvena driežas, apie vyrą įsimilėjusį kačių mylėtoją ir svajojantį pavirsti katinu, apie žmogeliuką, kuriam iš mažojo piršto auga ginko meds ir taip toliau ir panašiai.
Jei kils mintis - o tai koks tų istorijų moralas? autorius atsako - 'That there is no moral of the story - that's the moral of the story' (The Clock of Babel).
Artimas man pasirodė ;) skyrelis apie ateivius "Alien RADCOM' :'The members of Alien RADCOM didn't break their backs to achieve success on Earth. This place was neither their home nor where they wanted to build a life. Earth was nothing more than an alien planet to them. Just like we humans would never waste our time trying to become famous among a group of monkeys, they felt no need to do so here on Earth.'
Kažkaip smagiai man skaitėsi šis tikrai weird, pilnas (gal kiek ir banalokų) metaforų romanas apie dažnai mums atrodančią nuobodžią, monotonišką kasdienybę, apie darbų rutinos klaikumą, apie didmiesčių (nors gal nebūtinai tik jų) gyventojų buitinį ir egzistencinį vienišumą ir apskritai apie gyvenimo absurdą. Bent aš taip ją perskaičiau.
Suapvalinu link 4*, nes labai jau tiko man į nuotaiką ;)
"We're all riding the same subway train!"
Eilinis eilinio Seulo ofiso darbuotojas Mr Kong spintelėje Nr.13 užtinka labai jau keistų žmonių grupės istorijų aplankus. Beskaitynėdamas juos jis greit įsivelia į paslaptingą trilerį...
Kaleidoskopinis Pietų Korėjos rašytojo romanas, apdovanotas prestižine Munhakdonge literatūrine premija. Mano galva, jis labai charakteringas šio regiono (P. Korėjos, Japonijos) šiuolaikinei literatūrai - kur susipina realybė, fantastika, absurdas ir visokie kitokie keistumai.
Čiūdni 13-tos spintelės radiniai-bylutės: apie merginą, kuriai po liežuviu apsigyvena driežas, apie vyrą įsimilėjusį kačių mylėtoją ir svajojantį pavirsti katinu, apie žmogeliuką, kuriam iš mažojo piršto auga ginko meds ir taip toliau ir panašiai.
Jei kils mintis - o tai koks tų istorijų moralas? autorius atsako - 'That there is no moral of the story - that's the moral of the story' (The Clock of Babel).
Artimas man pasirodė ;) skyrelis apie ateivius "Alien RADCOM' :'The members of Alien RADCOM didn't break their backs to achieve success on Earth. This place was neither their home nor where they wanted to build a life. Earth was nothing more than an alien planet to them. Just like we humans would never waste our time trying to become famous among a group of monkeys, they felt no need to do so here on Earth.'
Kažkaip smagiai man skaitėsi šis tikrai weird, pilnas (gal kiek ir banalokų) metaforų romanas apie dažnai mums atrodančią nuobodžią, monotonišką kasdienybę, apie darbų rutinos klaikumą, apie didmiesčių (nors gal nebūtinai tik jų) gyventojų buitinį ir egzistencinį vienišumą ir apskritai apie gyvenimo absurdą. Bent aš taip ją perskaičiau.
Suapvalinu link 4*, nes labai jau tiko man į nuotaiką ;)
December 20, 2021
Pasiėmiau šitą knygą be ypatingos priežasties – patiko viršelis, korėjiečių literatūrai beveik visada sakau “taip”, be to, suintrigavo vidutiniškas reitingas Goodreadsuose.
Ir patiko. Knyga apie simptomininkus – įvairių keistenybių turinčius/kamuojamus žmones, kurių istorijos suarchyvuotos spintelėje nr. 13. Vienam iš piršto dygsta ginkmedis, kiti keliauja laiku, treti tvirtina esą ateivių palikuonys, viena moteris vėl ir vėl kremuoja savo fantominę siamo dvynę. Visas istorijas lengvu, plonu siūlu supina pasakotojas ir minėtosios spintelės prižiūrėtojas. Už visų neįprastų situacijų slypi mintys apie žmogiškumą, šiuolaikinį gyvenimą, nerimą, ekologiją, darbo ir apskritai egzistencijos beprasmiškumą. Patiko kandumas, pasakotojo balsas, korėjietiškas humoro jausmas.
Iki paskutinės dalies buvo tvirtas ketvertas, bet po pabaigos liko 3,5*.
Ir patiko. Knyga apie simptomininkus – įvairių keistenybių turinčius/kamuojamus žmones, kurių istorijos suarchyvuotos spintelėje nr. 13. Vienam iš piršto dygsta ginkmedis, kiti keliauja laiku, treti tvirtina esą ateivių palikuonys, viena moteris vėl ir vėl kremuoja savo fantominę siamo dvynę. Visas istorijas lengvu, plonu siūlu supina pasakotojas ir minėtosios spintelės prižiūrėtojas. Už visų neįprastų situacijų slypi mintys apie žmogiškumą, šiuolaikinį gyvenimą, nerimą, ekologiją, darbo ir apskritai egzistencijos beprasmiškumą. Patiko kandumas, pasakotojo balsas, korėjietiškas humoro jausmas.
Iki paskutinės dalies buvo tvirtas ketvertas, bet po pabaigos liko 3,5*.
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