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올빼미의 없음
어디에도 속하지 않는 독특한 감수성과 언어로 독자적인 소설세계를 일구며 한국문학의 지평을 넓혀온 작가 배수아의 소설집. 지난 소설집으로부터 4년, 그간의 작가의 행보와 함께 그 성취가 집결된 단단한 아름다움을 보여주는 풍성한 작품들이 이번 소설집 <올빼미의 없음>에 담겨 있다.
오래전의 여자친구로부터 그를 만나고 싶다는 편지를 받은 주인공 '양'이 그녀가 방문하기까지의 시간 동안 한 남녀의 모습을 엿보며 과거에 그가 만났던 이들의 기억을 떠올리는 작품 '양의 첫눈', 꿈과 환상의 시공간이 현실에 중첩되고 기억이 주체를 옮겨다니는 기이한 전이가 일어나는 '어느 하루가 다르다면, 그것은 왜일까'….
장편 <북쪽 거실>과 같은 선상에 놓일 작품 '밤이 염세적이다', 주인공 '나'가 비평가인 '너'와 꿈과 글쓰기에 관해 나누는 대화와 서신, '나'가 연애감정을 느꼈던 '첫번째 작가'와 '두번째 작가'의 기억, 첫번째 작가와의 교유 등이 교차하며 진행되는 소설 '올빼미', '올빼미'의 속편격으로 발표 당시부터 많은 주목을 받았던 '올빼미의 없음' 등의 작품이 수록되어 있다.
오래전의 여자친구로부터 그를 만나고 싶다는 편지를 받은 주인공 '양'이 그녀가 방문하기까지의 시간 동안 한 남녀의 모습을 엿보며 과거에 그가 만났던 이들의 기억을 떠올리는 작품 '양의 첫눈', 꿈과 환상의 시공간이 현실에 중첩되고 기억이 주체를 옮겨다니는 기이한 전이가 일어나는 '어느 하루가 다르다면, 그것은 왜일까'….
장편 <북쪽 거실>과 같은 선상에 놓일 작품 '밤이 염세적이다', 주인공 '나'가 비평가인 '너'와 꿈과 글쓰기에 관해 나누는 대화와 서신, '나'가 연애감정을 느꼈던 '첫번째 작가'와 '두번째 작가'의 기억, 첫번째 작가와의 교유 등이 교차하며 진행되는 소설 '올빼미', '올빼미'의 속편격으로 발표 당시부터 많은 주목을 받았던 '올빼미의 없음' 등의 작품이 수록되어 있다.
333 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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649 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 22, 2020
Bae Suah in experimental mode.
The 7 stories in North Station display many aspects of this author's formidable powers. Unlike the novels of hers I've read, this collection depicts similar characters in a greater variety of situations, while not relying on dramatic plotting. They are very slow, and will not be to everyone's taste. Pre-eminent themes include the contemplation of loss, and the melancholy of inertia. The narrative contains more voice than action. These stories resonate with controlled desperation, contained storms. They play with language and time, and seethe, even while they slowly dissipate in the mind.
With effortless complexity and poetic lyricism, Suah weaves together unconventional travel narratives, amid psychological stability, confronting the mobility of the mind, and navigating the chaotic urban landscapes with rock-solid perceptual analysis.
There is a little German flavor to her works, which only makes sense considering she is a translator of German works into Korean. There are traces of Mann, Hesse, Kafka & Goethe, Rilke and others I'm not familiar with. The solid, striking prose is organized into defensive walls of intelligent arguments crafted through bulky, content-rich paragraphs. But this is not to say she does not have a delicate touch all the same. The mechanics are elaborate while the characters are never hurried. They are collected and observant in the extreme.
Her translator's mentality informs her fiction writing. Suah takes her time composing exquisite images which converge, like coupling trains of thought, to flow and separate again. She asks: how much of a writer's personality does a work contain in "Owl." Her characters are People "vainly flirting with life" fighting off with deep meditation the slow trickle toward death. But there is always an awareness of art's impact on the human soul and the barriers we erect between each other - either as an emotional coping mechanism or as a filter through which we encounter life on our own terms.
In some ways, her writing resembles Akutagawa's. Especially in the way she combines elements of Eastern and Western culture, how she explores another culture as a foreigner, and how she interprets these cultural anomalies through her own lens. Some of the descriptions are reminiscent of "Mandarins" - especially the fascination with trains.
Without a doubt, her writing possesses the intelligence and innate sensitivity of timeless literature. Yoko Tawada is another inevitable comparison, as she too lived in Germany. Suah provides commentary on Goethe's strictness and exactitude as she employs certain literary disciplines with a master's touch and she does not seem to borrow too often from her home country's myths and history. What these stories lack in plot, they make up with psychological tension and insight.
The debt life owes to death is one of her characters' preoccupations. "Nature maintains equilibrium. Man Grieves." By blending dialogue, monologue and straight narration, Suah enlivens her extended essays on human mortality in the storyteller's framework, while also commenting on art and the responsibility of the creator to their own vision, and how exposure compromises that. The final story provides a scenario similar to Perec's Life, a User's Manual. Suah's style is well-suited to endless permutations of detail. As a result, there is also great musicality in the deft translation we are given in English, such as in the subtle word order: "vividly revived," and "secret creases."
Complex sentences can either be a joy or a pain. In this case, they are Suah's stock and trade. The display of ruined mentalities in characters shifting through life's tribulations, lugging around their baggage of uncertainty, and the exploration of human psychic borders, provide an unflinching examination of our bodies and spirits in the cold metaphysical environments we inhabit. Combined with the elegant, ravishing descriptions, and the gorgeous atmosphere, this made for a luscious read. Her Mishima-like control of narration, the contemplation of the writerly life, and the academic versus literary ambitions on display fully qualify Suah as an important figure in world literature. Her literary theory, criticism and analysis, integrated smoothly into her novels and stories, along with the fragmentary hints which compose the tableau of life as we perceive it suggest that she has a deep and heartfelt understanding of human nature. The searing holes left in the tapestry by loss and grief are some of the most striking moments in her fiction.
I look forward to reading every word of this author's work as it makes its way, inch by inch, into English translation.
The 7 stories in North Station display many aspects of this author's formidable powers. Unlike the novels of hers I've read, this collection depicts similar characters in a greater variety of situations, while not relying on dramatic plotting. They are very slow, and will not be to everyone's taste. Pre-eminent themes include the contemplation of loss, and the melancholy of inertia. The narrative contains more voice than action. These stories resonate with controlled desperation, contained storms. They play with language and time, and seethe, even while they slowly dissipate in the mind.
With effortless complexity and poetic lyricism, Suah weaves together unconventional travel narratives, amid psychological stability, confronting the mobility of the mind, and navigating the chaotic urban landscapes with rock-solid perceptual analysis.
There is a little German flavor to her works, which only makes sense considering she is a translator of German works into Korean. There are traces of Mann, Hesse, Kafka & Goethe, Rilke and others I'm not familiar with. The solid, striking prose is organized into defensive walls of intelligent arguments crafted through bulky, content-rich paragraphs. But this is not to say she does not have a delicate touch all the same. The mechanics are elaborate while the characters are never hurried. They are collected and observant in the extreme.
Her translator's mentality informs her fiction writing. Suah takes her time composing exquisite images which converge, like coupling trains of thought, to flow and separate again. She asks: how much of a writer's personality does a work contain in "Owl." Her characters are People "vainly flirting with life" fighting off with deep meditation the slow trickle toward death. But there is always an awareness of art's impact on the human soul and the barriers we erect between each other - either as an emotional coping mechanism or as a filter through which we encounter life on our own terms.
In some ways, her writing resembles Akutagawa's. Especially in the way she combines elements of Eastern and Western culture, how she explores another culture as a foreigner, and how she interprets these cultural anomalies through her own lens. Some of the descriptions are reminiscent of "Mandarins" - especially the fascination with trains.
Without a doubt, her writing possesses the intelligence and innate sensitivity of timeless literature. Yoko Tawada is another inevitable comparison, as she too lived in Germany. Suah provides commentary on Goethe's strictness and exactitude as she employs certain literary disciplines with a master's touch and she does not seem to borrow too often from her home country's myths and history. What these stories lack in plot, they make up with psychological tension and insight.
The debt life owes to death is one of her characters' preoccupations. "Nature maintains equilibrium. Man Grieves." By blending dialogue, monologue and straight narration, Suah enlivens her extended essays on human mortality in the storyteller's framework, while also commenting on art and the responsibility of the creator to their own vision, and how exposure compromises that. The final story provides a scenario similar to Perec's Life, a User's Manual. Suah's style is well-suited to endless permutations of detail. As a result, there is also great musicality in the deft translation we are given in English, such as in the subtle word order: "vividly revived," and "secret creases."
Complex sentences can either be a joy or a pain. In this case, they are Suah's stock and trade. The display of ruined mentalities in characters shifting through life's tribulations, lugging around their baggage of uncertainty, and the exploration of human psychic borders, provide an unflinching examination of our bodies and spirits in the cold metaphysical environments we inhabit. Combined with the elegant, ravishing descriptions, and the gorgeous atmosphere, this made for a luscious read. Her Mishima-like control of narration, the contemplation of the writerly life, and the academic versus literary ambitions on display fully qualify Suah as an important figure in world literature. Her literary theory, criticism and analysis, integrated smoothly into her novels and stories, along with the fragmentary hints which compose the tableau of life as we perceive it suggest that she has a deep and heartfelt understanding of human nature. The searing holes left in the tapestry by loss and grief are some of the most striking moments in her fiction.
I look forward to reading every word of this author's work as it makes its way, inch by inch, into English translation.
March 18, 2018
I almost gave up on this halfway through, but glad I didn't. Either the second half was better or I finally got the hang of Suah's writing, or both. Will have to re-read at some point to get a better idea. But overall, these are not traditional stories with character and incident. They're very reminiscent of Sebald and Handke, who the author translates into Korean, and prose poetry. You have to slow down and focus to get manipulated into the author's particular narrative space. In each story, a main character is usually engaged in some form of travel that seems at least semi-autobiographical, and what they experience seems to blur the boundaries between time, dream, and memory. At times I was also reminded of Saramago, particularly in her sense of humor.
July 17, 2019
All the books turned away with cold, sad faces, all the writers clamped their mouths shut and went back to being dead.
This 2010 story collection by 배수아 (Bae Suah) has been translated as North Station (북역) by Deborah Smith. It was originally published as 올빼미의 없음 (The Owl's Absence), both titles those of different stories in the collection (7 stories in total, averaging around 30 pages each) although the Korean title perhaps gives a better feel for the rather offbeat mood of the book.
Read in Korea, this is my 6th book by 배수아 and adds to an impressive body of work. As well as her writing, 배수아 translates from German to Korean, beginning in 2008 with Martin Walser’s Angstblüte, and with authors including Sebald and Kafka. The dialogue between literary cultures that results from such approaches (which are common outside of the Anglosphere) is one of the delights of translated fiction, and the writing of 배수아 provides a wonderful blend of her European influences and her own unique style. Her style also seems ideally suited to the short story, since she packs in so much non-linear and at times deliberately discordant strands into even a 30 page work.
For a review which gives more details of each of the stories see: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...
I will simply add some favourite quotes:
Recognizing a favourite writer not by his physical appearance but by his physical tempo, reminiscent of his writing (and which sounds reminiscent of that of 배수아 herself:
A wavelength that breaks up and becomes broken up, a lunatic wavelength. A tempo that reveals sickness and transcendence at the same time. His sentences, pulse, and tempo, made up of words that have slightly different meanings than they do in the dictionary.
Part of an extended debate between two characters on the meaning of dreams:
On touching the surface of consciousness, the mosaic of the dream rapidly oxidized and crumbled away, and my mind filled in the blank spaces with coloured tiles of its own invention.
And a wonderfully Sebaldian sentence from the story Mouson (perhaps my favourite) - memories and dreams, and their unreliability, are one key theme throughout the work:
The scenes recurred at unpredictable intervals, crawling fitfully in between those that appeared later, and I felt aware of things which is was not yet possible for me to know; the lonesome and oppressive fantasies of that time, which were nevertheless filled with conviction, have not completely left me even now that time has passed and I am utterly unable to tell whether these discontinuous images that, ever since that day, have come back to me for a time and calmly possessed me before once again fading away, are purely the constructs of my imagination, dreams dreamed in a waking state, sights that I saw a long time ago, or sights from the future that, upon encountering, I would feel that I had seen before.
Highly recommended. 4.5 stars
This 2010 story collection by 배수아 (Bae Suah) has been translated as North Station (북역) by Deborah Smith. It was originally published as 올빼미의 없음 (The Owl's Absence), both titles those of different stories in the collection (7 stories in total, averaging around 30 pages each) although the Korean title perhaps gives a better feel for the rather offbeat mood of the book.
Read in Korea, this is my 6th book by 배수아 and adds to an impressive body of work. As well as her writing, 배수아 translates from German to Korean, beginning in 2008 with Martin Walser’s Angstblüte, and with authors including Sebald and Kafka. The dialogue between literary cultures that results from such approaches (which are common outside of the Anglosphere) is one of the delights of translated fiction, and the writing of 배수아 provides a wonderful blend of her European influences and her own unique style. Her style also seems ideally suited to the short story, since she packs in so much non-linear and at times deliberately discordant strands into even a 30 page work.
For a review which gives more details of each of the stories see: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...
I will simply add some favourite quotes:
Recognizing a favourite writer not by his physical appearance but by his physical tempo, reminiscent of his writing (and which sounds reminiscent of that of 배수아 herself:
A wavelength that breaks up and becomes broken up, a lunatic wavelength. A tempo that reveals sickness and transcendence at the same time. His sentences, pulse, and tempo, made up of words that have slightly different meanings than they do in the dictionary.
Part of an extended debate between two characters on the meaning of dreams:
On touching the surface of consciousness, the mosaic of the dream rapidly oxidized and crumbled away, and my mind filled in the blank spaces with coloured tiles of its own invention.
And a wonderfully Sebaldian sentence from the story Mouson (perhaps my favourite) - memories and dreams, and their unreliability, are one key theme throughout the work:
The scenes recurred at unpredictable intervals, crawling fitfully in between those that appeared later, and I felt aware of things which is was not yet possible for me to know; the lonesome and oppressive fantasies of that time, which were nevertheless filled with conviction, have not completely left me even now that time has passed and I am utterly unable to tell whether these discontinuous images that, ever since that day, have come back to me for a time and calmly possessed me before once again fading away, are purely the constructs of my imagination, dreams dreamed in a waking state, sights that I saw a long time ago, or sights from the future that, upon encountering, I would feel that I had seen before.
Highly recommended. 4.5 stars
April 17, 2020
As incomprehensible as James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.
February 27, 2020
Seven stories by Bae Suah, written in a very poetic and surrealistic style which is highly individual, although one can also see the influences of German (mainly Austrian) writers, especially Kafka and Handke. All seven revolve around relationships. The first story, "First Snow, First Sight" and the title story, "North Station" are told essentially from the man's perspective, two related stories, "Owl" and "The Non-Being of the Owl" are second-person interior monologues addressed alternatingly to the other person, and the remaining three, "Mouson", "Dignified Kiss of Paris Streets" and "How Can One Day Be Different from the Rest?" are from a woman's perspective.
In the first story, the protagonist sees a couple he recognizes at the beach and the story is told basically in flashbacks; the other stories mix present and past even more thoroughly, as Bae did in Recitation, and "Dignified Kiss" especially mixes dreams and memories in an ambiguous way. There are leitmotivs which run through several different stories -- street performers and lost keys, for example. The final story, "How Can One Day" is the one I liked best; it begins with an unsuccessful attempt to stage a play (which could almost have been written by Handke) and then focuses on the life of the female playwright.
In the first story, the protagonist sees a couple he recognizes at the beach and the story is told basically in flashbacks; the other stories mix present and past even more thoroughly, as Bae did in Recitation, and "Dignified Kiss" especially mixes dreams and memories in an ambiguous way. There are leitmotivs which run through several different stories -- street performers and lost keys, for example. The final story, "How Can One Day" is the one I liked best; it begins with an unsuccessful attempt to stage a play (which could almost have been written by Handke) and then focuses on the life of the female playwright.
February 23, 2018
To be honest I found most of the stories in here nigh on impossible to follow.
I think the uncertainty of everything is intentional, and so I purposely held on until the end of each story to see if anything was clarified. Kind of. But more importantly I just didn't really take anything from the stories.
Occasionally the stories break off from character developments and provide an intelligent perspective on everyday life which I found resonated with me, but the style of writing means more often than not you're all over the place in terms of time periods, places and real life vs dreams.
I just didn't really get it. Perhaps my mind wasn't in the right place for it. Maybe one to revisit.
I think the uncertainty of everything is intentional, and so I purposely held on until the end of each story to see if anything was clarified. Kind of. But more importantly I just didn't really take anything from the stories.
Occasionally the stories break off from character developments and provide an intelligent perspective on everyday life which I found resonated with me, but the style of writing means more often than not you're all over the place in terms of time periods, places and real life vs dreams.
I just didn't really get it. Perhaps my mind wasn't in the right place for it. Maybe one to revisit.
January 16, 2023
Hit or miss
August 12, 2023
this felt like a brain dump session, impossible to follow the author's train of thought.
February 8, 2024
Eksperimental yang tidak memikirkan pembaca, penulis lagi high on her ideas & thoughts. Ingin membawa pembaca in trance, sayangnya pembaca tidak mampu membeli obat kualitas tinggi, sedangkan penulis memakai obat premium, jadinya in trance dalam klub malam yang berbeda. Penerjemah pula punya in trance tersendiri.
(Ini hanyalah sarkasme saja, saya peminum teh, mohon dipahami)
Mencoba keras memahami buku ini karena pernah baca sekilas Untold Day & Night, sepertinya ok, membuat ingin tahu lebih banyak karya beliau lainnya. Tapi, ternyata setelah hampir seminggu, saya masih tidak dapat memahami buku ini. Memang tidak ada tag magical realism disematkan, tapi saya merasa buku ini baiknya menambahkan tag tersebut (karena saya merasa efek skizo dari membacanya).
Cerpen 1 adalah satu-satunya cerita yang pernah, dalam hidup saya, membuat saya tidak penasaran siapa si Yang, siapa si Mira, siapa 2 orang yang tingginya 190 cm dan kenapa si protagonist jadi melankolia seperti itu. Asli, saya benar-benar muak & tidak ingin tahu; terserah lu, dah!
Seperti yang di keluhkan beberapa pembaca yang menulis review mereka sebelum saya, benar sekali, terjemahannya amat sangat membingungkan, sampai saya pikir ini mungkin si penerjemah sendiri juga bingung sama isi kepala si penulis jadinya; yadahalah, aku terjemahkan apa jadinya aja, lah!
Begitulah.
Saya memutuskan tidak akan kembali membaca buku ini lagi, kecuali mungkin saya sedang mabuk literasi...
(Ini hanyalah sarkasme saja, saya peminum teh, mohon dipahami)
Mencoba keras memahami buku ini karena pernah baca sekilas Untold Day & Night, sepertinya ok, membuat ingin tahu lebih banyak karya beliau lainnya. Tapi, ternyata setelah hampir seminggu, saya masih tidak dapat memahami buku ini. Memang tidak ada tag magical realism disematkan, tapi saya merasa buku ini baiknya menambahkan tag tersebut (karena saya merasa efek skizo dari membacanya).
Cerpen 1 adalah satu-satunya cerita yang pernah, dalam hidup saya, membuat saya tidak penasaran siapa si Yang, siapa si Mira, siapa 2 orang yang tingginya 190 cm dan kenapa si protagonist jadi melankolia seperti itu. Asli, saya benar-benar muak & tidak ingin tahu; terserah lu, dah!
Seperti yang di keluhkan beberapa pembaca yang menulis review mereka sebelum saya, benar sekali, terjemahannya amat sangat membingungkan, sampai saya pikir ini mungkin si penerjemah sendiri juga bingung sama isi kepala si penulis jadinya; yadahalah, aku terjemahkan apa jadinya aja, lah!
Begitulah.
Saya memutuskan tidak akan kembali membaca buku ini lagi, kecuali mungkin saya sedang mabuk literasi...
March 31, 2020
Bae is not merely content with presenting us seven stories of exquisitely controlled and vivid writing but she actively seeks to push the conventional linear story form into startling and challenging directions. These cryptic, cerebral dreamscapes, filled with explorations of language, ideas and (Germanic) literary heritage, offer seven emotionally haunting journeys through time and space. Bae weaves multiple fragmentary narrative streams into complex stories that touch on memory, reconnections, loss and inertia. This is a challenging collection of fiction but one that is richly rewarding, like a dream that solidifies and lingers in the mind. Highlights include 'First Snow, First Sight', 'North Station', 'Mouson' and 'How Can One Day Be Different from the Rest?'
June 26, 2021
Bae Suah's stories in North Station, translated by Deborah Smith, are poetic and strange, and to be honest, I would like to read them again. I couldn't always connect the images together, but it didn't matter: Suah's tales are orchestrated to pass on a feeling, a sense, a mood, to leave you thinking, unable to let go of something she left you with. The protagonists are wanderers, ever traveling; in one story a woman dreams of living her life simultaneously in many rooms—in another, a traveler shifts from temporary house to temporary house. People are too late, again and again, and grief and longing soak through the pages. It is an unreal, Kafka-esque collection that made a deep impression.
March 1, 2018
That i did not enjoy the book has to do more with my own limitations or expectations. The stories are a stream of consciousness from the writer's mind, with a loose theme in mind. Like life, we need to pick the elements and create what little narrative there is. A lack of engagement is a common theme all through. It was hard to focus and leave the stories with any sense of personal satisfaction. Handle with care!
March 2, 2025
sehr lange kurzgeschichten, in ihrer introspektive sehr zäh zum lesen, doch die augen, durch die suah die welt sieht, sind mir auch bei weitem zu komplex, um all ihren visionen zu folgen. was bleibt, sind einige, wirklich schöne beschreibungen der alltäglichen umwelt, der verlorenheit, der träumerei und der unverständlichen kräfte liebe und tod.
May 22, 2024
Chapter 4: “The Non-Being of the Owl” (page 107)
“And so now be done with your sadness, keep the good memories alive within you, don’t be too hard on yourself, and eventually accept the parting calmly.”
“And so now be done with your sadness, keep the good memories alive within you, don’t be too hard on yourself, and eventually accept the parting calmly.”
March 25, 2019
Dense, stream of conscious.
Read
September 2, 2019I've worked it out... Bae Suah's writing is just like the beat to chief keef's citgo
February 5, 2023
Godsent writing of existensialism and surrealism intertwined.
May 12, 2023
Experimental, not entirely sure what I'm supposed to feel, too vague to say that it's art
September 30, 2023
Magnificent read with gorgeous writing. It's kind of book you wish you read in its original language.
December 7, 2023
most annotated book of the year. Insanely captivating writing by Bae Suah, every work struck right to the heart. North Station is a masterpiece
November 26, 2017
My review appears in New York Journal of Books.
Read
December 8, 2023This is an interesting collection of longish short fiction by the Korean writer Bae Suah. It’s a recent translation (actually maybe brand new) from the University of Rochester imprint “Open Letter” and I received a subscription to their press as a gift from my old colleagues.
This book presents a really interesting set of questions for me. I have read a few different books by Korean authors, but not many at all. In fact, I think it would be true that I have read more Korean-American authors than authors from Korea outright. And I can’t say I know MUCH about Korea as a society or a culture, but I do watch a pretty regular number (5-10) Korean movies each year.
The character of these stories is spare, slightly detached, and impressionistic (ie about the feeling of feeling rather than a direct expression of feelings in the stories) and so this kind of detached narration is applied to several interesting moments, but it’s hard to feel directly connected with any particular one.
One more really curious thing is something that leads to wonder about the connection Korea and European culture. The lead character in more than one story is interested in German and Austrian literature and definitely have an eye toward central European literature. It is absolutely my chauvanism as an American to only think through connections among culture related to: toward America or from America. And so, I found myself sheepishly enjoyed the character’s reading list so peppered with contemporary European lit like Peter Handke, for example.
This book presents a really interesting set of questions for me. I have read a few different books by Korean authors, but not many at all. In fact, I think it would be true that I have read more Korean-American authors than authors from Korea outright. And I can’t say I know MUCH about Korea as a society or a culture, but I do watch a pretty regular number (5-10) Korean movies each year.
The character of these stories is spare, slightly detached, and impressionistic (ie about the feeling of feeling rather than a direct expression of feelings in the stories) and so this kind of detached narration is applied to several interesting moments, but it’s hard to feel directly connected with any particular one.
One more really curious thing is something that leads to wonder about the connection Korea and European culture. The lead character in more than one story is interested in German and Austrian literature and definitely have an eye toward central European literature. It is absolutely my chauvanism as an American to only think through connections among culture related to: toward America or from America. And so, I found myself sheepishly enjoyed the character’s reading list so peppered with contemporary European lit like Peter Handke, for example.
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October 30, 2017"Korean author Bae Suah’s latest writing, although a collection of short stories, is equally as experimental, cutting-edge, and captivating as her novels." - Melissa Beck
This book was reviewed in the Nov/Dec 2017 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
This book was reviewed in the Nov/Dec 2017 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
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