Young-ha KimRecensioni
Autore di I Have the Right to Destroy Myself
Recensioni
Characters: 8.5
Setting: 6
Prose: 7.5
Tags: Suicide, suicide assistance, brotherhood, women, love, swinging
My favorite is the title story, in which we are in the mind of an elderly serial killer who is now suffering from dementia. He tells us that he last murdered someone 25 years ago, and that "I killed people for 30 years straight. I was very diligent back then. Now that the statute of limitations has passed, I could even go blab about what I'd done. If this were America, I could probably publish a memoir." Now he has trouble remembering things, and trouble processing the meaning of situations in which he finds himself, but he thinks that his beloved daughter is missing and in danger, and he suspects that a man who keeps coming around and says he is a police officer may have something to do with this. The ultimate unreliable narrator.
I also liked most of the other stories. In "The Origin of Life" two childhood friends reconnect and become lovers. When the man learns that the woman's husband is abusing her, he believes that the husband must be disposed of. In "Missing Child", a three year old is kidnapped, and his parents lives go off the rails. The mother becomes schizophrenic, the father keeps losing his job. Then, eleven years later, the child is recovered, a sullen teenager who only wants to stay where he was, with his kidnapper, who he believed was his mother. The only story I didn't care for was "The Writer" in which aman with writer's block goes to New York City to finish his book.
The book is written largely in a literary and somewhat experimental style, and the author has won crime awards. Many of the stories involve elements of mental illness, and are often dream-like and surreal. Even so, I liked them.
3 1/2 stars
It's a bit tricky to review the book as the story is pretty strange and in places nasty. Sometimes the nastiness in a book really feels like it is there for effect only but I thought it worked well here. It's not over done but it does catch the attention and I found myself re-reading a few bits to make sure I read what I thought I had.
I also really liked the concept of a person who moves from place to place finding and helping people who wish to commit suicide. It's a delightfully dark idea and something which really appeals to my mind. Personally, I would have preferred a bit more plot but that probably would have spoiled the book.
A warped but interesting book.
Ohh, and the cover is gorgeous, it would be an incredible tattoo but would require one hell of an artist to make it work.
The second story, ‘The Origin of Life’, involves two old school friends meeting again after twenty years and starting a (possibly platonic) relationship. She is married, and he becomes convinced that her husband has found out and is following him. The story turns to violence, and death, and Seojin finally finds himself able to move on from the weight of the past.
The third story is entitled ‘Missing Child’, and is about a couple whose child is snatched from their shopping trolley in a supermarket. Ten years later they receive a phone call to say that the child has been found. The story deals with family relationships and identity, the child who may be biologically yours but has no feelings for you as a parent. As time passes the tensions remain, only for the child – now a grown man – to disappear again…
And finally, ‘The Writer’ deals with the relationship between a writer, his publisher and the publisher’s wife, set in a New York apartment. This Kafkaesque tale starts with a man thinking he is a cob of corn being chased by chickens, and takes ever more bizarre twists as it develops.
This is the first work that I have read by this author and is a fascinating, well-written series of stories, examining the act of creation, the human impulse, and the nature of truth and fiction, blurred as it so often is. Often unsettling in theme, they are also unsettling in nature as the reader is often left questioning what it is that they have just read. The first story, as the longest, is perhaps the most interesting and fully developed, but I found the others equally appealing in their own way. If it’s any indication of how I felt, I am now determined to seek out his other work available in English. Well worth a read, a definite recommend for fans of offbeat and original Korean literature.
Ruminating on this a for a spell, I still love the section abroad much more than the snowstorm scene. Being dulled by vehicular speed, sex and stimulus, the characters look for the elegant departure.
In: Hommes et Migrations, n°1272, Mars-avril 2008. Mondialisation et migrations internationales. pp. 184-185. … ; (en ligne),
URL : https://www.persee.fr/doc/homig_1142-852x_2008_num_1272_1_4728_t1_0184_0000_1
The plot is interesting: a North Korean spy who has been living as a South Korean for 15 years without hearing from his handlers, is finally contacted to return to North Korea. By this time he has married and had a daughter. So now what? Take them? Leave them? They are unaware of his secret existence, which was easy to hide as he had no assignments the whole time. Or should he even respond? Is he a dead man if he does? What about if he doesn't? It is intriguing reading about what it is like to live outside of your own identity for so many years, having not just to learn a language or accent, but a different way of thinking and responding to EVERYTHING. As these things are addressed, so are the personal lives of his wife and daughter. These three people live very separate lives. And so we have the story of this dysfunctional family, which is not so unlike other families in many ways, as well as the spy story. This is not a thriller spy book, but rather the story of the characters. I'm giving it 3 1/2 stars, and will follow the author (this is his first book).
The piece that irked me about this newly translated work is just that - the translation. Kim's previous works I have managed to get copies of (> and >) were translated by Chi-Young Kim, whilst this work was done by Charles La Shure. There were parts, probably not more than five small lines, which of course I neglected to mark and cannot find now, that were translated with an English turn-of-phrase. I understand that there are many facets to consider when translating an author and that sometimes sacrifices need to be made. (see La Shure's interview here: http://publishingtheworld.com/2013/02/06/5-questions-with-charles-la-shure-trans... )
La Shure keeps true to Kim's form and style but these tiny little descriptions feel jarring to the story, reminding me I live in the present and not in this story.
The only other thing about the work that I wasn't in love with were the depictions of battle. This is mainly due to the fact wars and battles, whilst necessary, are simply not interesting to me, whether written or on the screen. Even the best scenes shot with the highest resolution and graphics bores me on the same level that guys feel about chick-flics.
No real suspense or action...just a linear line from start to finish.
The story is about a man from North Korea who is trained and sent to South Korea as a spy. The man’s “handler” gets “purged” and he spends 20+ years living in South Korea with a spy mission. Then…one day…he receives the “return home” order and his life is torn apart (in a very non-dramatic and somewhat slow/uneventful way).
Like all of the translated fiction I’ve read so far, the writing style of Your Republic is Calling You was unlike any other book I’ve read. In some ways, it did remind me Murakami’s 1Q84. The sparse prose and the surreal feel of the events transpiring was very similar. Both books also have in common their inclusion of characters’ dreams, hopes, fears, sex lives, and most secret thoughts. This can be uncomfortable and would earn these books an R rating, but they’re also an amazing device for making characters seem like real people you know very well.
Despite these similarities, the content and tone of the book differentiated it completely from 1Q84. Murakami writes about mysterious hopes and desires, while Kim Young-ha writes about mysterious fear and dread. The magical realism of Murakami makes you see the magic in the most mundane of events, while Kim Young-ha’s thriller makes you see the mundane details influencing even the most extraordinary events. This book made me feel extremely uncomfortable throughout and is much darker than most books I enjoy. Other than the ending though, I really liked it anyway. The writing was beautiful and I loved the raw reality of the author’s descriptions. Sadly, the ending wasn’t even dark or tragic, it was just unresolved. That took a lot of the emotional punch out of the book and left me feeling as though the author just got tired of writing. However, even with the slightly disappointing ending, I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes Murakami or dark, psychological thrillers.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
I gave the story three and a half stars, even though the story is interesting in and of itself. But his writing style is fairly pedestrian- the narrative flows through but there were not many sentences or paragraphs that made me want to read again either because there were beautifully written, or because they had interesting points or insights. Despite this, I would recommend this book as a good way to pass the time, and learn a little more about the tactics of the hermit kingdom and the lifestyle of South Korea.
There would have been little to hold my interest had the book been set in a different location. I would have preferred to read a non-fiction historical work on this topic, but apparently documentary sources are scarce. The novel included content I usually avoid in fiction, including supernatural elements such as demon possession as well as a few brief but graphic descriptions of sex. The novel also reminds me a bit of the few magical realism works I've read, but I don't think that element is strong enough to appeal to fans of that genre. I think this book will appeal most strongly to readers interested in Korean, Asian, Mexican, and/or Central American history.
This review is based on an electronic advanced reading copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
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cbl_tn | 2 altre recensioni | Dec 2, 2012 |
cbl_tn | 2 altre recensioni | Dec 2, 2012 | First off, it's a character-driven story chock-full of social commentary. The almost dozen supporting characters have plenty of back story and Kim boldly expounds upon each person's "undercover" life that he or she carries with them. Some are full of heartbreak, others are full of debauchery. Either way, it's a grippingly woven web of interrelated events miraculously occurring throughout the span of a single day. Everyone, it seems, has an undercover life, so to say, and the spy theme extends well beyond the protagonist.
Speaking of whom, Ki-Yong isn't your archetypal spy. He wasn't genetically engineered to possess superhuman perception skills or advanced martial arts training. He's just good at laying low, blending in, and not making a scene. After twenty years in North Korea, he infiltrated the South in the 80s and successfully gathered and reported data for some time. After his supervisor was ousted, time passed and soon his liaison office seemed to forget about Ki-Yong's quiet but secret existence. Eventually, his undercover life became his real life and he quietly settled into a uneventful middle-class actuality that feels more and more like reality. However, after a decade of no communication, he suddenly receives an encrypted message to return "home". He wonders if the message is intended to save his life from the South Korean government's persistent investigators or to bring him home in order to punish him for lazily adhering to his new capitalist lifestyle. The reader then follows Ki-Yong as he reacts to the news and tries to make sense of his former identity.
This is Kim Young-ha's fourth novel, which was originally published in 2006 under the title "빛의 제국", or "Empire of Light". I enjoyed Kim's portrayal of cultural identity crisis and applaud the translator for making it not only a salient ride, but also lots of fun. I recommend it for anyone looking at a unique take on South Korea's rapid commercialization and/or cultural identity confusion within Korea. Two thumbs up.
1 matthew254 | 15 altre recensioni | Sep 9, 2012 |
matthew254 | 15 altre recensioni | Sep 9, 2012 | But in terms of the author's, and the narrator's, aesthetic choices, the book is massively anachronistic, and the author seems entirely unaware of that fact. He presents his narrator as a person who loves Gustav Klimt and Van Gogh and reads Oscar Wilde. Other time periods play into the plot: the narrator also likes Henry Miller and Sylvia Plath, and the book opens and closes with Romantic painting: in the beginning, it's the "Death of Marat," and at the end, it's Delacroix's "Death of Sardanapalus."
These visual and literary influences can be divided into three groups. The Romantic paintings are emblems of the desperate passions and romantic suicide that drive the book's plot. Henry Miller and Sylvia Plath are the literary mix that inspires Kim. It's the fin-de-siècle art that is so deeply anachronistic. The author clearly wants us to think of his narrator, and his tastes, as thrillingly nihilistic, scarred, urban, cosmopolitan, and knowing. But the taste for fin-de-siècle painting and prose was typical of the first generations of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese artists who visited Europe beginning in the 1920s (and earlier, in the case of Japan). It is as dusty now as a "stale cream puff," as Ezra Pound described his own early book of poetry, "A lume spento," written earnestly, in Venice, in a kind of nineteenth-century dream.
Is it possible to take a book seriously if its imaginative world is so belated, so scattered, so unaware of its anachronism? Can a taste that combines the 1820s, the 1900's, and the 1980s be presented represented seriously, without irony or historical distance? Can characters in their 20's be read sympathetically if the author doesn't realize they are pastiches? ("I Have the Right to Destroy Myself" also resembles the disaffected, empty lives that are common in contemporary Japanese fiction, but with a lacquer of old fashioned fine art.)
D'autant d'intérêt, il y a évidemment la société coréenne, aussi bien du Nord que du Sud, une incursion dans un pays que je connais mal.
En tout, une formidable lecture, certes lente, mais dont les détails et les personnages sont fascinants.
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Definitely is one of those where it’s not that that it’s poorly written, it’s just not my cup of tea.