I only really liked The Writer & The Origin of life as they seemed to be the only ones where I didn’t lose interest due to the slow pacing. Except for Diary of a Murderer, the slow paced parts could’ve of been easily sped up. That said, all the story besides Missing Child had intriguing concepts that were the main reason I even continued reading. Otherwise I probably would’ve DNF-ed it.

Definitely is one of those where it’s not that that it’s poorly written, it’s just not my cup of tea. ( )

This is a book of Korean short stories. Maybe you could call them crime stories, but I think they are a great deal more than that, and certainly transcend the crime fiction genre.

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 ( )

Voller Spannung, aber auch Vernügen verfolgt Rezensent Carsten Germis diese Geschichte eines dementen Serienmörders, die der koreanische Autor Young-ha Kim entwirft. Der alte Kim will noch einen einzigen Mord begehen, an einem anderen Serienmörder, um seine Tochter zu beschützen, erzählt Germis, gibt jedoch auch zu verstehen, dass ein dementer Ich-Erzähler alles andere als zuverlässig ist. Germis genießt das Spiel um Wahn und Wirklichkeit, Literatur, Zeit und Zerstörung. Ist die Frau überhaupt Kims Tochter? Ist der junge Mann vielleicht eher ihr Freund? Oder Polizist? ( )

4 short stories from Korean writer Young-Ha Kim. In the title story, an ex-serial killer develops dementia whilst a new spate of killings breaks out in his local area. As the story develops, reality and confusion become mixed as characters appear to be something they are not, and the police start to suspect him of the new crimes when a body is dug up by a dog on his property. This is a literate and interesting tale making use of references to Greek myths to frame the narrative. Kim uses the dementia as a clever metaphor for this confusion, and by the end it’s not at all clear what has exactly happened…

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.
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