Pyun Hye-youngRezensionen

1.75 stars. honestly i'm not sure why i didn't like this more and why it was hard for me to get into. this isn't the first time i've tried to listen to it and at first i didn't have trouble starting it (like i did last time) but i think i lost myself a bit in the middle. by the end i was much more interested again, and i like what she was doing here and how she was talking about debt as the source of the problems here, which we don't see too often. i like the surprising turns toward the end, although i do slightly wonder if that was me having zoned out a bit and missing something earlier on, which would have made it less surprising. i don't know, i'm excited by other books by this author and have been looking forward to reading her and see some elements that i really like here but just wasn't as excited by this one as i wanted to be.

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From the Shirley Jackson Award–winning author of The Hole, a slow-burning thriller with a touch of horror and the uncanny

A disappearance. A missing brother. A lawyer asking questions. And a vast forest in the mountains—the western woods—where the trees huddle close together emanating a crushing darkness and a chill dampness fills the air. The ranger, In-su Park, who lives nearby with his family, is a recovering alcoholic. He claims no knowledge of the man who disappeared, even though the missing man had worked as the ranger just before him. In the little village down the mountain, the shopkeepers will do the same and deny they ever saw or knew the man, though they’re less convincing; and his former supervisor at the Forestry Research Center, Professor Jin, dismisses his importance. But when an accident and a death derail the investigation and someone attempts to break into his office, In-su Park finds himself conducting his own inquiry into the goings-on deep in the heart of the western woods—spurred by the mysterious words he discovers on a piece of paper beneath his desk: “In the forest the owl cries.”

The Owl Cries is a treat for fans of Stephen King, David Lynch, and the nightmare dystopias of Franz Kafka.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: You’ll all remember that I am a fan of Pyun’s earlier novels. Her fiction is, I think, perfectly described as “anxiety fiction.” Like the oft-cited comparison to Kafka, her characters don’t seem to know what the hell’s going on, much like the reader…for a while, anyway. We, of course, catch on before our main character Ranger Park does that there are wheels within wheels among the people of the village, in fact everywhere surrounding the strange world of the forest he's the ranger of.

What makes this read satisfying to me is the claustrophobic, contained world that Ranger Park thinks he's found refuge within turning into a stage for some of the most venal, terrible, conscienceless people to conduct the parts of their affairs that do not stand up to close scrutiny. Pyun's opinion of those we've ceded control of the world to matches mine: Poor.

I'm less inclined to forgive the book's, um, magisterial pace. If you're centering your story on the disappearance of a person, the previous Ranger to Park, and that person's relative comes to seek them and/or their fate out, pay attention to the means by which the people looking into it do this. That means, for me, allow me to be there for the asking and answering of relevant questions. What people say is one thing, what they do is often very different. Let me in on that journey or the book becomes, as this one does, an excercise in atmospherics.

It's a superior exercise therein...the forest is such a beautifully evoked entity, almost Kinglike in its mute menace...but again, nothing happens that makes it other than a lovely evocative setting. King would've had some dread spirit or creature do something. In this book, it's build-up without release. It becomes very easy to feel stalled in the read, as the investigation into the disappeared brother does nothing for long stretches of time.

What is often a beautiful read is not a satisfying story. The ending resolves enough fates and reveals enough "why"s to count as an actual ending. The main issue is the way it's done in presenting the conclusions. This makes the journey up to that time feel...hollow...because it's an unearned climax. I've read lovely image after lovely image upon interesting observation, yet there's nothing in all of it that contained the information I needed to get there with the author. This violates thriller ethics, and removes any hint of mystery novel from what is, in the end, a lovely literary exploration of surfaces not matching interiors, of how hard the terrible people in charge work to prevent us fro noticing how terrible they truly are.

That read appeals to me, so I liked the book fine. Your mileage may vary, of course.½

Giving this 3.5 rounded up.
This book wasn’t for me, I didn’t hate reading it, I just didn’t look forward to it when I had to take breaks.

3 1/2 stars and rounding to 4 since I don't think I've uncovered all the layers here.

This book has so many layers that I'm not sure I could ever uncover them all. The comparisons to Misery and The Vegetarian is what got my attention and while there are similarities I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. This is for sure a thriller, but it's not violent or gory or heart-pounding. It's terrifying on a more psychological level I think. I mean, waking up from a coma after a horrible car accident where you lost your wife and realizing your only salvation/caretaker/family left is your MIL? That's enough to drive any normal human into a dark hole. This is Oghi's descent into all the holes.

While The Hole does refer to a literal hole it also is referenced a few different times in other ways. Oghi has a hole in the middle of his life, he is alone and falling into a hole of despair, he references his favorite map that has a hole in the middle of it from a compass. I mean, the cover is beautiful and hits the bullseye when it comes to describing this story.

“To be human was to be saddled with emptiness.”

“The world's oldest map, the Babylonian Map of the World, had a little circle bored through the center. [...] That dark, narrow hole went as deep as the memory of an age that no one could ever return to. The only way to reach that lost age was through that hole, but the hole itself could never be reached.”

"So that's what I'll do. What my daughter couldn't. What she meant to do. What she wanted to do. I have to do it for her. And I will."

A man of no particular virtue is left mostly paralyzed after an auto accident in which his wife died. A badly damaged jaw prevents his speaking and his mother-in-law is his only living relation. Things are bad enough, but they get worse. Rather depressing. Fortunately it isn't long, though it's too long.½

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award
Named One of the Top 10 Thrillers to Read This Summer by Time Magazine.

In this tense, gripping novel by a rising star of Korean literature, Oghi has woken from a coma after causing a devastating car accident that took his wife's life and left him paralyzed and badly disfigured. His caretaker is his mother-in-law, a widow grieving the loss of her only child. Oghi is neglected and left alone in his bed. His world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his troubled relationship with his wife, a sensitive, intelligent woman who found all of her life goals thwarted except for one: cultivating the garden in front of their house. But soon Oghi notices his mother-in-law in the abandoned garden, uprooting what his wife had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes. When asked, she answers only that she is finishing what her daughter started.

A bestseller in Korea, award-winning author Hye-young Pyun's The Hole is a superbly crafted and deeply unnerving novel about the horrors of isolation and neglect in all of its banal and brutal forms. As Oghi desperately searches for a way to escape, he discovers the difficult truth about his wife and the toll their life together took on her.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

It was difficult and exhausting, but he quickly accepted the fact that life had to go on without her. He’d lost love, and yet the world was not the slightest bit shaken by his loss. The part of his life that had had J in it went away, leaving behind a cavity, a hollow, and still the world was unmoved. Nothing would ever fill in that empty space. But Oghi’s world would keep on spinning regardless.
–and–
Oghi looked lovingly on his wife’s shallow vanity. She knew exactly what her goals were, and though she believed in them, she failed at nearly everything she set out to do. Yet she brushed off each failure, hardly any worse for the wear. Then quickly found herself a new role model and extolled their virtues ad nauseam. By doing so, she seemed to come to an understanding of the difference between longing and ambition.

Poor, crippled Oghi has survived a horrific car crash only to be confined to his head. He can barely communicate. He is cluaustrophobically trapped in a nightmare of dependence on others for his existence...a man accustomed to being the center of power in his own life and the delineator of Reality itself (he was a cartographer in his previous existence).

Ironic, that...as a mapmaker he relies on others to provide him data so he can graphically represent reality, yet he was completely and utterly uninterested in learning any single thing about his now-dead wife. I'd be surprised if he could describe her knees or fingers, things marital partners know very intimately about their spouse. He certainly took no trouble to learn a single thing about her wants and needs.

While this all sounds pretty tediously familiar to a generation raised on feminist screeds against the awfulness that is Man, it manages not to be the same old, same old by giving us enough of her thoughts by proxy. Oghi remembers things she said, or did; it's more than enough to reveal to the reader the depths of this man's appalling sense of entitlement to all his wife's energy and attention with no hint of reciprocation. As this is clearly something not reserved for his wife (his career success is clearly down to cheating and chicanery), we learn from his own memories he is that worst of all possible characters: the skilled manipulator of the feelings and needs of others, the sociopath.

This is a novella, so it won't eat your time making its effect on you any less powerful with foreshadowing. It's memorably, involvingly written and translated. It offers no moral uplift, or hint of redemption. Instead it breathes life into the very essence of its titular...object, subject, shape, space?...as well as, with its condign ending, gives us schadenfreude lovers of the world a huge chuckle.

The world’s oldest map, the Babylonian Map of the World, had a little circle bored through the center. Scholars explained that the hole had come from using a compass to trace the two outer rings of the map. Oghi was captivated more by that hole than by the geometric shapes engraved in the clay tablet, and had stared at it for a long time in the darkened exhibit room of the British Museum. That dark, narrow hole went as deep as the memory of an age that no one could ever return to. The only way to reach that lost age was through that hole, but the hole itself could never be reached.

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: NAMED AN NPR GREAT READ OF 2018

Distinguished for his talents as a rat killer, the nameless protagonist of Hye-young Pyun's City of Ash and Red is sent by the extermination company he works for on an extended assignment in C, a country descending into chaos and paranoia, swept by a contagious disease, and flooded with trash. No sooner does he disembark than he is whisked away by quarantine officials and detained overnight. Isolated and forgotten, he realizes that he is stranded with no means of contacting the outside world. Still worse, when he finally manages to reach an old friend, he is told that his ex-wife's body was found in his apartment and he is the prime suspect. Barely managing to escape arrest, he must struggle to survive in the streets of this foreign city gripped with fear of contamination and reestablish contact with his company and friends in order to clear his reputation.

But as the man's former life slips further and further from his grasp, and he looks back on his time with his wife, it becomes clear that he may not quite be who he seems. From the bestselling author of The Hole, City of Ash and Red is an apocalyptic account of the destructive impact of fear and paranoia on people's lives as well as a haunting novel about a man’s loss of himself and his humanity.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

...the health inspector placed the thermometer directly against the man's right ear. An electric hum buzzed in his ear like an alarm. He barked out a loud cough as if in response to the sound, and the health inspector jumped back.
The inspections were due to the recent outbreak. An illness had been spreading fast, from country zero to most of the rest of the world, like fire jumping from roof to roof. No one knew exactly how it was spreading, treatment was still in the developmental stages, infection rates were high, and there was talk of a growing feud among countries to secure the limited supply of vaccines. And yet, luckily, there'd been few fatalities so far. The man figured the news back home was right: no matter how strong the virus was, he had nothing to worry about as long as he kept his hands clean.

This isn't going to hit the same way in 2023 as it did in 2018.

The unnervingly prescient pandemic thing aside, the story rings its tocsins of warning louder about the hazards of global totalitarianism turned up to eleven in a world with Modi, Xi, and Kim sharing a continent...not to mention Putin squatting just to their north.

Again, setting the essential-to-the-story geopolitics aside, the truly horrifying and visceral descriptions of the unnamed exterminator's environment during his quarantine (presaged in the above quote) and subsequent descent-cum-escape into the utter devastation and foulness of the literal, as well as figurative, underworld beneath the foreign city (whose language he can't speak) that his bosses have sent him to to ply his exterminator's trade are intensely and economically presented. There is no wasted veriage in this book.

There is also no memorable character. The two have always seemed to me to go hand-in-hand. In many ways this is intentional...no one in a totalitarian state should stand out as a memorable individual, or else...but it ended up feeling to my readerly sensibilities a bit foreshortened, lacking in explorable depth.

Accepting that this is almost certainly intentional and not a lack of ability (see The Hole below), I had to acknowledge the intended effect of alienation was simply not to my taste and rate the read a full four stars.

Perhaps the translation is to blame, but the writing and story felt completely rudimentary.

I enjoyed reading this book and I thought the translation into English was well done. I speak Korean conversationally at a minimum and I am familiar enough with texts translated into English from Korean that I have seen all the ways it can go wrong.

It was at times riveting and also slightly horrifying....kind of along the lines of Misery as described in the blurb but it is not Misery and does not, at least to me, feel like a Korean author copying Stephen King. It is its own story and a well done one at that and I would hope to read other books by Hye-Young Pyun.

There is nothing supernatural going on here...there is no blood and gore...there are no monsters from the underworld. This is a story of a deteriorating marriage and a horrible accident and a severely disabled man left to be taken care of by his mother-in-law. At first, the storyline reminded me of the usual Korean themes from dramas, overused and corny. I was pleasantly surprised, however as the story slowly winds its way to an unforeseen ending, or perhaps, long foreseen ending if you catch all the hints along the way.

I say no more.

This is my third Pyun and second on audio; Caroline McLaughlin narrated this one.

There are two storylines in this novel. I found it hard to sort them out at first, I'm not sure if it was due to being on audio, the construction of the novel, or the narration. We have Se-Oh and Ki-jeong, two single women who have close relatives that have recently died and been ruled suicides--and neither agree. Their stories slowly come together, as they search for those involved in the secrets their loved ones kept.

This isn't really a mystery novel, per se. There is a mystery, but we get no clues, we follow along with the characters to see where it leads (the actual connection between the two made me laugh--such a good setting for a novel!). But this also isn't a thriller, it's more of a slow burn. But I also felt like there was a lot of detail that did not go anywhere--Se-Oh has been a virtual hermit, and now that she has lost her home she is forced into the world. That plot point goes virtually nowhere, she's fine. The debt collector becomes a major point in Se-Oh's storyline, but doesn't get pulled into Ki-jeung's, which felt weird, as though Ki-jeung's story wasn't as "big", having no related or similar character.

This felt like two different stories that were turned into one novel, but they aren't equal in weight. It was certainly very interesting but the ending wasn't satisfying, and their connection was not as satisfying as it might have been. However, I also did not love the narration. T narrator had one voice, but then the debt collector's elderly mother had a girlish voice, Se-Oh and Ki-Jeung didn't have separate voices (the narrator)--I think this was part of my problem following the storyline.

This short novel (under 5 hours on audio) is narrated by a man, Oghi, after he wakes from a coma. He has been in a serious car accident and his wife has died. He is paralyzed and cannot speak, but is otherwise stable. His own parents are deceased, and it is his mother-in-law who takes over his care. She arranges for a caregiver, doctors appointments, and all the equipment he needs.
————
This little novel is quite interesting. Pyun does a good job of putting Oghi's shock at his new life into his narration. His grief seems most intense when thinking about regular things he can no longer do, the book he will never get to write. But with hours and hours to lay and think, he spends a lot of time thinking about his wife and their relationship--and maybe he is a little more unreliable than he seemed at first. And maybe this explains some of his mother-in-law's increasingly strange behavior.

A slow first half with some exceedingly boring flashbacks really dragged it down. The last half had some truly terrifying moments. If it wasn't so short it would've been really difficult to get through.½

As this novel opens, Se-Oh returns home from an errand her father sent her on to find their home in flames. She has lived the past several years as a recluse for reasons which only become clear over the course of the novel. Her father's death in the fire is ruled a suicide, but Se-Oh suspects foul play and begins to investigate.

In an alternate narrative, Ki-jeong, a teacher, learns of the death of her estranged sister, which was also ruled a suicide. Ki-jeong, like Se-Oh, is not convinced, and begins to delve into her sister's life. One thing she discovers is that her sister made several attempts to contact Se-Oh before her death. In parallel narratives the stories of Se-Oh and Ki-jeong begin to converge.

I enjoyed this book, but based on the reviews and descriptions I had read, I expected it to be much more in the psychological thriller genre. Instead, it's much more literary and philosophical. There is very little action, just glimpses of contemporary life in Korea, a novel of character, not crime.

Recommended.

3 1/2 stars½

Went back and forth between 2 and 3 stars but settled on 3 because I like the premise and atmosphere of this book and it is done well in places. Some of the chapters, though, when Oghi is looking back seemed to get wordy, which is kind of odd for such a short book. Also, what is up with the absolutely clueless physical therapist?

City of Ash and Red is a Korean story that strikes fear and uneasiness into the reader. The unnamed lead character and narrator works for an extermination company. He's not the best employee but gets to work at the big office in Country C. Countries and cities are represented by single letters which are not shorthand but signify places unknown to the reader. The reader will not think that country C is North Korea, Poland, or Canada; it is someplace the reader has never been. There is a sense of being lost and to compound that feeling the character also feels lost and disoriented. He loses all contact with his home country. He also learns he is suspected in the murder of his ex-wife. The book takes the reader on a dark, twisting course. In a city where trash piles high, rats thrive, and swirling mists of sprays that are supposed to control the spread of an epidemic cover everything a foreigner must find his way out or in.


Translator Sora Kim-Russell does an outstanding job in translating the story to English while keeping the original feel and intent of the story. Horror seems to have different flavors in different cultures. Part of the stories appeal is that is outside of the Western or American norm.

I picked this up from the New Fiction section at the library for WIT month--and finally got to it a month late.

This novel is strange. It's a little dystopian and a little not. The narrator seems reliable and seems not. He is unnamed, so the text is somewhat awkward to read (he, his, he, his, ad nauseum), but I did get used to it. I also can't tell if that is because of the translation, and if that actually works better in Korean.

A man works for an extermination company in Country A. He receives a transfer to the home office in Country C--he took it because why not? Maybe he will move up in the company. He's divorced with no kids, so the move doesn't really matter.

When he arrives, he finds both the office and his apartment are in a section of the city that is dangerous, the heart of a new epidemic, where trash is dumped everywhere and trash fires burn. His stuff is stolen. He knows few phone numbers. Few people are out. It stinks. There are fumigation trucks everywhere. And his life spirals out of control before he settles down again.

At first he seems very reliable--though the narration style is so awkward, so maybe that is a clue? IN the end though, I was wondering if anything at all was how he perceived/told his story. I also wonder if this is actually meant as an allegory for something in Korean history/current events that I don't recognize.

I picked this up at random on my library's new book shelf, and I'm glad I did. This is a seriously creepy short novel that plays with themes of abandonment both physical and emotional. The atmosphere is foreboding from the start and grows darker as the story builds. This is a quick read, but it has stayed with me since I finished it.

I think this is one of those horror novels that does its work on you after you finish reading it. I can't say I entirely "got" it, but I think it is subversive. The writing felt quite claustrophobic, and the suspense was a slow burn. By the end of it, I had no sympathy for Oghi. I believe this was the author's intent.

Employee of a pesticide manufacturer is sent to work temporarily at the home office in another country, where he can barely hold a simple conversation in the local language. But, never mind. They don't need him to come to the office right away in any case. In fact, he is confined to his apartment in the midst of an epidemic in an island part of the capital city where the garbage is piled high enough to use as a trampoline. Certainly it is fair to call this novel Kafka-esque, but it doesn't manage quite the same effect. As the novel progresses, we see flashbacks into the protagonist's past, mostly focused on his deteriorating relationship and separation from his wife and his trying experiences on the job, especially after his co-workers found he was the one selected to work at the home office, typically a stepping stone to becoming a branch manager. Meanwhile, in his new not-so-home, things keep getting worse and worse. But you'll have to experience that for yourself. This is a fairly quick, easy read, but you may find yourself wondering at the end just what it was all about and if there is any greater lesson you have missed. I have read two South Korean novels recently, and they are both just plain weird. I'm sure it isn't that all South Korean novels are weird, just that those are the ones I'm attracted to.½

I thought I was getting a post-apocalyptic story about survival in the future. This instead turned out to be an intriguing story of a proficient exterminator of rats being promoted to a new job in a foreign country. Upon arrival at the new job he’s shuffled aside due to company politics, social unrest, and threat of pandemic. Sent to a district where garbage collection and sanitation services have collapsed and forgotten by his employer, he is left to fend for himself. The final indignity arrives when he learns that he’s the prime suspect in the murder of his ex-wife.
The story is then not what I thought, but the story of survival in a foreign country, which while interesting is different, dark, and somewhat disturbing. Just as the ending is sudden and unexpected the story is interesting.½

The unnamed narrator is known for his talents as a rat killer. The extermination company he works for has given him what many consider to be a promotion and is sent to Country C. However, when the man gets to Country C, he finds its streets are overrun with rats and piled high with rotting garbage with horrible odors. There’s also a deadly rampant virus going around and men walk around in hazmat suits. When he finds out that his new job has been postponed, he thinks things can’t get any worse. But his world completely caves in when he contacts someone from home and finds out that his ex-wife has been murdered and he’s the prime suspect.

Wow, this author surely knows how to write a gruesome story and keep her readers on edge! Her imagination knows no limits and the world she has created in this book in a bleak, horrendous one. I was very impressed with her book, “The Hole”, but I think this one is even better with a more involved plot. The book has many layers and I think different people will read different meanings into it. I see that “The Hole” has won the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award and I can see why. Her work does remind me of Shirley Jackson’s plus it has that unique Korean touch that I’ve grown to admire.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

A car accident that has killed his wife has left Oyhi paralyzed. When he awakens from a coma, he is brought home, where he is to be cared for by his mother-in-law, his deceased wife's mother. Besides being paralyzed, he is temporarily unable to speak. His mother-in-law clearly blames Oyhi for her daughter's death. He is neglected by her, if not abused, as she begins digging up the beautiful garden her daughter had cultivated.

This book was billed as a subtle psychological thriller. Maybe it was too subtle for me, as I found not much happened, and I didn't really understand the meaning of what did happen. However, it is a Korean prize winner, and the writing was quiet and lyrical. I don't regret reading it.

2 1/2 stars½

Oghi has woken from a coma only to learn that he has been involved in an accident that has left him paralyzed and unable to speak and his wife dead. He is left in the care of his mother-in-law and is the object of neglect and abuse. He only has the small bedroom and his memories and has no control over anything in his life – his health, his money, his home, his future. His mother-in-law obviously doesn’t have Oghi’s best interests at heart. She starts to work in her dead daughter’s garden, strangely digging larger and larger holes.

To say more about the plot would be to spoil the author’s meticulous rendering of this chilling story. She builds up a feeling of dread and suspense that had me on the edge of my seat. There was one scene in the book where I literally jumped out of my chair and walked around the room reading it. I flew through the book and am looking forward to more of this author. It’s a short read but definitely intriguing. Quite a literary accomplishment in the thriller genre.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.