I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for weeks. Time to slow down, read a book that nourishes my mind in the mental health department, and focus on myself.
This book seems like a great way to do that given the light-hearted way that it deals with often very serious topic of depression.
Exchange rate is really putting the pressure on when it comes to buying imported books in Tokyo these days, but I just had to put up Anton Hur's debut novel and his latest translation. Ended up getting some other Korean books in translation too that I'm very excited to eventually read.
📘 "A Magical Girl Retires" by Park Seolyeon,
translated from Korean into English by Anton Hur
I've been looking forward to the release of this novella for a while! Beautiful cover, interesting title, gripping blurb, great translator. I'm brimming with Cardcaptor Sakura nostalgia, so this might as well be catnip to me.
But first a warning: the book is darker than the cover might make you believe, maybe skip this one if the CW you look out for is suicide.
I love it when the translator's name makes an appearance on the front cover. What's even better is that both the translator and the cover illustrator got their own little afterword. I like getting to know what the intentions and thoughts behind their work were.
The story was entertaining to read, and there was decent critique on our financial system, climate change and violence against women. Some really fun and cute characters accompanied me throughout the pages, but ultimately I was still left disappointed. I'll try to be as vague as possible as to not spoiler anything. But if you're someone who doesn't want to know anything at all, stop reading here.
LM was by far the most interesting character to me. I don't hold her first magic action against her. I also think her attitude towards humanity is understandable. I was upset too by the unreasonably large burden the magical girl society pushes onto her. Her reaction was to be expected.
I really think the book did LM dirty to reduce her to a 2D disney villain at the end, and to give her such an ending. The book fell flat for me because of it, and the happy ending was a completely empty one.
Please give me a 400 page literary spec-fic character study of LM that makes us sympathize and sink slowly but deeply into the morally grey with her! Now that would've easily been best book of the year material for me.
Forgot to report my translation challenge book for March (it was Little Mushroom V2 by Shishi, tr. Xia), but I finished my April book last week, so better post here before I forget.
Violets was devastating in such a casual way that I'm frankly alarmed. How could anyone read as calmly as I did? It's shocking and makes the devastation all the greater by proving its own unspoken thesis. I remain very disturbed.
📗 "I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki" by Baek Se-hee,
Translated from Korean into English by Anton Hur
If you want to read 100+ pages of therapy transcript, here's a book that's going to interest you. If you don't, stay away. Fortunately for me, I'm a nosy person who has already read many transcripts of all sorts, and I'm always ready to add a few hundred pages more.
The biggest struggle in this book for me, was the quality of the therapy given. I'm not fond of the psychiatrist. There's not much exploring going on, there are so many lost opportunities to ask follow-up questions or to dig deeper into the author's issues. Very quickly the therapist offers an (easy) explanation and moves on, without giving the author a chance to come to her own conclusions. Some sessions felt very aimless.
This view was softened somewhat by the psychiatrist's note at the end, in which they expressed embarrassment for some of their therapy choices. It must be rough to have the eyes of so many readers on you, even anonymously. The very same goes for the author, who must've steeled her heart significantly to be able to publish this. I can't call it anything else than a ballsy move.
Happy to have been able to read this one, although it was also frustrating.
#bookstodon #KoreanLit #NonFiction #AmReading #WomenInTranslation
Another book done for my book challenge this year. A somewhat creepy magical realism novel translated from Korean. It takes on topics of gentrification and poverty quite well, but subtly, despite its short 150 page length. It was quite good.
#TranslatedLitChallenge #KoreanLit #TranslatedLit #bookstodon #books
I finished 불귀도 살인사건 by Jeon Gunwoo (전건우), and it’s one of my favourite books read this year!
An isolated island, a series of murders, an ancient curse… all the elements for a great horror mystery are here, and the result is an engrossing, fast-paced story that is full of suspense.
Next on my list of Korean novels: 듀얼 by the same author. Hopefully it’ll be as good as this one!
I’m one third into 불귀도 살인사건 by Jeon Gunwoo (전건우), and I’m really loving it!! I already read (and loved) short stories by this author, but it’s the first novel I read. It’s a real page turner!
I looked for translations of Jeon Gunwoo’s books and found that at least one of his novels has been translated into French: Les 4 enquêtrices de la supérette Gwangseon, translated by Kyungran Choi and Bessora.
#KoreanLit
I finished 습기 by 마태 (Matae), and it was a great slow-burn psychological thriller.
It deals with serious topics like the social pressure on mothers to stop working and become stay-at-home moms, while also delivering a suspenseful story. It’s easy to identity with the protagonist, and I found so many scenes infuriating, but I could not put the book down!
It is also very easy to read, one of the easiest novels I’ve read in Korean so far.
Another book haul for me! This time I also picked up two books translated from Korean along with a Japanese mystery(?) novel. I think I've said this before, but it's always nice to have extra access via Japanese (and if I was motivated, French). There's obviously some overlap in what gets translated, but so much more is getting released in Japanese than English.
#KoreanLit #JapaneseLit #BookHaul #JapaneseLanguage #TranslatedLit
Taylor Drew 
Reading Recluse
Inhae