Welcome to Litsy!

^^ 361 “Let‘s stop here. All truth has vanished.”

365 “Chunhui was about to ask Jumbo something else, but before they could happen, they vanished. Only their voices were left behind in the vast outer space, faint.
Goodbye, little lady.
Goodbye to you too, elephant.”

Playful, sensual, sometimes childlike, sometimes cunning, sometimes cruel.

Talking elephants. Whale-shaped cinema. Coffee. Twins. Daisy fleabane. The Red Brick Queen. Determination, loyalty, cruelty, devotion. A magical-realist saga. One-eyed bee woman. Shamans. Geumbok & Chunhui. Beautiful translation. Love the old-fashioned direct address to reader. 2023

137 “But first, another interesting event awaits us.”

353 “Dear reader, the story continues.”

353 “the lonelier she got, the more perfect her bricks became.”

This one was rough up front. Advertised as Korean magical realism, instead it‘s satirical weird disturbing stuff, told with a humorous tone. But…if you can hang in there, it gives a scope of 20th-century Korean history, and a scathing view on South Korean capitalism and autocracy. This was published in 2004, translated only in 2023, and made the International #Booker2023 shortlist.

The storyteller‘s voice (humorous asides and repetitions addressed to Dear Reader), the folkloric/ mythical tone, the surprising (and sometimes brutal) adventures and the epic sweep of history kept me enthralled in this tale of the fortunes and misfortunes of a mother and daughter in South Korea. Translation by Chi-young Kim; this was shortlisted for the International Booker in 2023.

The picture Geumbuk draws for the architect as instruction for the shape of the movie theatre he will design.

But we can‘t unspool all of his stories here. We will just summarize his turbulent life this way: he had experienced all kinds of hardship.

One day, the man with the scar took Geumbok to a café next to the theatre. He ordered tea that was arrowroot-black. She took a sip and spat it out immediately; it was too bitter. “What is this?”

“This is coffee.”

This was on the Booker shortlist 2023 and I didn't do enough research on it before picking it up, I just knew it was a surrealist South Korean book and there was a movie theater shaped like a whale.
I just listened to about 30 minutes that was all about a maid raping a disabled man (who is only referred to as "the half wit") and apparently we are supposed to understand because his penis is huge.
I am so tired of rape as a plot point. Gross

This very engaging book that reads like a folktale is not what I expected going in, and I really enjoyed it. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, I was pulled into this meandering story of Chunhui‘s life. I‘m very glad the Booker put this one on my radar.

Pictured here with the oregano and tarragon that are very happy about how much it‘s been raining here. 🌱

Geumbok is an ambitious woman with a business instinct in South Korea, Chunhui is her mute and neglected daughter. This is their story and that of a parade of other people and animals coming and going. It‘s brutal, sometimes magical, you may like it or not but it certainly is superb storytelling. Reminded me a bit of García Márquez.

With this book I finished the #InternationalBooker shortlist ?