veronikav's reviews
224 reviews

 "Krása překládání je v marnosti toho počínání. Vždyť překlad je cosi bytostně neukončeného, v povaze překladu je věčné přibližování a zase vzdalování, neboť jak se něčemu přibližuješ, něčemu se současně vzdaluješ."
Tato knížka je krásnou antologií překladů taoistických textů z různých období a od různých autorů. Její klidná a přemítavá duše je doplněna krásnými ilustracemi. 

 Finally I have finished this colossus of a novel! I had many ideas for a fun and cheeky start to this review amidst which I wanted to make a joke about how Shen Qiao literally gave up his asceticism for some good d... but honestly it's Yan Wushi that was simping and chasing after him desperately in the end.
Let's get the first awkwardness out of the way - I was not that into the relationship. Even though there were compelling moments I ended up not enjoying the direction the characters went to. Shen Qiao was way too timid when it came to their relationship for my liking and Yan Wushi was just... I feel like his character didn't get a proper redemption arc. Or let me phrase it this way - I do not care if characters are evil and malicious but I do like the relationships they're in to feel somewhat balanced. It's because of that that I can enjoy Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu's relationship in Tian Ye Ke where both of them are pretty despicable people but because they are both this way it feels deserved. I just feel like to deserve Shen Qiao, Yan Wushi should go through a more soul-crushing change. A good attempt at this is the post-ambush arc where we can see hints of Yan Wushi's younger self - however this is not further explored once that arc ends and we don't actually get to find out much about Yan Wushi's motivations in the end.
Thousand Autumns is a robust historical fantasy novel. The setting is something I cannot judge the accuracy of because my knowledge of Chinese history is absolutely lacking. However I can acknowledge that the philosophical aspects of this novel were much more accurate than you tend to see in wuxia - as far as Taoism is concerned the author had a good grasp of it and actually utilized it in the plot beyond just "magical fairy people can fly cause I said so". Same goes for the political aspects and world building - it is a very solid work in this aspect. Furthermore I have to praise the translation that the first 70 chapters have which felt effortless and natural to an extent that is hard to see in amateur translation.
The book is very plot heavy. So if you're only into it for the relationship you should maybe consider if you're willing to go through all of it. After all it takes really long for the relationship between Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao to actually start growing - even though they have their share of flirtatious/coupl-y moments before that, it's all just manipulation and neither party is serious about it.
Generally I think the quality of this book is very good and if not for censorship laws this would be a book that can do well as a published work too. However personally I wasn't charmed by the main couple and ended up a bit frustrated because of it. 

 In Child's Bones, we see the struggle between two lovers of a certain Yim. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as other works by Yi Sang. 

 Of course I end up fainting right there. I die. I wander the afterlife. In the underworld, the moon is bright. I shut my eyes again. From the sky, a voice asks, How old are you? I am twenty-five years and eleven months. An early death, I see. No, sir, it is a late death.

Dying Words is a late prose of Yi Sang which has a strongly self-deprecating, ironic sense of humor. In it, the main character called Yi Sang is preparing his own last words, his last work before death. His concern with aesthecism and appearances satirizes his own prose and sense of beauty. The character is confronted with his lover Jeonghui who despises his pretentious and artistic tendencies and ruins his carefully prepared speeches by not reacting in the way he wishes. Jeonghui, who has been constructed to be like a romantic heroine from the works of French authors destroys Yi Sang's perceptions of her and turns out to be still cheating on him. 

 "I force the folded razor into myself, and suppress my pain, when suddenly its blade opens and grazes me. I bleed internally. However, I have nothing to cut my flesh open; there is no way for my evil spirit to escape. My body gets heavier because of my imprisoned suicide.
(p. 52, "Drowning")
First of all I will begin by reviewing the poetry section. As with most modernist poetry it is at first hard to get into - the rhythm of it feels different than the rigid structure you might be used to and the themes and words are much more loosely distributed. Amusing yet sad is the reaction from his contemporary readers "Stop this madman's ravings" to which Yi Sang then responded in a justifiedly melodramatic letter. However these madman's ravings are incredibly compelling and well-written. Everything about his poems is very deliberate even as he uses word-play and formatting. The common themes in his poems that repeat all over again - sickness, suicide, mirror and legacy - all repeat in such a way that make a bigger picture when read together.

THINKING ABOUT THOSE LONELY FIELDS
THINKING ABOUT THAT LONELY DAY OF SNOW
I AM NOT THINKING ABOUT MY SKIN

I AM A RIGID BODY AGAINST MEMORY
(p. 90, "Fragment Scenery")
Yi Sang's Japanese poems then represent a more mathematical, experimental mode of poetry (which might in part be due to how it is stylized). A wonderful translation by Sawako Nakayasu helps facilitate as close of an experience as possible to reading the original.

My worrying is bigger than the world that erases me. When I open the floodgates, the tides of my worrying percolate through my ruined body. However, I have not yet pulled open my masochistic bottle cap. My worrying engulfs me, and, meanwhile, my body withers away as if the wind and the rain are whittling at it.
(p. 131, "A Journey Into the Mountain Village
If Yi Sang's poetry gives us a vague caricature of themes that are important to his life, his essays are the mirror upon which liquid silver is poured. In his essays you can recognize the themes of his poetry and vice versa. In 'A Journey Into the Mountain Village' we witness a depressing yet humorous look at Yi Sang's trip to the countryside. This is continued in 'Ennui' a summary of a boring day drenched in ennui. My favorite essay 'After Sickbed' uses third person to paint a feverish picture of Yi Sang during the days of his sickness. In 'Sad Story' Yi Sang poetically describes the circumstances of his plan to commit double suicide with his lover. (The circumstances of which are later explained upon in 'True Story - Lost Flower'.) 'A Letter to my Sister' betrays a very progressive attitude towards women's rights and emancipation while at the same time standing witness to Yi Sang's guilt as an unfilial son. And lastly in 'Tokyo' we get to discover the city through the eyes of Yi Sang.

(...) want to know why I haven't killed myself? Ha! It's my habit to recommend suicide only to others. I won't kill myself. I act as if I will sometime soon, but I betray everyone's expectations. Oh - but it's no use anymore.
(p. 216, "True Story - Lost Flower")
The last part of the book holds two translated short stories. The first one is Spider&SpiderMeetPigs where we can clearly see a parallel to Yi Sang's real life. In this chaotic piece of prose the protagonist lives his life hidden away in his house while his wife provides for him by working as a sex worker. He describes his wife as a spider; then in turn describes himself as a spider, acknowledging the complicated relationship he has with his wife. This woman who is being used not only by him (willingly) but by the 'pigs' is someone he wants to protect and abandon at the same time. It shows a strong disillusionment with the relationship. The second short story is True Story - Lost Flower in which short snippets of Yi Sang's life are presented next to each other. It offers a good closure to what all you've read so far.
Genuinely enjoyed my read, great translations and very interesting prefaces. 

 This guy needs to go to horny jail.
After I finished screaming wordlessly about what I had just read I felt ready to talk about this book. When they said that his works were erotic (and having read The Buckwheat Season) I didn't imagine... this. I doubt anything like this would get published nowadays - not because of "cancel culture" but because of the literary quality... which is quite lacking here. I mean this is just more elaborately written wattpad smut. I have no words that can describe the shock I felt at reading this story because the whole premise just screams horny teenager having weird fantasies. And as much as I think horny fantasies are good and should be explored (safely) I do not think that they warrant publishing as literature. This is not even long enough to be a romance novel where maybe this kind of plot would feel justified. In the preface Lee Hyo-seok's work is described as "shining artistic achievment" and "lyricism". Forgive me for not seeing the vision but my idea of lyricism doesn't involve a girl getting raped several times over the years and falling in love with each of the perpetrators and then marrying the first one in a mock "happy ending". Like yes I know our ideas about sex and consent have evolved but I highly doubt in 1936 there wasn't people talking about the very basic idea that maybe rape is bad? And it's not very romantic? Again, if this were someone's depraved fanfiction on wattpad I wouldn't blame them but this is supposed to be literature.
I honestly don't recommend this book because it took me through an emotional rollercoaster and not in a good way. I wish Lee Hyo-seok had stuck more to the fellow traveler literature instead. 

 In Mother and Child we see the foundations of what later became Kang Kyeongae's most famous work - Salt. It takes place in the community of Korean diaspora in China soon after the 1931 Manchuria incident. The main character remains unnamed, the only two named characters being her son Seungho and her husband (whose name I forgot). She is only referred to as Seungho's mother for the entirety of the story. Seungho's mother is on the street with nowhere to go after her husband dies and tries going to her brother-in-law for help. She gets harshly rejected there. In the end she wanders in the snow looking for a familiar house that is no longer there as her son is bound to die of whooping cough.
I give this story three stars because I think that Salt is the better version of this story, Mother and Child seems far too unfinished. 

 While Like a Chicken on a Folding Screen can offer an interesting look into the life of a woman in Joseon under traditional confucian ethics and morals, as a piece of literature it's a bit lacking. The story is awfully boring with the main character taking all of the misfortune she's dealt. Actually the main character has hardly any distinguishable character traits beyond being a representation of a perfectly obedient wife. The misfortune that she goes through is hard to empathize with when the character itself seems hardly capable of feeling any justified rage about the treatment. It does feel quite like a man imagining the pitiful life of a woman rather than authentic. 

 A witty short story describing the life of M from the point of view of his doctor friend. M who spent his youth in brothels and chasing women and has managed to get every STD possible marries in his thirties and despite being sterile his wife gets pregnant. He faces the choise of exposing the truth or living a lie which will comfort him.
The well done translation and Kim Dongin's prose make it a great read, hard to distinguish from more contemporary literature. The flow of conversation feels natural and the story itself seems to be ageless. 

 Toseongnang presents a terrifyingly startling look into colonial Korea - where trains and mud huts, complete poverty and airplanes training for air strikes all coexist. The story takes place during flood season in a settlement next to Toseongnang where poor workers live in dug out mud huts that get flushed downstream each year. The main protagonist, Wonsam is a former slave who was taken in by his Seondal. However the relationship between them grows sour as Seondal's wife constantly compares him to Wonsam and rumors about their relationship arise. The story ends tragically.