Book Box: Short tales on South Korean women, zero-sum games, mental illness and more
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SINGAPORE – The Straits Times explores short story collections in this week’s Book Box. Buy the books at Amazon. These articles include affiliate links. When you buy through them, we may earn a small commission.
Book review: Cho Nam-joo’s Miss Kim Knows a mixed bag of stories about South Korean women
Miss Kim Knows And Other Stories is written by South Korean writer Cho Nam-joo, the author of the best-selling novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (2020).
The first book of short stories by Cho Nam-joo to appear in English translation sees the South Korean writer return to the stories of everyday women who live under the demands of patriarchy and family. It is, however, a collection with uneven rewards.
Cho is the author of the best-selling novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (2020), which sparked a debate on feminism in South Korea and catapulted the writer to global fame, as the book was longlisted for the United States’ National Book Award.
Miss Kim Knows And Other Stories, translated by Jamie Chang, is composed of eight short stories – many of which see the recurrence of the titular name, a reminder of everyday women in their varied manifestations and a nod to Cho’s earlier novel.
Book review: Joyce Carol Oates explores zero-sum games in latest collection
Zero-Sum: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates. This thought-provoking collection leaves readers pondering long after the final page.
“A zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and there is a loser and the spoils go to the winner and nothing to the loser,” author Joyce Carol Oates explains of the economic theory that undergirds her latest collection of short stories.
With 12 tales in this, her 47th collection, Oates delves into the intricacies of competition in human relationships and challenges the boundaries and limitations of a zero-sum game.
The titular story introduces readers to philosophy student K, whose quest to impress her esteemed professor is overshadowed by jealousy when she meets his disabled daughter, H, and finds herself outmanoeuvred by the latter.
Book review: 19 Claws And A Black Bird fails to plumb dark themes of assault and mental illness
19 Claws And A Black Bird features 19 short stories by Agustina Bazterrica in the style of Gothic horror fiction.
If abuse and mental illness are funny, this short story collection is a riot.
The synopsis calls it just that: “nineteen brutal, darkly funny short stories” taking readers into “our deepest fears and through our most disturbing fantasies. Through stories about violence, alienation, and dystopia, Bazterrica’s vision of the human experience emerges in complex, unexpected ways – often unsettling, sometimes thrilling, and always profound”.
This reviewer did not laugh once.
The collection is a mishmash of stories wherein mental illness and abuse are merely plot points, written in a way that makes it nearly impossible to understand Bazterrica’s intentions.
Book review: Alexandra Chang’s Tomb Sweeping a blur of unmemorable characters in simple situations
Asian-American author Alexandra Chang’s collection of short stories resembles Celine Song’s film Past Lives.
In spirit, Asian-American author Alexandra Chang’s collection of short stories resembles Celine Song’s film Past Lives (2023) – slow, tender in moments, focusing on the attritional effects of time and the paths not taken.
The stories presented are quiet, with nothing dramatic really happening. Characters reach their own little resolutions or find a compromised peace.
Lengthy psychological wranglings lead to them moving closer to their parents, or feeling bad about meeting an old acquaintance at a supermarket.
This “slice-of-life-ness” in itself is not a con, but with few exceptions, the same criticisms levelled at Past Lives can also be said of Chang’s stories – that they all end up feeling just a little too insubstantial and stretched out, with not nearly enough wit or wryness to be entertaining.
The Straits Times’ Weekly Bestsellers Oct 21
This week’s bestsellers include titles from Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Thomas Erikson and John Patrick Green.
