VIOLETS

Not long finished “The Vegetarian” which also charts the mental disintegration of a young Korean woman and although I much enjoyed it, I found this book even more engaging.

I chose to read this at least partly because Anton Hur was the translator and he seems like a great translator (twice longlisted for this year’s Booker International). This was a really good book and I will be exploring more of Kyung-Sook Shin’s English backlist (though I believe this was actually published earlier in Korean).The first two words that come to mind when I think of this book are quiet and melancholy. Within the first couple of chapters, I worried that this would be too slow for me and that I wouldn’t be engaged enough to want to pick it back up. But once the narrator, San, met her coworker Su-ae, the story really picked up for me and I finished most of it in one day.This story is really one of loneliness. San has not been loved in the way she has deserved, both by her mother and by friends. She experienced childhood rejection and this has shaped her interactions as a young adult. She hesitates to be vulnerable and really let anyone into her life.There is content that is difficult in this and the quiet nature of the story will not be something for everyone, but I think it is definitely worth picking up if that appeals to you.