MixedThe BafflerThe main characters...are at times frustratingly opaque ... What could have been a commentary on Korea’s stringent modernization policies instead becomes a meditation about [the sculptor\'s] own suffering ... The plot [is] more an elliptical catalog of sorrow than a story ... The architect is written as an indistinct entity ... Although narratively elusive…the prose is astoundingly direct on the subject of art and loss ... Jo’s orienting interest in lofty universalisms hollow out the novel ... [The] limactic scene is tempered by the novel’s relentless narcissism ... The subtle contempt with which Jo holds her characters is a reminder of the insidiousness of eternal ease that plagues well-off creative-types ... The novel’s contribution … is its demonstration that this globalized emptiness can originate, too, in Seoul.
