On the surface, this novel is deceptively simple, even at risk of feeling trite ... But it’s all much twistier than that ... The writing is urgent and fevered, even among the detailed descriptions of public transit ... A winding, poetic narrative with few stable platforms on which to rest ... Readers willing to come along for the ride will be equal parts startled and moved by this bold tale ... Translated vividly from Korean.
Moody and cinematic ... Mundane scenes are peppered with sharp insights, and readers are treated to exquisite sentences ... More questions are asked than answered, and the chapters that spend words on a setup often withhold any resolution. The narrative gaps created by this structure leave the reader suspended in uncertainty ... Quiet and moving ... In its greatest moments, it seizes the characters with accountability.
Kyung-ran Jo hauntingly, gorgeously, explores a cautious, hesitant relationship between two strangers ... Remarkably lyrical ... Kim is again a splendid translator ... Jo's complex exploration of living and dying becomes a mindful journey toward possibilities.
The 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.
