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thehutonfowlslegs's review against another edition
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, and Torture
chocolate_pondue's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book surprised me from beginning to end. It starts off very funny, lighthearted, and strange. It's the story of a man, Mr. Kong, who, through extraordinary yet mundane circumstances, becomes a secretary for someone who handles cases of humans dealing with strange phenomena. The writing style is very matter-of-fact despite the strangeness of the content, so it gives it adds a layer of magical realism to a story that constantly points out how unrealistic everything is. Mr. Kong fights this role he's in at every turn, considers the people he's helping a pain in his side, and relays their stories with disinterest. Yet somehow, he is still drawn to them and in turn, so are we. I loved reading this book. The individual stories were so interesting. Some were funny, some were sad, and some were just plain weird, but each one was told in this dull, imaginative voice that just kept me wanting more. I even enjoyed reading about his everyday life. Seeing these people through Mr. Kong's eyes and hearing their stories in his voice was engaging because I felt like a lot of the things he thought, I would have thought as well. Any normal human would have thought of them, and I really enjoyed that a lot.
I will say there are some things I wasn't very into. There is a lot of judgment for particular characters, a couple of which there are a lot of bullying, fatphobia, and body shaming. Having lived in South Korea for a bit, I understand the thin cultural layer around this, but it was still offputting because it's something that shouldn't happen to anyone, anywhere. The end definitely had a tone shift which I had to take a moment to appreciate. I was shaken when I finished because so much of the novel was light-heartedly that I didn't think it would end up where it did. But once I took a second to soal everything in, once again it was a realistic ending to an unrealistic situation. I couldn't think of another way it would have ended and still have been satisfying. It doesn't have a particular plot. It's very much like a slice of life/character study. So if you enjoy those types of novels and strange tales, I think you would really love this book.
I will say there are some things I wasn't very into. There is a lot of judgment for particular characters, a couple of which there are a lot of bullying, fatphobia, and body shaming. Having lived in South Korea for a bit, I understand the thin cultural layer around this, but it was still offputting because it's something that shouldn't happen to anyone, anywhere. The end definitely had a tone shift which I had to take a moment to appreciate. I was shaken when I finished because so much of the novel was light-heartedly that I didn't think it would end up where it did. But once I took a second to soal everything in, once again it was a realistic ending to an unrealistic situation. I couldn't think of another way it would have ended and still have been satisfying. It doesn't have a particular plot. It's very much like a slice of life/character study. So if you enjoy those types of novels and strange tales, I think you would really love this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Death, and Fatphobia
Minor: Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, and Kidnapping
rroake's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
The individuals of Cabinet 13 captured my imagination and many made me reflect on bigger ideas of life, society, values, discrimination. The overarching story was very simple and slightly unsatisfying.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming
Minor: Body horror
irodori_megu's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, and Alcohol
bonnienoire's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Fatphobia, and Torture
Moderate: Eating disorder
Minor: Vomit
ryanlee's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Torture
Moderate: Fatphobia
keyside's review against another edition
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Body shaming
Moderate: Alcoholism
Minor: Suicide and Mass/school shootings
nini23's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.75
The cover art of The Cabinet is the best I've seen out of the 130+ books I've read this year. Unfortunately, the eARC I have doesn't list the artist (I will add it to my review when I find out) but whoever it is deserves a prize. The black cat peeking cheekily from above the title, the chameleon with a filing cabinet print on its body, the entire aesthetic is just fabulous.
I have previously read Kim Un-Su's crime novel, The Plotters, which I disliked for its brutal senseless violence and macho writing.
The Cabinet is translated from Korean by Sean Lin Halbert and opens with the story of Ludger Sylbaris, one of the survivors of a 1902 volcanic eruption which annihilated the city of St Pierre on the island of Martinique and its inhabitants. Sylbaris survives due to a quirk of fate of being incarcerated in a stone prison, which turns out to be protective against the pyroclastic flow. Kim has exercised some artistic license in the telling of this real life story. Then we turn to modern day South Korea where a young bored salaryman Kong Deok-geun stumbles upon a locked filing cabinet at the research center where he works and unwittingly becomes an assistant to Dr Kwon, who researches 'symptomers.' Symptomers are presented as humans in the next stage of evolutionary biology. Some are 'chimeras,' a human in a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with another living being, such as a woman with a lizard growing at the base of her tongue or a man who has a miniature gingko tree growing from his finger. There's those who lose enormous chunks of time in their life against their will - the 'torporers' who slumber for inordinately long periods as well as 'time skippers.' 'Memory mosaicers' modify and erase their unpleasant memories. There's case studies of people who ingest glass, steel, roof tiles etc as regular sustenance. A man wants to turn into a cat in order to be with his crush. A group of antisocial people who believe they are offspring of aliens stranded on earth spend their paychecks broadcasting signals to outer space. A woman who works at a conveyer belt can split her consciousness and body into two, another has a doppelganger. These are individually given a chapter of their own, giving the impression of episodic vignettes.
The common thread to these cases is Kong, who is given the task of organizing the files and talking to the people under study when they call. The narrative voice of Kong rubs me the wrong way, not only because he is presented as an apathetic nihilistic young man but he lacks the training and empathy to counsel these scared lonely people. The Cabinet attempts to bugle the message of why we can't just let people be and accept people who are different. In a conformist society like South Korea where appearance, social status and hierarchy are paramount, the pervasiveness of loneliness and existential angst (what is the meaning of life?) ropes through every story. I was quite put off by how Kong's friend Hwang Bong-gon and colleague Son Jeong-eun were continually fat-shamed in the text. The office bullying of the pathologically shy Ms Son was particularly disturbing as well as a subsequent scene of her eating disorder. There are some common elements I recognize from reading Kim's previous work, like Kong shutting himself in his apartment for half a year after his mother's death subsisting on twelve thousand cans of beer and peanuts. The assassin from The Plotters did the same after a job, I gather this is Kim's way of having his characters express trauma. Kong is afraid of insignificance, as his experience in mandatory military service shows. The author also continues an obsession with the cremation process, shadowy criminal syndicates and bombs, with Kong telling us his theory of life being full of bomb booby traps. There is no point, like there is no moral to the story, Kim intones to us after a shocking bout of gratuitous medical violence.
Thanks to Angry Robots and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
I have previously read Kim Un-Su's crime novel, The Plotters, which I disliked for its brutal senseless violence and macho writing.
The Cabinet is translated from Korean by Sean Lin Halbert and opens with the story of Ludger Sylbaris, one of the survivors of a 1902 volcanic eruption which annihilated the city of St Pierre on the island of Martinique and its inhabitants. Sylbaris survives due to a quirk of fate of being incarcerated in a stone prison, which turns out to be protective against the pyroclastic flow. Kim has exercised some artistic license in the telling of this real life story. Then we turn to modern day South Korea where a young bored salaryman Kong Deok-geun stumbles upon a locked filing cabinet at the research center where he works and unwittingly becomes an assistant to Dr Kwon, who researches 'symptomers.' Symptomers are presented as humans in the next stage of evolutionary biology. Some are 'chimeras,' a human in a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with another living being, such as a woman with a lizard growing at the base of her tongue or a man who has a miniature gingko tree growing from his finger. There's those who lose enormous chunks of time in their life against their will - the 'torporers' who slumber for inordinately long periods as well as 'time skippers.' 'Memory mosaicers' modify and erase their unpleasant memories. There's case studies of people who ingest glass, steel, roof tiles etc as regular sustenance. A man wants to turn into a cat in order to be with his crush. A group of antisocial people who believe they are offspring of aliens stranded on earth spend their paychecks broadcasting signals to outer space. A woman who works at a conveyer belt can split her consciousness and body into two, another has a doppelganger. These are individually given a chapter of their own, giving the impression of episodic vignettes.
The common thread to these cases is Kong, who is given the task of organizing the files and talking to the people under study when they call. The narrative voice of Kong rubs me the wrong way, not only because he is presented as an apathetic nihilistic young man but he lacks the training and empathy to counsel these scared lonely people. The Cabinet attempts to bugle the message of why we can't just let people be and accept people who are different. In a conformist society like South Korea where appearance, social status and hierarchy are paramount, the pervasiveness of loneliness and existential angst (what is the meaning of life?) ropes through every story. I was quite put off by how Kong's friend Hwang Bong-gon and colleague Son Jeong-eun were continually fat-shamed in the text. The office bullying of the pathologically shy Ms Son was particularly disturbing as well as a subsequent scene of her eating disorder. There are some common elements I recognize from reading Kim's previous work, like Kong shutting himself in his apartment for half a year after his mother's death subsisting on twelve thousand cans of beer and peanuts. The assassin from The Plotters did the same after a job, I gather this is Kim's way of having his characters express trauma. Kong is afraid of insignificance, as his experience in mandatory military service shows. The author also continues an obsession with the cremation process, shadowy criminal syndicates and bombs, with Kong telling us his theory of life being full of bomb booby traps. There is no point, like there is no moral to the story, Kim intones to us after a shocking bout of gratuitous medical violence.
Thanks to Angry Robots and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Suicide