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A review by jesshindes
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
We read Cursed Bunny for book group; it's a selection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur. This is the first short story collection we'd read for group and I think it was a good innovation - I probably wouldn't have picked up the book otherwise as I tend to go for novels but I'm glad I read this.
There were a few groups of stories in this book, for me: the first two in particular are body horror tied to femininity. A woman who gets pregnant by taking too many birth control pills and has to find a father for her unborn child. A woman haunted by a head made from her own excrement. There's also a haunted house story about a woman whose husband gets them into debt that I might put in the same bracket. The stories are weird - like bad dreams - but they get at some of the pressures and anxieties to which women are subject, in the UK as well as in Korea. I have been reading more and more horror and speculative fiction recently and I really enjoy and admire the way that it can be used to set everyday fears in a new light by refiguring them into something strange and less familiar - I think that's exactly what Chung does here.
There are also a number of stories that have a less nightmarish and more fairytale sort of quality - not any less dark, but still tonally different, with a strong moral throughline and often involving magical animals (the titular story is one of these). For me it felt like lots of these were about human cruelty (usually but not exclusively masculine cruelty) - the horrible things people will do to others in order to protect or advance themselves and their interests. Some of these have a kind of Pillowman vibe, if that helps to place them. Again, they made a strong impression on me even though they were often pretty bleak. Chung's vision of the world is a fairly dark one although she does usually leave a chink of (more or less ambiguous) hope.
Overall I thought each of these stories was strong and the collection itself expressed a distinctive voice and a distinctive take on human experience. I have enjoyed reading books from Japan and Korea for giving me insight into societies that feel in some respects quite different from mine and I actually thought this did the same thing even though it wasn't telling a realist narrative. It also confirmed my continuing appetite for the speculative. More weird books to come, no doubt!
There were a few groups of stories in this book, for me: the first two in particular are body horror tied to femininity. A woman who gets pregnant by taking too many birth control pills and has to find a father for her unborn child. A woman haunted by a head made from her own excrement. There's also a haunted house story about a woman whose husband gets them into debt that I might put in the same bracket. The stories are weird - like bad dreams - but they get at some of the pressures and anxieties to which women are subject, in the UK as well as in Korea. I have been reading more and more horror and speculative fiction recently and I really enjoy and admire the way that it can be used to set everyday fears in a new light by refiguring them into something strange and less familiar - I think that's exactly what Chung does here.
There are also a number of stories that have a less nightmarish and more fairytale sort of quality - not any less dark, but still tonally different, with a strong moral throughline and often involving magical animals (the titular story is one of these). For me it felt like lots of these were about human cruelty (usually but not exclusively masculine cruelty) - the horrible things people will do to others in order to protect or advance themselves and their interests. Some of these have a kind of Pillowman vibe, if that helps to place them. Again, they made a strong impression on me even though they were often pretty bleak. Chung's vision of the world is a fairly dark one although she does usually leave a chink of (more or less ambiguous) hope.
Overall I thought each of these stories was strong and the collection itself expressed a distinctive voice and a distinctive take on human experience. I have enjoyed reading books from Japan and Korea for giving me insight into societies that feel in some respects quite different from mine and I actually thought this did the same thing even though it wasn't telling a realist narrative. It also confirmed my continuing appetite for the speculative. More weird books to come, no doubt!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Miscarriage, Torture, and Pregnancy