Whale: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize

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The list is completed by Ninth Building by Zou Jingzhi, translated by Jeremy Tiang from Chinese. It is a collection of vignettes drawn from the author’s experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution. A peerless work devoted to telling a powerful story and lauded for expanding Korean literature into new dimensions." A sweeping, multi-generational tale blending fable, farce, and fantasy--a masterpiece of modern fiction perfect for fans of One Hundred Years of Solitude

If you had to choose three works of fiction that have inspired your career the most, what would they be and why? Still Born explores those aspects of motherhood that have often gone untold in uncompromising writing that feels throughout as though it’s being narrated in confidence to a close friend. The novel has just two characters, the unnamed narrator and their time travelling friend Gustine. This sparsity reflects the aridity of a demented mind. Together, they create rooms for Alzheimer’s patients. Rooms in which a chunk of their familiar time and memory is preserved to provide them with shelter in a rapidly erasing memory world. The story itself broadly follows Geumbok, the driven woman from the provinces, who, inspired by a breaching whale she glimpsed the first time she saw the ocean, aims to build a successful life. As I am unfamiliar with the author, I can only take his work at face value and how it felt to me. To me, the violence was a head-on critique of Korea’s misogyny and obesity stigma. And as this book spans generations, the violence against women stood out even more when set against the modernization of Korea’s society. The world was progressing, but why weren’t the people?Amulti-generational story detailing the lives of three women—grandmother, mother, and daughter—from Korea’s lowest social class, demonstrating resilience, cleverness, and loyalty in the name of survival in a poor, rural, and heavily patriarchal society that has little but contempt for females . . .Imbued with a sense of the mythical and archetypal . . . the novel’s actors seem as fatally flawed as any lead character in a play by Aeschylus.”— Tom Bowden, The Book Beat A few days after the fire, government investigators arrived. They were reminded of the horrendous scenes in the war's immediate aftermath, when entire cities vanished in flames. Pyungdae, once flourishing, was now a city of death. Smoke still rose from ruined heaps of former buildings, and though it had not completely collapsed, the ashen exterior of the theater showed just how horrifyingly intense the fire had been. Pungent smoke blanketed the town and the air quivered with the smell of burnt flesh and rotting corpses. Wails emanated from every house and scorched, unburied bodies were strewn in the streets, each attracting swarms of flies. The investigators covered their eyes and ears, confronted with the most hideous scene they had ever witnessed. Not for the faint of heart, the grotesque images will unhinge you as this novel is also oppressive and brutal at times. Ruled by the law of the world, there's no room for kindness while the living collide with the dead. The plot doesn't meander for a single moment and it contains adjustments and embellishments, enough to be the driving force for readers to embark into this insane journey. One unique aspect of this book is the playful narrative voice, while Cheon brilliantly plays with foreshadowing. The second that Whale was announced on the longlist for International Booker Prize, it went on my TBR. And when I learned it was still on NetGalley at that point!!! I hopped over there and snagged the PDF. I was not disappointed. Whale is a beautiful story, winding in scope, cleverly told and translated, and absolutely enchanting. Cheon Myeong-kwan, author of Whale, is a Korean novelist, screenwriter and director whose work has been translated into eight languages.

Charles Bukowski’s Post Office. I was already middle-aged when I read this book for the first time. I read it at a very difficult time, personally. Chinaski, the weary protagonist, is also going through a hard time. Strangely, though, I felt happy while I was reading it. Setting aside its literary significance, it was because I felt I would be able to bear it all, no matter how difficult, if I could look at the world through Bukowski’s eyes - if I could arm myself with Bukowski’s gaze to stand up against the world - and be accompanied by alcohol, too. Cheon turned to writing fiction in an attempt to find another means of making money, spurred on by the words of his sibling who said that he should write novels instead of writing screenplays that would never be made into movies. The result was “Frank and I,” an absurd and hilarious story about the narrator’s unemployed husband who goes to Canada to meet his cousin Frank and ends up meeting Frank, a Los Angeles gang leader. With this short story, he won the Munhakdongne New Writer Award. Only a year later in 2004, he won the 10th Munhakdongne Novel Award for his first novel Whale (고래), which spins a wry epic tale about a country girl who transforms into an entrepreneur in the city. Modern Family (고령화 가족), featuring a motley crew of family members, is narrated by a middle-aged son who has been unemployed for the past 10 years ever since his debut film flopped. With these two works, he jump-started his writing career, receiving widespread attention from critics and readers alike as a unique and invigorating presence in the Korean literary scene. [6] My Uncle, Bruce Lee is a chronicle of an uncle as seen through his nephew’s eyes. Cheon’s novel has been compared to Gabriel Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude; both are larger-than-life magic-realist tales. What does the fantastical and fairy-tale like quality of Whale bring to the experience of reading it, and how does it work in relation to the book’s examination of historical events? There has never been a novel like this in Korean literature . . . A novel that's more like reading out loud than reading quietly to oneself; its structure is like that of a folktale. You can feel the oral tradition in the rhythm of the sentences."

Advance Praise

The book consists of four intersecting storylines and each focus on four women: one called The Old Crone, her one eyed daughter, Geumbok and her daughter Chunhui. Through many surreal instances ranging from mind reading elephants to biblical floods, these four characters lives overlap and shape their destinies. The whale itself is a cinema which Geumbok builds after feeling emancipated by seeing a real life whale. The story revolves around Geum-bok, an ambitious woman who goes from being a village girl to a small-town entrepreneur, alongside her mute daughter Chun-hui.

I am still reading the novel but I wanted to write a few words about it before the winner is announced Tomorrow. I think the novel has the best chances to win. I loved Boulder more but I am not sure it will win. This one epic, longer and “big” in every way, from the themes explored to the writing style and plot. Actually, not a few of the characters who are offed (almost everybody) return to spout some wisdom, such as: "This world is better than the other, even if you find yourself rolling around in dog shit." Not a few of characters find themselves rolling around in dog shit. There's a talking elephant, but in fairness, the talking elephant only talks to the mute, autistic- y, whale-looking, other female protagonist. Jumbo talks to her while alive and even when he's been killed and stuffed. Whale’s magical realism provides an entertaining element, imbuing hidden meaning in even the simplest turns of events.’ One of the narrator's favourite refrains after an instructive passage is "That was the law of ..." and the list of Laws quoted gives a good flavour of the novel:The protagonists of the story are a series of women whose depictions both satirize and humanize the life stories of many who lived through the mid-20th century in Korea, as in Chunhui, or Girl of Spring: University of Glasgow and University of Manchester provide funding as members of The Conversation UK. Considered a contemporary classic in its native country, this sprawling 20th-century story follows the life of Geumbok, an enterprising young Korean woman from the mountains whose fortunes are emboldened by her potent effect on men and a preternatural business sense.

I did like the novel, and I understand why it might be a bestselling, classic in Korea (published 20 years ago), but it didn't feel contemporary enough for me to be reading in 2023, and had me craving for signs of social justice or improvement or anything that might leave the reader believing in humanity. They chose the longlist from 134 books published between 1 May 2022 and 30 April 2023 and submitted to the prize by publishers. I work at home. There’s nothing special about my work space; it’s just a typical Korean apartment. I just happen to write at the kitchen table instead of the study because I can easily make myself coffee.

Success!

A peerless work devoted to telling a powerful story and lauded for expanding Korean literature into new dimensions.”— The Hankyoreh Why didn’t the violence bother me as much? Was it my internalized sexism? Was it my affinity for romanticizing Korea’s history and culture? Was I truly comfortable with the way the women were written? By a man?