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eggplantia5's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I found this a little hard to get started but then I was hooked. I loved the descriptions of the different symptomers - kind of wish there were more. I find that many of the books from Korean authors I've read have main characters who are very unsympathetic and they don't care that they are unlikeable. And while they do grow, it's different from how American or British authors would have a main character grow.
The ending was a little rushed - I found the torture scene really horrifying despite its relative brevity, and that kind of overwhelmed the ending for me. I wish we understood the role that Jeong-eun had to play a bit more.
The ending was a little rushed - I found the torture scene really horrifying despite its relative brevity, and that kind of overwhelmed the ending for me. I wish we understood the role that Jeong-eun had to play a bit more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Kidnapping, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, and Torture
scifi_rat's review
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Plot: 3.75★
Prose: 4★
Pace: 4★
Concept/Execution: 4★/4.5★
Characters: 4★
Worldbuilding: 4★
Ending: 3.75★
Prose: 4★
Pace: 4★
Concept/Execution: 4★/4.5★
Characters: 4★
Worldbuilding: 4★
Ending: 3.75★
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Gore, Grief, Suicide, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Excrement, Fatphobia, Kidnapping, Medical content, Cursing, Confinement, Death, Terminal illness, Bullying, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, and Vomit
Minor: Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Blood, Cancer, and Animal death
flamesocks's review
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Body shaming, Cursing, Torture, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Medical content
plomm's review
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Death, Body horror, Blood, Eating disorder, Excrement, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture
thelizzielibrary's review
challenging
slow-paced
3.0
It's weird... I don't read these types of books often, so I found it very weird, but enjoyable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Torture, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Eating disorder, War, and Violence
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia
mikaelarose's review
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The beginning of the book is slow… it almost feels like a collection of short stories… but in the end it all comes together and really pays off… great ending
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Torture
nini23's review
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, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Suicide
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