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watrate's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
books_and_keys's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
chrispyschaller's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
grayjay's review against another edition
4.0
**minor spoilers
The City of Ash and Red is a grim parable in which a man is set upon by circumstances that seem beyond his control, or are they?
The man is a product developer for a rat extermination company who is transferred for training to head office in another country where he doesn't speak the language. When he gets there he is quarantined due to a raging pandemic and is put on leave from work.
He is trapped in the limbo of a foreign country with no communication and nothing to do. When he contacts home he finds out his ex-wife has been murdered and he is the prime suspect.
I was reminded frequently of Kafka's The Trial in its preoccupation with unfathomable bureaucratic processes and events which are seemingly out of the protagonists hands, but it goes to a much darker place.
The pandemic stuff was too close to reality at the the time I read this. Face masks, officials taking people's temperatures, information changing too quickly to keep up with.
The City of Ash and Red is a grim parable in which a man is set upon by circumstances that seem beyond his control, or are they?
The man is a product developer for a rat extermination company who is transferred for training to head office in another country where he doesn't speak the language. When he gets there he is quarantined due to a raging pandemic and is put on leave from work.
He is trapped in the limbo of a foreign country with no communication and nothing to do. When he contacts home he finds out his ex-wife has been murdered and he is the prime suspect.
I was reminded frequently of Kafka's The Trial in its preoccupation with unfathomable bureaucratic processes and events which are seemingly out of the protagonists hands, but it goes to a much darker place.
The pandemic stuff was too close to reality at the the time I read this. Face masks, officials taking people's temperatures, information changing too quickly to keep up with.
kleonard's review against another edition
1.0
I can't tell if this was supposed to be dismal or absurdist or both. A nameless male protagonist whose work centers around killing pests is sent to work in a similarly unnamed city far from home, where society has crumbled and the city is filled with trash and pestilence. The protagonist should get no sympathy, however, as he's an admitted rapist and abuser, and as his life and the meaning in it spiral away, well, I cared less and less. I think on the surface this is a metaphor for inhumanity, and on a deeper level suggests that everyone is capable of violence. Content warning for rape and other violence.
ebjoz's review against another edition
2.0
The concept is essentially if Shirley Jackson invented covid. It wasn’t nearly as tense or spooky as I was hoping. A quick read, but overall just unsettling and uninteresting.
goolaina's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
gracie_reads_everything's review against another edition
4.0
Pyun uses the nameless protagonist to explore isolation in the work environment, through language barrier, and in marriage. Our tendency to avert our eyes from what is horrible, the abject, plays into her use of setting and symbol in the novel. The man is symbolically a rat just as he is the rat killer. He is ostracized by his coworkers for being chosen to transfer, so their treatment of him mimics how they treat a rat that shows up at their dinner party. His social faux-pas of killing a rat with his coworker’s designer purse only further contributes to his isolation, as does his transfer to a position in Country C, which causes his coworkers to badmouth him and complain about him receiving the position above anyone else.
The trash that coats City Y is also demonstrative of the horror of the climate crisis and consumer culture. Our tendency is to look away from these things by putting them in landfills far from us, even in other countries, but the irony of City Y, built to be a place of luxury, is it’s discovered to be a landfill, leading its prospects to plummet when people realize the ugliness that’s underneath. The vagrants in Country C also are reminiscent of homeless populations and the desperate measures people must go to to survive. The horror of the living situations of these vagrants is animalistic and rat-like as well. As the man sinks to this level, his true nature is revealed. The pandemic that is present too seems to reveal something about the man as a whole, though I’m not sure what.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but felt a bit conflicted about the ending. The ending doesn’t really seem to wrap anything up or conclude in anyway, but perhaps that is the point, the man just continues on, surviving out his days, unnoticed by anyone. I enjoyed the psychological vagueness of the book and how the man is simple and complex all at once. The power of ideas to spread in our minds like a virus, like rat poison, demonstrates the man’s mentality and the seeming randomness behind many of his actions.
The trash that coats City Y is also demonstrative of the horror of the climate crisis and consumer culture. Our tendency is to look away from these things by putting them in landfills far from us, even in other countries, but the irony of City Y, built to be a place of luxury, is it’s discovered to be a landfill, leading its prospects to plummet when people realize the ugliness that’s underneath. The vagrants in Country C also are reminiscent of homeless populations and the desperate measures people must go to to survive. The horror of the living situations of these vagrants is animalistic and rat-like as well. As the man sinks to this level, his true nature is revealed. The pandemic that is present too seems to reveal something about the man as a whole, though I’m not sure what.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but felt a bit conflicted about the ending. The ending doesn’t really seem to wrap anything up or conclude in anyway, but perhaps that is the point, the man just continues on, surviving out his days, unnoticed by anyone. I enjoyed the psychological vagueness of the book and how the man is simple and complex all at once. The power of ideas to spread in our minds like a virus, like rat poison, demonstrates the man’s mentality and the seeming randomness behind many of his actions.