Scan barcode
hyelin's review against another edition
5.0
na pewno nie jest to łatwa książka. bynajmniej, miałom do niej dwa podejścia i wszystko szło różnie. potrzebowałom przerywników, układania sobie wszystkiego w głowie. ale żadna książka nigdy nie uświadomiła mi tylu rzeczy. zaznaczyłom wiele cytatów, miałom wiele przemyśleń i tak trudno było zrozumieć bohatera przed zakończeniem książki. dopiero przerzuciwszy ostatnią stronę, uzyskałom pełny obraz Mężczyzny, do którego to słowo przylgnęło jak imię. myślę o tym, jak dużo brak wspomnienia o jego imieniu może mówić i to samo w sobie mną wstrząsa. definitywnie książka nie powinna być czytana przez osoby o słabych nerwach, ponieważ występują wzmianki o przemocy, gwałcie, brutalności i wiele obrzydliwych opisów. szukam szerszych opiń innych osób, żeby poukładać sobie wszystko w głowie.
pilebythebed's review against another edition
3.0
There are so many interesting novels coming out of Korea at the moment – challenging established tropes across a range of genres. Just this year there has been the psychothriller The Good Son, the anti-hero crime drama The Plotters and Toward Dusk, another masterpiece of introspection and history from Hwang Sok Yong. Into this mix comes what could be described as dystopian existentialist horror -The City of Ash and Red by Hwe-Young Pyun. A kafkaesque descent into a nightmare world that, in some strange way, has echoes of all of the books and authors previously mentioned. As with many of those books, also, this has been translated by Sora Kim Russell.
An unnamed man is taken out of the immigration queue at the airport. He is sick and may well be infected with a virus that is potentially a pandemic. The man has come to Country Y to work, transferred by his company. But when he is taken to his apartment, on an island groaning under the weight of uncollected garbage, it turns out that perhaps there may not be a job for him after all. Before he can do much about that his whole apartment block is put under quarantine. From there things go from bad to worse.
Pyun creates a nightmare-scape in an almost post-apocalyptic landscape. But the apocalypse, if there ever was one, never quite arrives. Instead this is one man’s descent from office worker, to vagrant living in a garbage dump, to a literal and figurative descent even lower. As in Kafka, the rules are never quite clear and just as the man works them out he finds he is on the wrong side of them. And there may be a story of redemption here except that when things look like they might be turning around they take an even darker turn.
City of Ash and Red is not an easy read. The protagonist, despite his plight is not particularly likeable, in fact in some respects he is completely unlikeable. And the rat-infested world in which he finds himself is nasty and brutish. As noted, these aspects have emerged in other recent Korean fiction. The Good Son was also hinged around an extremely unlikeable main character. Hwang Sok-Yong’s Familiar Things, while much more optimistic and heart-felt, was set in and around a garbage dump where a young boy grows up as a “picker”. Buy Pyun, with deadpan language and a nightmarish atmosphere, heightens these aspects.
City of Ash and Red is not for everyone. Parts of it recall the bleakness of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. But while Pyun toys with an apocalyptic scenario she never quite gets there, managing to twist the narrative into something else entirely by the book’s shocking, but in some ways inevitable, conclusion.
An unnamed man is taken out of the immigration queue at the airport. He is sick and may well be infected with a virus that is potentially a pandemic. The man has come to Country Y to work, transferred by his company. But when he is taken to his apartment, on an island groaning under the weight of uncollected garbage, it turns out that perhaps there may not be a job for him after all. Before he can do much about that his whole apartment block is put under quarantine. From there things go from bad to worse.
Pyun creates a nightmare-scape in an almost post-apocalyptic landscape. But the apocalypse, if there ever was one, never quite arrives. Instead this is one man’s descent from office worker, to vagrant living in a garbage dump, to a literal and figurative descent even lower. As in Kafka, the rules are never quite clear and just as the man works them out he finds he is on the wrong side of them. And there may be a story of redemption here except that when things look like they might be turning around they take an even darker turn.
City of Ash and Red is not an easy read. The protagonist, despite his plight is not particularly likeable, in fact in some respects he is completely unlikeable. And the rat-infested world in which he finds himself is nasty and brutish. As noted, these aspects have emerged in other recent Korean fiction. The Good Son was also hinged around an extremely unlikeable main character. Hwang Sok-Yong’s Familiar Things, while much more optimistic and heart-felt, was set in and around a garbage dump where a young boy grows up as a “picker”. Buy Pyun, with deadpan language and a nightmarish atmosphere, heightens these aspects.
City of Ash and Red is not for everyone. Parts of it recall the bleakness of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. But while Pyun toys with an apocalyptic scenario she never quite gets there, managing to twist the narrative into something else entirely by the book’s shocking, but in some ways inevitable, conclusion.
qalminator's review against another edition
3.0
Oddly surreal, with enough thematic similarity to the movie Parasite for me to really wonder what life is like in Korea to inspire such things. The plot, such as it is, is about "the man" (never named) who transfers to another country for work, only to have everything go horribly wrong, though we find out things had been going horribly wrong for some time before that for him. There's a consistent theme of loss: of objects (he loses his suitcase the same day he arrives), of self (he drifts from situation to situation, identity drifting as well), of control (when he loses his temper, he lashes out at any convenient target).
We never find out exactly what's going on, though "the man" eventually finds himself in a slightly better situation, but never manages to really reconnect with anything or anyone from his past.
I'm not really sure what I think of this one. I would classify it as existentialist absurdism, so I'm probably not supposed to be sure what I think of it. If you tend to enjoy existentialist absurdism, it's worth a look. If you like things to be neat and tidy and make sense, you should probably give it a miss.
We never find out exactly what's going on, though "the man" eventually finds himself in a slightly better situation, but never manages to really reconnect with anything or anyone from his past.
I'm not really sure what I think of this one. I would classify it as existentialist absurdism, so I'm probably not supposed to be sure what I think of it. If you tend to enjoy existentialist absurdism, it's worth a look. If you like things to be neat and tidy and make sense, you should probably give it a miss.
janaaier's review against another edition
4.0
[b:City of Ash and Red|39331853|City of Ash and Red|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521569975l/39331853._SX50_.jpg|60960153] follows an unnamed man as his circumstances change following a work transfer to a branch in another country. An epidemic sweeps through his new home and causes a major upheaval in his life, taking us on a journey through the underbelly of society during a crisis.
[a:Hye-Young Pyun|7203201|Hye-Young Pyun|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1468808460p2/7203201.jpg] has a talent for writing unsympathetic protagonists. The man at the centre of this story is no hero; with every revelation, his character is rendered more morally disgusting. The implicit and explicit comparisons with rats and other "vermin" may feel heavy-handed to some but I found it effective. The situation reminded me of Pyun's [b:The Hole|31213272|The Hole|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473929444l/31213272._SX50_.jpg|51867833] in that an irredeemable man, guilty of the worst of the common sins, experiences a punishing level of oppression and abuse. In [b:The Hole|31213272|The Hole|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473929444l/31213272._SX50_.jpg|51867833], an awful, unrepentant misogynist experiences ableist abuse at the hands of his vengeful mother-in-law while in [b:City of Ash and Red|39331853|City of Ash and Red|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521569975l/39331853._SX50_.jpg|60960153] a craven misogynist is brought low by xenophobia and natural disaster. Make no mistake, a retributive sense of divine justice is not part of the story. I felt no sense of schadenfreude as the rat killer is brought low. There is a sense that the moral inferiority of the man is as random as any of the misfortunes that befall him. Does he deserve consequences for his actions? Yes, but these are not the kind of consequences that come with tragic or dramatic irony. They are a random catastrophic sequence of events that could happen to anyone, they've just happened to a terrible person.
The unfolding of the story is less about the grand melodrama of the newly-dystopian world and more about the ordinariness of a horrific experience. I thought what the author chooses to concentrate on describing: namely, the minutiae of how everyday life is affected makes the horror feel grounded in social realism. I would recommend [b:City of Ash and Red|39331853|City of Ash and Red|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521569975l/39331853._SX50_.jpg|60960153] to people who have enjoyed Pyun's [b:The Hole|31213272|The Hole|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473929444l/31213272._SX50_.jpg|51867833] and [b:Tender is the Flesh|49090884|Tender is the Flesh|Agustina Bazterrica|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1594563107l/49090884._SY75_.jpg|58496867].
[a:Hye-Young Pyun|7203201|Hye-Young Pyun|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1468808460p2/7203201.jpg] has a talent for writing unsympathetic protagonists. The man at the centre of this story is no hero; with every revelation, his character is rendered more morally disgusting. The implicit and explicit comparisons with rats and other "vermin" may feel heavy-handed to some but I found it effective. The situation reminded me of Pyun's [b:The Hole|31213272|The Hole|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473929444l/31213272._SX50_.jpg|51867833] in that an irredeemable man, guilty of the worst of the common sins, experiences a punishing level of oppression and abuse. In [b:The Hole|31213272|The Hole|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473929444l/31213272._SX50_.jpg|51867833], an awful, unrepentant misogynist experiences ableist abuse at the hands of his vengeful mother-in-law while in [b:City of Ash and Red|39331853|City of Ash and Red|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521569975l/39331853._SX50_.jpg|60960153] a craven misogynist is brought low by xenophobia and natural disaster. Make no mistake, a retributive sense of divine justice is not part of the story. I felt no sense of schadenfreude as the rat killer is brought low. There is a sense that the moral inferiority of the man is as random as any of the misfortunes that befall him. Does he deserve consequences for his actions? Yes, but these are not the kind of consequences that come with tragic or dramatic irony. They are a random catastrophic sequence of events that could happen to anyone, they've just happened to a terrible person.
The unfolding of the story is less about the grand melodrama of the newly-dystopian world and more about the ordinariness of a horrific experience. I thought what the author chooses to concentrate on describing: namely, the minutiae of how everyday life is affected makes the horror feel grounded in social realism. I would recommend [b:City of Ash and Red|39331853|City of Ash and Red|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521569975l/39331853._SX50_.jpg|60960153] to people who have enjoyed Pyun's [b:The Hole|31213272|The Hole|Hye-Young Pyun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473929444l/31213272._SX50_.jpg|51867833] and [b:Tender is the Flesh|49090884|Tender is the Flesh|Agustina Bazterrica|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1594563107l/49090884._SY75_.jpg|58496867].
tyto_alba's review against another edition
4.0
Believe it or not, this book was basically everything I hoped it would be. There is no real storyline here; like the author's other book, The Hole, the story mostly involves the introspection of a man who slowly realizes he is not as good of a person as he thinks he is (though most of this realization belongs to the reader, not necessarily the character, who brushes upon it but never truly accepts it). Unlike The Hole, more is actually happening to the man as the story progresses.
The atmosphere here is extremely gritty and dirty, but still dreamlike. The man is somewhat distant from everything that happens to him, never quite accepting himself as "real." There's always some previous time in his life that he is thinking about, to the point that he had not been living his life even in these memories. He kept trying to force things into his daily life that existed only in his mind, like his wife's supposed infidelity or the justifications of his own horrible behavior. During the scenes occuring in the "present," he lives almost exclusively in the past, mostly as a coping mechanism to avoid both the misery of his current conditions and the realization that he alone is responsible for what is happening to him.
His identity is so heavily tied into the company, that he remains unnamed for the entire book, his name only appearing "off screen" when used by people who are associated with the company. Only they are allowed to know and use his name, because his identity lies only with them, and without them to affirm he is a person, he simply is not. The crush of the "capitalistic grind" reaffirms how important his job is to his identity, because in the setting of the epidemic, people are still chugging away at work, becoming severely overworked as people become sick. However, this loss of identity is not only catalyzed by the "misunderstanding" that leads him to live on the streets, but the fact that he was transferred to a new country, whose language he is unfamiliar with and where all of the landmarks and people are unfamiliar and unfriendly. He can no longer see himself or his past in his surroundings, which leads him to reach obsessively towards them in his attempts to contact his manager and eventually trying to prove, maybe to himself, that he even worked at the company.
A very interesting aspect of this book--besides how terrifyingly accurate it was in its depiction of daily life amid an epidemic--is the theme of rats. Rats are a constant presence in this book, both physically and metaphorically. Then man lives in fear of them, yet makes his living in exterminating them. He often compares human beings to rats, being unkillable and refusing to die off entirely. Thoughts of rats are juxtaposed over people he hates, like his coworkers. Then, there's his brutal slaying of rats, despite how much he hates killing them and how much he fears them. He is compelled to do it to prove to himself that he's better than the rats, though throughout the entire book he is essentially becoming a rat. Then, there is his violence towards women, which--without spoilers--can be overlaid with his view of himself as a rat that makes him need to hurt others to be "better" than them. The rats tie into his lack of identity because they are not people, just creatures living for survival only and, according to the man, strongly bound to repeating old habits and keeping to familiar paths. The man himself must fight, in a physical sense, against the rats to convince himself that he isn't one of them, when he believes that all the signs point to him being nothing more than a rat.
At the same time, the rats are a strong part of his identity. In the idea of rats, he sees the bad inside himself--his abhorrent behavior, the fact everyone seems to hate him, the violence towards them and his fellow humans he is capable of that surprises even him--he sees his company logo with a red line through a picture of "an evil looking rat," and he sees his present conditions where rats are a constant. Throughout most of the book, he denies this part of him, that he's abhorrent, that he is a slave to his habits, that he's useless, etc., while also denying other unsavory things about himself, like the possiblity he murdered his wife, that he was to blame for the dissolution of his marriage, that he is infected with the virus. If he could possibly reestablish his previous identity that he had with the company, than he could prove to himself that he isn't the rat he suspects and fears he is.
The ending of this book is abrupt and provides no answers--at least, no answers for the man. It's easy to fall into thinking that there are no answers at all, since we are in the man's point of view, but as a reader, really, what questions still need to be answered? By the time the last page is finished, we know everything that the man doesn't want to know, all our questions are answered. The man is still "up in the air," but the important things are wrapped up. There is no sense of closure, of course, but it so beautifully emulates the emotions of the man, feeling like dust on the wind. The things that are left unknown to the reader are not important, and they are rather easy to surmise, given the context of the epidemic and the odd political circumstances of Country C.
So, if I were to boil this book down into a single sentence, it would be: awful man metaphorically becomes a rat. If that interests you, I would highly recommend it. If you need books with either 1. Plots or 2. Likeable characters (or both), then I doubt you would find this book enjoyable.
The atmosphere here is extremely gritty and dirty, but still dreamlike. The man is somewhat distant from everything that happens to him, never quite accepting himself as "real." There's always some previous time in his life that he is thinking about, to the point that he had not been living his life even in these memories. He kept trying to force things into his daily life that existed only in his mind, like his wife's supposed infidelity or the justifications of his own horrible behavior. During the scenes occuring in the "present," he lives almost exclusively in the past, mostly as a coping mechanism to avoid both the misery of his current conditions and the realization that he alone is responsible for what is happening to him.
His identity is so heavily tied into the company, that he remains unnamed for the entire book, his name only appearing "off screen" when used by people who are associated with the company. Only they are allowed to know and use his name, because his identity lies only with them, and without them to affirm he is a person, he simply is not. The crush of the "capitalistic grind" reaffirms how important his job is to his identity, because in the setting of the epidemic, people are still chugging away at work, becoming severely overworked as people become sick. However, this loss of identity is not only catalyzed by the "misunderstanding" that leads him to live on the streets, but the fact that he was transferred to a new country, whose language he is unfamiliar with and where all of the landmarks and people are unfamiliar and unfriendly. He can no longer see himself or his past in his surroundings, which leads him to reach obsessively towards them in his attempts to contact his manager and eventually trying to prove, maybe to himself, that he even worked at the company.
A very interesting aspect of this book--besides how terrifyingly accurate it was in its depiction of daily life amid an epidemic--is the theme of rats. Rats are a constant presence in this book, both physically and metaphorically. Then man lives in fear of them, yet makes his living in exterminating them. He often compares human beings to rats, being unkillable and refusing to die off entirely. Thoughts of rats are juxtaposed over people he hates, like his coworkers. Then, there's his brutal slaying of rats, despite how much he hates killing them and how much he fears them. He is compelled to do it to prove to himself that he's better than the rats, though throughout the entire book he is essentially becoming a rat. Then, there is his violence towards women, which--without spoilers--can be overlaid with his view of himself as a rat that makes him need to hurt others to be "better" than them. The rats tie into his lack of identity because they are not people, just creatures living for survival only and, according to the man, strongly bound to repeating old habits and keeping to familiar paths. The man himself must fight, in a physical sense, against the rats to convince himself that he isn't one of them, when he believes that all the signs point to him being nothing more than a rat.
At the same time, the rats are a strong part of his identity. In the idea of rats, he sees the bad inside himself--his abhorrent behavior, the fact everyone seems to hate him, the violence towards them and his fellow humans he is capable of that surprises even him--he sees his company logo with a red line through a picture of "an evil looking rat," and he sees his present conditions where rats are a constant. Throughout most of the book, he denies this part of him, that he's abhorrent, that he is a slave to his habits, that he's useless, etc., while also denying other unsavory things about himself, like the possiblity he murdered his wife, that he was to blame for the dissolution of his marriage, that he is infected with the virus. If he could possibly reestablish his previous identity that he had with the company, than he could prove to himself that he isn't the rat he suspects and fears he is.
The ending of this book is abrupt and provides no answers--at least, no answers for the man. It's easy to fall into thinking that there are no answers at all, since we are in the man's point of view, but as a reader, really, what questions still need to be answered? By the time the last page is finished, we know everything that the man doesn't want to know, all our questions are answered. The man is still "up in the air," but the important things are wrapped up. There is no sense of closure, of course, but it so beautifully emulates the emotions of the man, feeling like dust on the wind. The things that are left unknown to the reader are not important, and they are rather easy to surmise, given the context of the epidemic and the odd political circumstances of Country C.
So, if I were to boil this book down into a single sentence, it would be: awful man metaphorically becomes a rat. If that interests you, I would highly recommend it. If you need books with either 1. Plots or 2. Likeable characters (or both), then I doubt you would find this book enjoyable.
socorrobaptista's review against another edition
3.0
Uma distopia ou um pesadelo? Acredito que é assim que se sente o protagonista sem nome deste romance intrigante e muito atual. Saindo de seu país para trabalhar em um país assolado por uma epidemia, o homem se vê envolvido em situações estranhas e que fogem totalmente de seu controle, e das quais procura fugir em busca de soluções. Metaforicamente, eu diria que ele está em busca de si mesmo, e, nesta busca, ele aprende a enfrentar seus medos e fobias. Interessante!
anniejohannie's review against another edition
3.0
A gruesome, disorienting, and intriguing look at how we respond when the chips are down whether by our own doing or outside forces.
The juxtaposition of this book in my life is interesting! It’s the second book in a row to mention the NYC sanitation workers strike (along with The Nickel Boys) and was published in 2010 but set in a pandemic world.
The juxtaposition of this book in my life is interesting! It’s the second book in a row to mention the NYC sanitation workers strike (along with The Nickel Boys) and was published in 2010 but set in a pandemic world.
jet_nebula's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
sisa_moyo's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
About a suspiciously familiar pandemic starting in “country C”, gigantic rats, mountains of garbage and broken marriages.
oddly gripping, despite all the trash, and rat exterminations, phone calls and how this pandemic affected lives, economies, the environment and so many other things.
Oh and also murders.
oddly gripping, despite all the trash, and rat exterminations, phone calls and how this pandemic affected lives, economies, the environment and so many other things.
Oh and also murders.