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A review by angethology
The Specters of Algeria by Hwang Yeo Jung
4.0
"She shuddered with thrill at the sense of danger, a possibility that he could fall to the ground and never return to where he had been, the power of concentration that arose from the sense of danger when all he had to rely on was the rope, the complete absorption into which nothing in the world, it seemed, could penetrate."
"The Specters of Algeria" takes place in a South Korean dictatorship where we first follow Yul, whose father is a part of a theatre group. Despite the circumstances, the novella describes little about the exact details regarding the dictatorship until a little bit further in, where Karl Marx's supposed play, "The Specters of Algeria" is translated and distributed across South Korea. Following the format of a play, the author divides this into three acts from the perspective of Yul, Cheol-Su, and Osu who tells the story of the titular play. The premise of the book is a bit misleading as one may expect the intricacies of a dystopian world, but instead what we get is a glimpse into two - three characters at a time. We often witness two characters engage in a pretty "useless" and repetitive conversation that mimic those of absurdist plays accompanied with simple prose, which results in challenging existentialism, one's purpose, and how everything, yet nothing is interconnected with each other. It's easy to forget that these characters live in such a state, as some of the issues they face are so "normal," yet you can see how they also impact the way they think in subtle ways.
Yul's journey in life begins with her childhood friend Jing, and their parents share a relationship through their love of theatre. As they separate and grow into adulthood, they start reflecting on their past and how it's shaped them, especially Jing's presence in Yul's life. It's as if the narrators recall ghosts of the past, and this book tells these stories through vignettes. The effects of the dictatorship are almost glossed over, but as time progresses, it's the smallest details and minute of behaviors that show us the paranoia and the survival mode that the characters undergo. The staccato dialogue somehow feels refreshing and fits the tone and themes of the book, and by the end almost comically reveals how unreliable our memories tend to be, and sometimes doing things for the sake of getting it out there in the world is what matters: "Every story is a mixture of truth and lies. Even when people see and hear the same thing at the same place, they each recollect it differently."
"The Specters of Algeria" takes place in a South Korean dictatorship where we first follow Yul, whose father is a part of a theatre group. Despite the circumstances, the novella describes little about the exact details regarding the dictatorship until a little bit further in, where Karl Marx's supposed play, "The Specters of Algeria" is translated and distributed across South Korea. Following the format of a play, the author divides this into three acts from the perspective of Yul, Cheol-Su, and Osu who tells the story of the titular play. The premise of the book is a bit misleading as one may expect the intricacies of a dystopian world, but instead what we get is a glimpse into two - three characters at a time. We often witness two characters engage in a pretty "useless" and repetitive conversation that mimic those of absurdist plays accompanied with simple prose, which results in challenging existentialism, one's purpose, and how everything, yet nothing is interconnected with each other. It's easy to forget that these characters live in such a state, as some of the issues they face are so "normal," yet you can see how they also impact the way they think in subtle ways.
Yul's journey in life begins with her childhood friend Jing, and their parents share a relationship through their love of theatre. As they separate and grow into adulthood, they start reflecting on their past and how it's shaped them, especially Jing's presence in Yul's life. It's as if the narrators recall ghosts of the past, and this book tells these stories through vignettes. The effects of the dictatorship are almost glossed over, but as time progresses, it's the smallest details and minute of behaviors that show us the paranoia and the survival mode that the characters undergo. The staccato dialogue somehow feels refreshing and fits the tone and themes of the book, and by the end almost comically reveals how unreliable our memories tend to be, and sometimes doing things for the sake of getting it out there in the world is what matters: "Every story is a mixture of truth and lies. Even when people see and hear the same thing at the same place, they each recollect it differently."