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A review by jenniedee
Tongue by Chi-Young Kim, Kyung-ran Jo
3.0
I received an ARC of this novel, and was really looking forward to reading it; comparisons were drawn to Haruki Murakami, one of my very favorite authors. Sadly, I found Tongue to be more reminiscent of my less-favorite Murakami works -- closer to Norwegian Wood or Sputnik Sweetheart than to the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Hard-Boiled Wonderland.
There are certainly parallels, in the detailed description of superficial details interspersed with taut bits of plot development here and there. The narrator's loneliness is palpable, making isolation another shared theme. But something about Tongue feels incomplete, a little too disjointed, and I was disappointed that it was more firmly footed in reality than my favorite Murakami tales -- a fault more of the blurbs than of the novel itself. Though I did giggle when, at one point, a description of an ear entered the narrative, and wondered if that's where the comparisons arose in the minds of the blurb-writers.
The ending was, by the time it arrived, somewhat of a letdown; there was, at least for me, no surprise in it, though perhaps there wasn't meant to be. We simply watch as what seems inevitable for the narrator unfolds, and maybe that's the point.
While this probably won't go on my reread shelf, I will be keeping an eye out for further works by Jo, because Tongue certainly shows a lot of promise.
There are certainly parallels, in the detailed description of superficial details interspersed with taut bits of plot development here and there. The narrator's loneliness is palpable, making isolation another shared theme. But something about Tongue feels incomplete, a little too disjointed, and I was disappointed that it was more firmly footed in reality than my favorite Murakami tales -- a fault more of the blurbs than of the novel itself. Though I did giggle when, at one point, a description of an ear entered the narrative, and wondered if that's where the comparisons arose in the minds of the blurb-writers.
The ending was, by the time it arrived, somewhat of a letdown; there was, at least for me, no surprise in it, though perhaps there wasn't meant to be. We simply watch as what seems inevitable for the narrator unfolds, and maybe that's the point.
While this probably won't go on my reread shelf, I will be keeping an eye out for further works by Jo, because Tongue certainly shows a lot of promise.