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A review by quartzmaya
The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo
2.0
“The average life span can’t be the yardstick against which to measure an old person’s health. The increase in average life expectancy is merely due to the ability of science and medicine to delay death. As the focus is on prolonging life without having fully considered its quality, an old person living in a society with an average life span of one hundred years is like a prophetic shaman who forgets to include “pretty and young” when praying for eternal life and forever ends up with a wrinkly face and a hunched back.”
When I picked up The Old Woman with the Knife, I was excited about the premise: a 65-year-old female assassin reflecting on her twilight years while still wielding her knife with ruthless precision. It sounded fresh, introspective, and maybe even a little thrilling. But after finishing it, I felt more lukewarm than anything else—disappointed, really, by the unfulfilled potential of what could have been a knockout story.
Hornclaw, our aging assassin, is an intriguing character on paper. She’s solitary, methodical, and cold, with a dash of vulnerability creeping in as she grows older. The idea of her grappling with her mortality and questioning her past is compelling. However, in execution, her portrayal felt frustratingly uneven. One moment she’s a steely professional lamenting her physical decline, the next she’s scaling trees and surviving life-threatening situations with near-superhuman resilience. It was hard to reconcile the narrative's insistence on her fragility with her actual actions.
Worse still, the story struggled to create a sense of urgency or investment. Much of it plods along, more interested in Hornclaw’s internal musings than in crafting a truly gripping plot. The commentary on ageism and societal expectations for older women was interesting, but it was so repetitive that it began to feel more like a lecture than an organic part of the story.
And let’s talk about the supporting cast—or the lack thereof. The characters surrounding Hornclaw felt flat, like props rather than fully realized people. Even her antagonist, the younger assassin Bullfight, came off as cartoonish, never managing to feel like a genuine threat. Without dynamic relationships or interactions, much of the story felt emotionally hollow.
The writing itself didn’t help. It was clinical and detached, which might have been a stylistic choice to mirror Hornclaw’s personality but ultimately made the book feel dry. For a story about a knife-wielding assassin, there was surprisingly little tension or suspense. Even the action scenes felt muted, lacking the visceral punch you’d expect.
To its credit, the book does have moments of poignancy. Hornclaw’s relationship with her dog, Deadweight, added some much-needed warmth, and her reflections on a lifetime of violence were occasionally thought-provoking. But these moments were too few and far between to make up for the novel’s shortcomings.
In the end, The Old Woman with the Knife felt like an over-stretched novella. It had an intriguing premise but lacked the energy and depth to truly deliver. If you’re drawn to stories about aging and introspection, you might find something to appreciate here. But if you’re hoping for a sharp, action-packed thriller, this one might leave you unsatisfied—like a cup of decaf when you were craving espresso.
When I picked up The Old Woman with the Knife, I was excited about the premise: a 65-year-old female assassin reflecting on her twilight years while still wielding her knife with ruthless precision. It sounded fresh, introspective, and maybe even a little thrilling. But after finishing it, I felt more lukewarm than anything else—disappointed, really, by the unfulfilled potential of what could have been a knockout story.
Hornclaw, our aging assassin, is an intriguing character on paper. She’s solitary, methodical, and cold, with a dash of vulnerability creeping in as she grows older. The idea of her grappling with her mortality and questioning her past is compelling. However, in execution, her portrayal felt frustratingly uneven. One moment she’s a steely professional lamenting her physical decline, the next she’s scaling trees and surviving life-threatening situations with near-superhuman resilience. It was hard to reconcile the narrative's insistence on her fragility with her actual actions.
Worse still, the story struggled to create a sense of urgency or investment. Much of it plods along, more interested in Hornclaw’s internal musings than in crafting a truly gripping plot. The commentary on ageism and societal expectations for older women was interesting, but it was so repetitive that it began to feel more like a lecture than an organic part of the story.
And let’s talk about the supporting cast—or the lack thereof. The characters surrounding Hornclaw felt flat, like props rather than fully realized people. Even her antagonist, the younger assassin Bullfight, came off as cartoonish, never managing to feel like a genuine threat. Without dynamic relationships or interactions, much of the story felt emotionally hollow.
The writing itself didn’t help. It was clinical and detached, which might have been a stylistic choice to mirror Hornclaw’s personality but ultimately made the book feel dry. For a story about a knife-wielding assassin, there was surprisingly little tension or suspense. Even the action scenes felt muted, lacking the visceral punch you’d expect.
To its credit, the book does have moments of poignancy. Hornclaw’s relationship with her dog, Deadweight, added some much-needed warmth, and her reflections on a lifetime of violence were occasionally thought-provoking. But these moments were too few and far between to make up for the novel’s shortcomings.
In the end, The Old Woman with the Knife felt like an over-stretched novella. It had an intriguing premise but lacked the energy and depth to truly deliver. If you’re drawn to stories about aging and introspection, you might find something to appreciate here. But if you’re hoping for a sharp, action-packed thriller, this one might leave you unsatisfied—like a cup of decaf when you were craving espresso.