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maxkapur committed Mar 18, 2024
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title: "Recent reading"
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Mostly novels this time:

- 조남주, «82년생 김지영», a 2016 novel about (I have struggled to phrase this
in a way that isn’t too dead-on) why it is so rough to be a woman in
contemporary Korean society.

The movie version from 2019 is better known, perhaps thanks to the sanitized
resolution in which the title character learns to
channel her resentment into creative energy—and writes the novel that
became the movie. In the novel version, however, the last chapter reveals
the narrator to be 지영’s therapist, and as he weighs different
diagnoses for her, he comes within inches of a feminist awakening before
reversing course. Witholding spoilers, I suspect that much of the
hand-wringing around this novel turns on its withering, cynical last sentence.

- 장강명, «한국이 싫어서», a novel about a woman’s decision to migrate from
Korea to Australia, and for reasons that are no surprise if you’ve read the
book above. This one has a happy ending.

- Mishele Maron, [“Anger Management”](https://thesunmagazine.org/issues/578/anger-management),
(paywall), a memoir by a psychologist whose job was to “goad men with a
history of violence into wanting to punch me” and create the opportunity for
them to examine their feelings in group counseling.

- Greg Egan, *Permutation City.*

- Philip K. Dick, *The Man in the High Castle.*

I am looking for Korean bookstores that deliver within the US. So far
[반디북US](https://www.bandibookus.com/) has proven reliable, but their
rickety website gives me the feeling they are just reselling from somewhere
else. Write if you know.

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