Author: Pyun Hye-young
Translated by: Gloria Cosgrove Smith, Park Youngsuk
Publisher: Dalkey Archive, 2016
Original title: 저녁의 구애
Link to online store *
Evening Proposal is a collection of eight stories about the grim and often faceless nature of urban life. Faintly reminiscent of Franz Kafka, the stories range from a man who discovers that his job performance has no significance while taking refuge in taking care of an abandoned rabbit to a man who finally expresses his love to discover that his expression frightened him more than his fear in anticipating the event. Evening Proposal reissues the warning that the orderliness and system that civilization created in order to confront nature’s chaos is in fact “the hell of monotony.”
Source: publisher’s website
Contents
Rabbit’s Tomb
Monotonous lunch
Evening Proposal
Would you like to take a tour bus?
Out for a walk
Jungle Gym
Room with a beige sofa
Canning Factory
LKL says:
These tales are humorous, sometimes dark, takes on the monotony and greyness of everyday life, particularly for the cogs in the machinery of Korea’s economy. The stories share a theme of entrapment: office workers trapped in pointless jobs, trapped by their own actions or simply trapped by life. All in all, this is a collection which is perfect entertainment on your monotonous commute to your grey, repetitive office job.
LKL rating: 
. Read our review of this book here.
Read a review by Tony Malone here. Entry on Goodreads.com here.
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