‘Table for One’ by Yun Ko-eun (Review)

I’ve been lucky enough to receive several enjoyable books courtesy of Columbia University Press recently, but while today’s choice is another of those, this time around I’m not off to Japan.  Instead, we’ll be taking a look at a contemporary collection of short stories providing insights into Korean society, and even if most are realistic, there are some that delight in providing a rather distorted, fantastic picture of life in the big city…

*****
I’m not quite sure what the story was with Yun Ko-eun’s Table for One (translated by Lizzie Buehler, review copy courtesy of the publisher), but it’s a book that was first set to come out several years ago, only to have its release date continually pushed back.  Fortunately, it finally saw the light of day in English a couple of months back, and it was well worth the wait, nine intriguing tales where the reader can never quite be sure how it will all end.  As is the case with many Korean story collections, Table for One never rushes the reader along, with most pieces running to twenty to thirty pages, taking their time to get to their destination.

Unsurprisingly, many of the stories included here focus on Korean society, albeit from an unusual angle.  In the title piece, a young woman working at an office joins a class to help her overcome her difficulty in eating alone every lunchtime.  It’s slightly bizarre, but we soon realise that it’s all about her fears of the real world, as she attempts to navigate a way through a society where she feels alone.

There are similar themes in ‘Iceland’, in which another young woman becomes obsessed with a far-away country, longing to swap her Korean life for one above the Arctic Circle.  Again, it’s soon evident that it’s just as much about where she is as where she’d like to be:

“Even if you try to sit still, you’re bound to be pushed around by recoil from everyone else on the trampoline.  If you don’t want to be knocked all over the place – if you want to maintain some sense of equilibrium – you can’t sit quietly.  You have to jump harder than the others – higher than them.  Higher, and more forcefully.  You’ll fall behind the competition if you don’t jump aggressively.  That’s a trampoline for you.  That’s Korea, too.”
‘Iceland’, p.184 (Columbia University Press, 2024)

But will she keep bouncing, resign herself to getting jostled, or simply get off the trampoline…

One common theme running through the stories is work and society.  ‘Invader Graphic’ is an excellent piece looking at a woman writing a novel, switching between her point of view and that of the main character in her fiction, a trader disenchanted with his job.  There’s a nice comparison of the woman’s daily routine of finding places to write without spending money, and her protagonist’s obsession with street art featuring space invaders, with both subtly rejecting what society expects of them.

It’s not always about work, though, and Table for One features a number of other interesting scenarios.  In ‘Time Capsule 1994’, a woman working on resealing a time capsule that was dug up before its time is reminded of events from her own past.  Meanwhile, ‘Sweet Escape’ introduces us to a man obsessed with bedbugs, who eventually goes to extreme lengths to rid his apartment of them.

The final piece in the book, ‘Don’t Cry, Hongdo’, takes a slightly different approach.  This one is a nine-chapter tale running to almost sixty pages and is narrated by Hongdo, a fourth-grade elementary-school student.  We see the world though the eyes of a young girl, and are privy to her slightly cynical view of everything:

Mom had recently joined an ‘organic club’ and now spent her time memorizing things like ‘how to prepare a fresh meal with twelve kinds of vegetables’.  But as far as I could tell, a table covered with twelve kinds of vegetables was a field, not a meal.
‘Don’t Cry, Hongdo’, p.220

This one is a year-in-the-life story, complete with teachers, friends, flashers and growing breasts.  Oh, and there’s no need to worry – Hongdo’s definitely not the type of girl to cry at what life throws at her 😉

While each of the stories in Table for One has its unusual side, some are stranger than others.  ‘Hyeonmyeong Park’s Hall of Dreams’, for example, is a story centred on a man who sells dreams, with no shortage of buyers.  Initially a rather whimsical fable, the story takes a turn as capitalism enters the scene, with competitors muscling in on this lucrative market.  Meanwhile, ‘Piercing’ is a far darker piece, a creepy story in which a man who has reached a low point in his life tells us how he got there, the final page revealing just how bad things have got…

If I had to pick a stand-out from the collection, though, it would definitely be ‘Roadkill’.  Here we have a delivery driver stranded by a powerful snowstorm, which forces him to seek refuge in a bizarre motel:

In this place abandoned by the sun, the frozen motel didn’t cast a shadow.  When it was time to check out, all noise in the room stopped and the door opened automatically.  The room’s floor heating cooled instantaneously to a chill.  The door opened and he emerged.
‘Roadkill’, p.132

There’s an eerie lack of life in the corridors, despite most of the rooms being taken, and the longer the man stays, the more bizarre things get.

Kafkaeqsque is an adjective thrown around a little too lightly at times, but it certainly fits the bill here.  There are echoes of The Trial in the labyrinthine corridors of the motel, and of The Castle in the never-ending snow.  The man attempts to leave on several occasions but each time is forced to turn back by the storm.  As his money runs out, he finds himself staying in ever cheaper (and smaller) rooms, gradually losing his sense of self.  And the title?  Well, the significance only becomes apparent right at the end, and it makes for a chilling climax to the tale…

An excellent collection of stories, Table for One takes the reader on a journey through modern Korean society, occasionally stepping away from the main thoroughfares to spend time in some dark alleys you’d rather have avoided.  I’m not sure that the book has got a lot of publicity or praise thus far, but it’s one I’d certainly recommend, a collection of well-crafted pieces that reflect the uneasy nature of life in the modern era, and the need to fashion a life of your own amidst the pressures of contemporary society.