Kim Jae Min Reading Journal Blog

 The Cathedral, By Raymond Carver 9/10 Friends are tend to be made in the strangest way, over the strangest incidents. I think the earlier parts where the husband considered the blind man as a sort of enemy and was on his guard, greatly contrasted with the later parts where he bonded with the blind man. Imagine how depressing to have a sense stripped from yourself, or be born without a sense owned by most others. It would be impossible to live like others, and moreover, it would be very hard to fully enjoy one’s life. Also, accidents and tragedies would be more tragic and hard to deal with. Yet the blind man in this story, despite the fact he is blind and has just lost his life, seems to be a much stronger and dedicated person than most of us. He communicates with others as recorded tapes, feasts upon provided meals, smokes, and wishes to know about things his lack of sight would not allow him to enjoy. He kind of reminds me of steven Hawking. I was amazed that someone with suc...

 Visitors that come at night, By Ryujin Jang 8/10 One’s homestead is commonly considered to be a zone of comfort and safety. Even those who have to face problems like disagreeable family members still consider their home as a place of expectation. Thus, to a citizen of a modern country, ‘unwanted visitors’ are easily a shocking experience.   I myself have never had a similar experience, but I once was the unexpected visitor myself. When I was about fifteen, our family left the city of Changwon where I loved my whole life, and moved to Seoul. The apartment we moved to was a seven story building, and our house was on the fifth floor. One day, when I came back from school, I used the staircase only to unconsciously step up to the third floor, which was the floor our house in Changwon was. When I pressed the password into the door dial, it only lett out a dull rejection bell chime. Right after that I saw that this floor was the third, and I scrambled up two more stairs. I still ...

Snowman, By Seo Yoo MI (2012) 9/10 Through the earlier part of the story, Yoo was described as a sort of enemy, that one guy who was better than you in every possible way. I believe me and most of my fellow readers share the experience of having a guy like this in life. But after finding his frozen corpse, the only feeling I had left for him was pity. Yoo was not the enemy nor the opposite of our main character, but just another victim of the cruel system, now dead and defeated like a worn-out gear that once belonged in a huge unstopping machine. If I have to pick out an opposite of our main character, I would instantly choose the delivery person. Unlike the businessmen who found it so hard to clen up the snow, he appears to find it so very easy. This seems to be metaphor about the difference between the two jobs. A businessman is considered default, probably decent job. Yet really, they suffer from overwork and stress. A delivery person is considered to be poor and uneducated, but i...

 Extreme_Chulsoo, By H.S. Kim  8/10 I found it very ironic that Chulsoo left the original system of CSAT only to join a different system of SNS starship. Chulsoo found the students studying for good grades to be unable to understand,, while he chose to perform every stupid trend and material that can get him a bit more attention any day. I personally believe the regrets he felt at the last moment were not just about risking his life for some attention on the internet, but possibly because he suddenly realized he failed to really venture past the system. He may have chose a life most others don’t, but I don’t think that didn’t mean he really found himself the true meaning of life. But I can’t blame Chulsoo for his choices, for the real target to blame is the society itself. In modern South Korea, you’re either the overworked whitecolor businessman inside the window, or the SNS addict dopamine junkie hanging outside the building cleaning it. A vicious caste forced upon most soul...

 Revelation, By Flannery O'Connor (1964) 8.5/10 Despite being the main character, Mrs. Turpin is a disgusting person with twisted thoughts. She makes up strange castes inside the mind, and considers most others she meets to be below her. As a moderner’s view, she is both racist and mammonistic. The worse thing is, she uses these wrong ideals to feel good about herself while belittling others. Everyone in the waiting room is severely mean toward certain others in the room. This may be because of the whole twisted notions about supremacy that was natural in the era. The rich hated the poor, the white hated the black, and so on. This story points out countless contradictions and wrong ideas that are portrayed with characters with terrible personalities. This story also holds countless details related to Christianity. To start, the title itself is from the Book of Revelation by John the apostle. Mary Grace functions as a messenger sent by God to deliver the ever-important message to Mr...

 The Tower, By  Marghanita Laski  (1995) 8/10 I was surprised about how much this story was similar to ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. They both share feministic messages depicted by an oppressing male husband figure and a female main character trying to break free from him. Also, the slow progressive call of madness was an important factor in both stories. On the other hand, the two stories differ in the most important way. In The Yellow Wallpaper’, the main character did go mad, but still managed to break free from her husband and triumph over him. However, in ‘The Tower’, the main character is swallowed not only by the madness, but also with fear. Thus, instead of teaching her husband a lesson, she descends, trembling and stuttering into the abyss. I found the detail that the ‘tower’, which is supposed to take someone higher, ended up taking the main character down then where she started from to be very ironic. Overall, I think this story would have been a bit better wit...

 The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) 9/10 I know the author didn’t really intend to anything with this topic, but I couldn’t help but feel that this story was very similar to cosmic horror stories. The slow, slicky descend into madness and the shocking ending totally fit my taste. During my second read, I came up with an interpretative thought that the ‘ripping away the wallpaper’ and ‘letting the woman out’ is a possible metaphor for giving birth. It seems the main character is mentally obsessed with the concept of birth after actually giving birth to a child. This obsession, combined with the stress originating from her husband’s oppression, might have been expressed in the form of seeing a woman, symbolizing both the newborn baby and herself, who must be freed. I also focused on the husband character. He doesn’t show any intense form of emotion during the story except the ending, and treats the main character almost like a child. His actions are based on...

Caring For Plants, By Hye-young Pyun (2017) 7/10 I found it interesting that not a single person in this whole story is likable. Oghi, pitiful and dismantled as he is, is a somewhat degenerate guy with pretty unlikable thoughts. The mother-in-law seems to be quite self-righteous with secret plans about everything. The caregiver possibly stole and drank during working, and secretly considered Oghi to be a cripple all along. The pastor seemed to be doing his job for the money. The only people we don’t really judge in this story are the therapist, who seems to be a decent guy, and Oghi’s wife, who is already dead. I guess this is normal, a bit even like real life. Everyone has flaws that they tend to hide from others to pass as a good person. Getting to close to that person, and getting to know all these flaws, may make us quickly hate that person. Does the mother-in-law actually plan to kill Oghi? I personally think she is pondering about it herself. She seemed to have mixed ideas ab...

 A Manual For Cleaning Women, By Lucia Berlin (2015) 8/10 I found the way this story was written to have more weak points then good points. I understood what kind of atmosphere the author wanted to deliver, but I don’t think this way of slicing up the story’s progress was that necessary. Personally, I think it basically made reading the story slow and hard to focus. I felt that this story delivered the feelings of the main character very raw. We are roughly introduced into the life of this weary, suffering cleaning lady. Her stories are realistic in both good and bad ways. Her thoughts and actions, choices are mentioned bluntly for the reader to judge, with only her descriptions to add to the details. Thus, although I found her to be likable and pitiful, I also wanted to keep my distance from her life. I guess since this story is originally from a collection of stories with the same characters, I would have better sympathized with the main character if I read the other stories....

Hunters in the snow, By Tobias Wolff (1981) 7/10   About Tub shooting Kenny, I believe it’s unarguable that we triggered it. Stating his hate toward three separate objects, shooting each of them, and then saying he hates Tub is definitely a severe menace. However, judging by Kenny’s character and the fact that the old farmer asked Kenny to kill the old dog, I believe Kenny wouldn’t have really shot tub. I found all three of these friends as total degenerates. Kenny is a wayward trickster who doesn’t know when to stop messing around. Tub is probably the least bad person in the gang, but he is a liar without self-control. Frank is obviously the worst person. He is a shameless pervert, and always distorts the situation cleverly so he and one other friend gangs up upon another. The three friends in this story showed a very strange form of friendship that functions partly on shared secrets and understanding, but mostly the stronger two allying against the weaker one. I found thi...

 Bullet in the Brain, by Tobias Wolff (1995) 8.5/10 Every detail of the robbers being so cliché while the story itself is everything but cliché was one of the parts I found ironic. The first impression I got from this story was that the author did his best to go totally anti-plot. It also felt like this story was ripped out of a longer one, in which we would probably get a better explanation about Ander’s character. Still, the compact writing did have its own charm. For the first few pages of the story, I felt Ander’s would be a tool the author came up with only to describe a scene he wanted to depict about. He just seemed too extraordinary and made up to be considered as a likable character. This view completely changed when I was done with the story. The author gifted Anders with so much character in the strangest way possible, and I loved it. Anders instantly transcended from a boring crazy guy into a man with decades of memories full of love, dreams and regret. I am surpris...

 The Swimmer, By John Cheever (1964) 7/10 I’ve once read an article about how people who suffer from schizophrenia lives in a world of total delusion. I was terrified that to a schizophrenia patient, everything he thought real and normal suddenly falls apart in a clumsy mess. It seems Ned suffers from a similar problem, which makes him think that he is living a peak life, while he is actually broke. He is living his days in happy, relaxed delusions, only to be struck in the head with the cruel truth every night. If I view Ned as an actual person, I don’t really sympathize with him. He ran away from reality and hid his mind in the past. However, I think Ned is supposed to stand as an example of many things. In a historic point of view, he might be American citizens or America itself, unable to return to the once glorious past anymore, but still grasping for control. Or, his journey may be a symbol of life, a slow, silent tragedy. My favorite part of the story was the evidences...

 The Five-Forty-Eight, By John Cheever (1954) 8/10 Until the last moment, I was positive this story would end with Miss Dent blowing a hole in Blake’s head. Yet she didn’t. All she wanted was to get over and forget him, and go on with her life. I found this very generous, since the things Blake did may not be crimes punishable by death, but still very evil. I think the best way to see this story is comparing Blake with Miss Dent. Blake has a house, family, job, and power, while Miss dent is probably broke, lonely, and unemployed. Frankly, he is much better off . However, if we focus on the actions of each character, this changes. Blake is a terrible person. He preys on weak people, cheats on his wife, treats his family like trash, fire people just without reason, and quarrels with neighbors. Miss Dent may be mentally unstable and low self-esteemed, but unlike Blake, she decided to not hurt the opponent at the last moment. Blake may have better social status, but Miss Dent is the ...

 The Enormous Radio, By John Cheever (1947) 7/10 I sometimes have a strange paranoid horror about what would happen if someone near me could read my mind. So just in case, I intentionally think “I know you are reading my mind, get out.” so the possible mind reader would be terrified and run away or whatever. I know this is stupid, but I guess that’s how much people prize their privacy. I actually think this privacy is what keeps the human society together. If everyone knew what kind of person everyone else exactly were, we would be so disgusted of this world. The ability to know exactly what kind of people others are may be considered a gift to some, but for most people, it would just make every single social exchange painful. Considering how this story was written in the 1940s, the idea of a magical radio could have been interesting when it was published. I suppose people who read this story before magical machines became a cliché would have found this story more interesting. ...

 The Semplica Girl Diaries, By George Saunders (2012) 8/10 Eva is the kindest person in the story, but her good actions made her family face damnation. The worst part is, none of this is her fault. I blame this twisted world, where the selfless actions of a child took their family's home away. It does not make sense how the Torrinis have dozens of SGs hanging in their yard and karma doesn’t get them, while Eva’s family is losing their house for freeing literal human furnitures. This is just like how things don’t make sense in the real world. Yet I don't think we can really say that anyone is a villain in this story. The narrator is just a guy trying to make his life work out, and everyone else is pretty much the same. This is another point where this story is so realistic. Few people in this the world are actually evil, and most of are just trying to live on. Still, things somehow always get messed up, and good people get hurt. This story used a very strange concept to depi...

Victory Lap, by George Sanders (2007) 9/10 The way the narrator skipped between the brains of the characters was hard to read in my first try, but when I re-read this story, I actually found this way of storytelling incredibly enjoyable. Comparing the minds of these three very different characters gave this story much more elements of interest. Alison’s young, joyful mind was a bit distractive, but it was nevertheless characteristic. Kyle’s strange, stressful thoughts started boring, but the moment he broke was truly impressing. The Russian’s almost primitive logic kind of scared me, considering how some people might actually think like this. I was also very satisfied with the fact that Alison stopped Kyle from actually killing the Russian. I see it as a mutual salvation, as Kyle saved Alison from getting raped and probably dying, and Alison saved Kyle from crossing the dreadful line of murder which would have probably scarred him for life. Yet, it was still sad to see Alison waking ...

 Puppy, By George Sanders (2007) 7/10 I was surprised after hearing many people sympathized with Kellie. This woman a tied her mentally disabled son with a leash in the lawn. Whatever the consequences, whatever the reason, I find this very hard to be accepted. It’s downright child abuse. Some may argue, the leash is not so much different with putting a baby in a cradle. It’s true that both a cradle and Bo’s leash is being used as a form of protection so that the child doesn’t get himself/herself killed. However, a baby in a cradle is in a completely different condition compared to Bo. In a normal situation, a cradle would be safely indoors, and the parents would likely be near it. Bo is left to play outdoors in an obviously filthy yard, and judging by his condition described in the story, he could easily get himself killed in ways not including running into the road. Overall, some characters in the story were extremely unlikable, but the way the author skipped between the minds...

 Sticks, By George Sanders (1995) 9/10 Being a father is a new for everyone, and people rarely get things right in their first try. That’s probably why the father in the story was so mean and stingy in front of his children. He regretted many things after getting old, and it seems like his wife was a very big part of his life. In my opinion, I think this father is not a bad man, but rather a poor man. I was shocked twice in this story. First was how the father’s precious poles were just treated like garbage and thrown away by the couple who moved in. A man’s treasure, possibly even the last thing he had for himself in life, meant nothing to others. This made me think about death, and how most things the dead left behind are ignored or forgotten so quickly by the living. The second cause of shock was that this amazing story was not even a whole page wrong. I guess leaving the most essential feelings is another way of reaching good literacy. This was one of the most interesting...

 Cat person, B y Kristen Roupenian (2017) 8/10 Both Margot and Robert are imperfect. Some parts of this imperfectness, like Robert being fat and Margot being underage to enter certain bars, are things they can’t change themselves. However, most of their imperfectness can in fact be fixed, and if so, their relationship could have continued, perhaps even develop into something really special like a marriage. But it didn’t. I must say, through out the story, I did find both Margot and Robert to be very annoying. Margot felt like a person who enjoyed man falling for her, and Robert felt like someone who really just can’t get it right. From what I got from the story, both of them were quite unlikable. I think this story was written in a way that greatly resembles relationships in real life. The lovers are flawed in many ways, they don’t really try to understand each other, things slowly fall apart, and it all ends as a painful memory for everyone. It didn’t start like a Disney movie...

 The Lottery, By Shirley Jackson (1948) 7/10 I think the story depicted the unconscious fear us cityfolk tend to have against country towns. Countless horror films start with a car full of family members or teenagers breaking down near a small shady town hidden in the woods. The development in this story is not so different with this. The author began the story to be a beautiful countryside town, and slowly unwrapped the horrifying tradition. Tradition is another important theme of this story. The ‘lottery’ system is described to be a very old tradition followed in the surrounding region. This isn’t hard to understand, since human sacrifice was a very common culture in the early ages of human history. However, most civilizations got rid of such gruesome traditions as they developed. But in the town in our story, randomly stoning a town member is an ongoing tradition. The lottery could be interpreted as any kind of wrong traditions that people blindly follow. For example, som...