The other is a beautiful performance artist called Mimi, charismatic yet withdrawn, wondering where her art is taking her.
One is a nameless Hong Kong woman he meets on a holiday in Vienna, a former ‘mannequin’ who has fled a life of voyeurism and sexual domination. Judith is not the only ‘client’ whose story is revealed, with the narrator relating encounters with two other women who cross his path. He seeks out those who might need his help and counsels them through the path they are to follow, easing their way out of a tiring, depressing world. In a city full of people tired of life, the narrator of the story has taken it upon himself to offer them a way out. I talk until early in the morning to people with various problems…” “They call responding to my ad in the paper: “We listen to your problems.” Having read this simple sentence, they wait until nightfall to dial. While the narrator’s work is only revealed explicitly late in the book, it’s clear early on what his job entails: This appears to have transferred across to the translator’s work too – the writing here feels far clearer and more focused, the sparse style fitting the mood of the book. A dark, brooding piece full of end-of-millenium angst, it has much in common with works by writers like Park Min-gyu and Bae Suah, and it works much better than Kim’s longer, genre books. Judith’s life is far from happy, and her reason for meeting the narrator is to cure her problems – once and for all.Īfter the relative disappointments of Your Republic is Calling You and Black Flower, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself comes as a relief, a story I enjoyed from the very start. A man with a calm demeanour, he first talks us through his daily routine, frequently alluding to his ‘work’, before introducing the reader to one of his ‘clients’, a young woman known mainly by her nickname ‘Judith’.Īs Judith bounces between two brothers, C and K, the writer portrays a woman who seems able to cope with anything life can throw at her, provided she has enough Chupa-Chups to hand. I Have the Right to Destroy Myself is a novella set in mid-90s Seoul, a story in which a shadowy narrator talks about a group of young people going about their lives in the Korean capital.
So, was this to be the pair’s finest hour, or would it be another disappointment? Let’s find out… However, I’m nothing if not fair, and I was determined to give the pair one last chance, especially as the book I had in mind was one I’d had my eye on for quite some time. Recently, in my review of Your Republic is Calling You, I talked about how Kim Young-ha’s work, with some exceptions, hadn’t really hit the spot for me (and how his sometime collaborator, translator Chi-Young Kim, had so far impressed me even less…).
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