At Night He Lifts Weights

Name: At Night He Lifts Weights
Rating: 2.875 (10 reviews)
ISBN: 9781945492808

By Kang Young-Sook & Janet Hong

Publisher Description

A disquieting vision of ecological dystopia in a collection by a major Korean writer.

An artist is plagued by desire for her mysterious double as disease spreads through an uncanny suburban landscape. An elderly woman suspects the old man who lifts weights in her neighborhood playground of being responsible for a spate of murders. While elsewhere, a woman who believes she’s been exposed to radioactive radiation inherits a warehouse where those fleeing the city can store their possessions.

Beneath the calm surface of the stories collected here, Kang Young-sook offers a disquieting vision of a society grappling with ecological catastrophe and unplaceable forms of loss.

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At Night He Lifts Weights Reviews

2.5

Jared

Created about 1 month ago

Queralt

Created 3 months ago

“I picked this collection up because my brain concocted an idea of what the title story was about (I was very wrong, lol). This wasn’t a mixed bag, as short story collections usually are for me, it was just unpleasant to read. I found the writing dense and dull, and the supposed “point” of the stories was muddled by an amalgam of mundane details. I had to sit down and actively digest each one just to guess what it was about, but overall they felt very unfocused, and whatever message they were meant to carry didn’t come through as clearly as I wish it had. Which is frustrating, because I do think the ideas and unsettling contexts behind each story were solid, the writing just didn’t make them effective, in my opinion. From Mullae - An artist and her husband leave Mullae for the countryside and move into an apartment. They’re promised milk from real cows every morning, but it turns out the “farms” around them only slaughter the cows. 2 stars. Very dull. At Night He Lifts Weights - This story (or, rather, the title) is the reason I picked up this collection, because I like lifting weights. This one was a hard read, honestly. It’s set in an unsafe area where women are being raped and killed. The main character, a grandmother, believes the suspect is an elderly man who lifts weights. 2.5 stars because some of the shock value was effective, but once again the writing felt very dull, and there was more emphasis on the grandma’s toilet habits than on anything else. Radio and River - A guy drives around without his family while listening to the radio in the background. I didn’t get the point of this one. Again, very dull. 1 star. Death Road - A suicidal woman drives around areas with lots of car accidents in and near Seoul. The story jumps between her thoughts about a dangerous road in Bolivia, a trip to China, and having to return a Japanese movie. I just didn’t care. It was extremely mundane and dull. This pretty much sums up the tone of the collection: dull and forgettable. 1.5 stars. Disaster Area Tour Bus - You guessed it: more dull driving. This one features a bus tour around an area affected by the Hurricane Katrina floods. My brain immediately linked it to the Korean novel Disaster Tourist, which I was also disenchanted with. The story mostly consists of the main character listening to the tour and thinking thoughts I no longer remember. 3 stars, because the disaster-tourism aspect kept my morbid curiosity engaged. Greenland - This story follows a married woman with a child living through an economic crisis that leaves most families in debt. Men go missing, and wives search for their husbands. Whatever. This one had one of the more interesting concepts in the collection, but it still bored me to death. 3 stars. City of Anxiety - I am a permanent resident of this city, y’all. Anyway. This is vaguely similar to the previous story. A husband walks around (this time the character isn’t driving, very innovative of the author) looking for his wife. Two words: bo ring. 1.5 stars. Pripyat Storage - We follow a narrator who renames the family’s storage business from Pri Storage to Pripyat Storage. Thrilling. 1 star. Processions - I skimmed this one because I simply couldn’t deal with this collection anymore. There’s a couple who like watching movies. She’s not a morning person, and he likes hiking, I guess. No rating because I don’t care. The story makes the brilliant observation that a sad cup of coffee is a 'depresso,' and I think this collection made me feel like I had five depressos.”

Simone Vitale

Created 6 months ago

Sadie

Created 7 months ago

𝕁𝕠𝕖𝕝

Created 9 months ago

About Kang Young-Sook

Kang Young-Sook is the author of four novels, including the award-winning Rina, and five short story collections. She often writes about the female grotesque, delving into varying genres as urban noir, fantasy, and ecofiction. Since her debut in 1998, she has received numerous awards, such as the Hanguk Ilbo Literature Prize, Kim Yujeong Literary Award, and Lee Hyo-seok Literature Award, among others. She was most recently a resident at the National Centre for Writing, and currently teaches creative writing at Ewha Womans University and Korea National University of Arts.

Janet Hong

Janet Hong is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She won the TA First Translation Prize and the 16th LTI Korea Translation Award for her translation of Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale, which was a finalist for both the PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and longlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award. She has translated Ha Seong-nan’s Flowers of Mold, Ancco’s Bad Friends, and Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass.