Untold Night and Day

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To be honest, whether the sound’s coming from a radio, or some kind of shadow like you say, it’s not actually that loud. Even if it were to switch itself on during a performance, the sound effects would probably cover it up.’ If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. I am emotion, she heard something inside her whisper, speaking in her stead. I am nothing but emotion.

One of the most strikingly different writers around - recommended and one I hope to see feature on the MBI. This is the 7th book by 배수아 I have read (and the 9th translation by Deborah Smith, including 4 of novels by Han Kang) - see below for the list.

Some high school students came with their form teacher,’ Ayami said. ‘Apparently they have to write a piece on their impressions by next week.’ In the darkness, Ayami’s voice insisted overwhelmingly on its own identity. It was a corporeal voice. Just as, in the light of day, people can’t help their gaze going to a beautiful woman, in the darkness they pay more attention to the voice. They accept the mystery of seeming to feel the other’s gaze on their skin. Their guide brought soup and a basket of warm bread, its smell unmistakable. Though it wasn’t their first time here, the waitress still followed procedure and explained the table settings to them. Though Buha neither read nor wrote poetry, he did sometimes draw. His mother had been an artist. His father, a civil servant, had retired from the Ministry of Culture, and was around fifteen years older than his mother. He was a bigot and conservative in thinking and appearance. On afternoons where she had been starved for conversation Buha's mother would say to her young son: 'What an artist really needs is not a husband but a sponsor.' Today's. Temperature. Forty. Degrees. Celsius. No wind. No cloud. Danger. Of burning. Forty. Degrees. Absence. Of wind. Absence. Of cloud. Daytime. City. Mirag

You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. So you wanted to let me know that you’ve been hearing some mysterious radio broadcast, but that it’s not disturbing you?’ When the man moved close to the woman and whispered something in her ear, she rested her head on his shoulder and giggled childishly. Ayami studied his slight frame; might he be her father, a fruit hawker who’d claimed a distant connection to the mayor of Seoul? Alienating, what starts of as a story of a young Korean woman closing up at work evolves into a dreamlike, non-logically emerging story that is hard to reproduce and has many sentences repeated in different settings.

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Ayami didn’t laugh. Her attention was concentrated on making careful forays with her fork, until she finally succeeded in spearing a piece of lamb and bringing it to her mouth. The engineer wore a baseball cap jammed right down on his head, obscuring his face and making him look like a shadow of himself. He always came on the shuttle bus, even though he never brought any heavy equipment, and there was never anyone else with him. The bus was white, and emblazoned with the foundation’s logo. The theatre director was informed in advance of the precise time of the engineer’s visit, so that any issues could be discussed in person. The director came out to greet the engineer when he arrived, and saw the bus off when he left. They started moving away, perhaps intending to head home, but almost immediately stopping again. They looked hesitant, as though wondering where they should go. Turning to face the man, the woman stared up at him with such intensity that furrows creased her brow. In the two years she’d worked there, Ayami had never taken a holiday, outside the one week in August when the theatre officially closed. For that week, when the humidity was generally at its peak, the foundation suspended all its various operations, disconnected its telephone lines, and gave every one of its employees the full seven days off. At this time of year, the city was like an animal being slowly smothered beneath a heap of steaming earth. I … because I’m frightened of electrical sound. It’s frightening, like gas, or knives, or lightning.’

Oh yes, it’s important. That’s self-evident. As for how important, everyone has to judge for themselves.’ After the figure of the director had disappeared, seemingly absorbed into the store’s bright light, Ayami spotted a man walking across the same road she and the director had crossed using the footbridge. Her immediate thought was that he was the crazy man who had come to the theatre earlier that day. But there was no way that could be right. Not that it would be absolutely impossible for that same man to appear here, but because Ayami could not recognise someone only in the form of a shadow, which was all the vague darkness disclosed. Because I’d realised that I, yes, I who had pitied them was pitiful myself, a pitiful person who’d also always failed in convincing others. In other words, I was one of them. I hadn’t been with the wrong people, or in the wrong place, at all. They were a hallucination of myself, so I couldn’t help but despise them. I’d been talking with the ghosts of myself, perhaps the ghosts of my future. I just hadn’t realised it!’Well, I’m not completely sure it’s coming from a radio.’ Ayami wavered, but she’d started now and felt compelled to carry on. ‘I’m just guessing. In any case, now and then, when the theatre’s very quiet, you can hear something – well, no, I suppose all I can say for a fact is that it feels like you can hear something.’ That’s true loneliness. Ayami, I’m a very ordinary type of person. Not a man like those you see in Max Ernst’s paintings. My whole life, I’ve only ever walked well-trodden paths. I’ve been afraid of being alone. Thinking about it now, it’s not clear whether it is loneliness or meaninglessness that I’ve truly feared. Even so, I’ve always failed to get people to agree to things. That smell of the suburbs, of people whose jobs have mainly been sinecures, I’m well aware of how it pervades me. And, to give a more concrete example—’ the director’s voice broke off briefly. ‘As you wrote in your letter, in the end you will leave me, won’t you?’ Well, there are times when I can read someone’s lips without actually being able to see them. Though I can’t understand how it happens.’ For those few moments, while the teacher was speaking, Ayami thought she might actually be able to read the lips of someone she couldn’t see, on the other end of a phone line. But then she remembered the crazy man, and the thought vanished.

It’s an incredibly difficult book to sum up. Yes, it’s all very weird. But it’s weird, as I’ve said before, in a good way. And while I still can’t say I’m a fan of Bae Suah, I’m a fan of this particular book. Really. This was something else and not at all what I expected before based on the cover or the slim size of this book. There is not much time left, so from now on he who has a wife must live as though he does not, and he who has sadness must live as though he does not.’Finally they arrived at Yeoni’s home. The lights were off here, too. They stood for a moment, catching their breath. ‘Apparently the people in this neighbourhood are being relocated. It’s been chosen for a “model district” project, to improve residential environments,’ Ayami explained to the director. Throughout all this, a drunk wearing a mask lay sleeping like a stone, every bit as motionless as the kitten. The Owl's Absence) translated as North Station by Deborah Smith: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Do it before it’s too late, it’ll be a help. I’m serious. You’re a talented young actress and you’ve done great work at the theatre, so if a new position comes up with the foundation’s cultural arts team there’ll definitely be an opportunity for you.’