Sandwich Joe
Reading The Hole by Pyun Hye-young feels like waking in a hospital room you can’t leave. At first, nothing much happens. The novel seems like quiet musings on recovery. Then the light grows harsher, the silences heavier, the house smaller. The hole in the yard keeps getting deeper, and so does the suffocating horror. It’s a novel about paralysis, about being trapped inside your own body, and suffering from someone else’s grief.
That said, I feel the beginning was too slow. I wasn’t very invested until at least the middle, and it ended just when it was really starting to get going.
🇰🇷 The English translation from the Korean by Sora Kim-Russell is very good.
🎧 The narrator, Tim Campbell, does a solid job with the audiobook.
Reading The Hole by Pyun Hye-young feels like waking in a hospital room you can’t leave. At first, nothing much happens. The novel seems like quiet musings on recovery. Then the light grows harsher, the silences heavier, the house smaller. The hole in the yard keeps getting deeper, and so does the suffocating horror. It’s a novel about paralysis, about being trapped inside your own body, and suffering from someone else’s grief.
That said, I feel the beginning was too slow. I wasn’t very invested until at least the middle, and it ended just when it was really starting to get going.
🇰🇷 The English translation from the Korean by Sora Kim-Russell is very good.
🎧 The narrator, Tim Campbell, does a solid job with the audiobook.