Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
Review of Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park, translated by Anton Hur
“If obsession isn’t love, I have never loved.”
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park. Published by Grove Press in English (2021).
Ever since this book started marking ripples in its native country, Korea, I knew I wanted to read it but the odds of it getting translated would make it some time to put off before that actually ended up happening.
But, lo and behold, Anton Hur—who has been on fire lately with his translation work, I also recently read Violets which was translated by him—picked up this book as one of his upcoming projects back in the day and I knew that this was the chance I’d finally get to read this book.
Fast forward like a year later after the book’s release. Because I am a master procrastinator, I ended up picking the book up much later than I originally anticipated. Part of the reason is because I refuse to buy books anymore unless it’s something I can’t find in a library.
My library here is good, but, considering this book came out a hot minute ago and it’s just on the new shelf, there’s a lot of ground to be covered. Maybe I should be a librarian. Anyways, I saw the book appear in the new section and snatched it immediately because I saw my opportunity. Ended up taking it to a party and read it all the way through as the other people got drunk.
Here are my thoughts and analysis of Love in the Big City!
A young gay man in Seoul, South Korea grapples with love and friendships in a shifting society.
The book is split into different sections, or chapters if you will, focusing on the different relationships in this young man’s life. The first section starts with Jaehee, his female roommate who also seems to be a platonic soulmate.
She puts frozen blueberries in the freezer for our protagonist, while he buys her cigarettes and puts them in the freezer for her. They’re two peas in a pod, but then everything starts changing. And that marks the beginning of our protagonists’ quote-on-quote philosophical downfall, as Jaehee gets a boyfriend.
Not only is the boyfriend upset with the fact that she lives with a man—it does not matter if he is a gay man—but Jaehee herself starts changing. She stops smoking.
Our protagonist finds out that her family was most likely rich this entire time, making them on two completely different worlds economically from the start, even if this knowledge was hidden at first.
There is this initial sense of loneliness and detachment driven in during this section of the novel, especially once he packs up all of his stuff and moves to his mother’s house, that only continues to permeate into the remaining sections of the novel.
The next thread is his mother’s illness, although the story largely focuses on the narrator’s experiences with other men. His relationships are short and fleeting, and one already seems to have died in his precious car during an accident.
The book becomes this homage to young adulthood, something that shows the sex, alcohol, and struggling relationships that our main character goes through as he tries to distinguish himself as his own person. We know that he is a writer by trade, but he is not exactly a famous one yet.
I liked that the novel started with Jaehee before delving deeper into his relationships, because I think if it had delved deep straight into his trauma and past loves then we wouldn’t have gotten a sense of who he was outside of these commitments.
With Jaehee it screams more college, more youthful, and less intense, but the juxtaposition of her marriage and his singleness also creates a stark divide that toes the line of classic societal norms.
Even though she seems like she’s different at first, she ends up living the life that everyone would expect us to live. She gets a job at a good company, she ends up quitting smoking, her parents buy her an apartment.
But on the flip side, our narrator is a struggling gay writer who cannot find a solid tether to another person—although he does have some that end up completely changing his life—and he comes from what appears to be a single mother household. The mother is sick, too, and is in and out of the hospital.
After a questionable suicide attempt, our narrator wakes up in his hospital bed and finds his mother staring back at him.
She’s religious and seems unconcerned that her only son almost just died, as her focus is that he isn’t normal in the eyes of society nor is he religious himself.
This is a book about the complexity of queer relationships in South Korea at its essence. No matter how accepting Jaehee is, she tells everyone that she lives with a shy woman named Ji-eun and not a male roommate.
Each of the gay characters has a fleeting moment together and they don’t seem to last, while the world outside is strictly against the fact that they exist. The laws don’t allow them to get married or even get housing.
This may come as a surprise for those unfamiliar with South Korea, but because I’ve spent time with the culture and conduct my research within it. it is not surprising at all.
Overall Thoughts
This is a book for a very specific kind of reader, and when I say that I don’t just mean LGBTQ+ readers. If you don’t know anything about South Korean society then this might be a eye opening book, and while it does have some beautifully written passages and poetic meditations on love and loneliness, I simply couldn’t find myself immersed in the world that the book is trying to create.
That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with it at the end of the day, but that I may not be the novel’s ideal reader and audience. I’m glad I read it, but I don’t think I will be purchasing a copy. Give it a chance if you’re vaguely interested in the concept and what it stands for.
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