Welcome to the thread for 양면의 조개껍데기.
I will update the title of this thread as we read. Please use spoiler tags to respect those who finish the current story later.
Here is the schedule:
10/15-10/24: 수브다니의 여름휴가
10/25-11/3: 양면의 조개껍데기
11/4-11/13: 진동새와 손편지
11/14-11/23: 소금물 주파수
11/24-12/3: 고요와 소란
12/4-12/13: 달고 미지근한 슬픔
12/14-12/23: 비구름을 따라서
Since these are all short stories, I expect there will be potential for good discussion every stretch of the way. 그럼 시작해볼까요~?
I still haven’t finished the first short story (I’m far from it actually), but I just wanted to give a little update as to how things are going so far, and maybe it’ll convince some people who weren’t sure of whether they would join to give it a try!
My comprehension is a bit lower than what I’m used to reading, currently at 85% (it should climb a bit though). So this is quite hard for me, but still doable with lookups. However I do think I’ll have to do a second pass on these short stories, to make sure I get everything, since so far it’s so wild it’s making me doubt my understanding. Definitely a strong start though, I honestly can’t wait to read on and see how this all unfolds.
And as a bit of a teaser, here is the beginning of the first short story:
I believe in you and everyone else 🩵 if this goes well I have plenty of other short story collections we can read
Well I finished the first story and it was pretty good, although not what I expected from the first page. I cannot believe
otherkin were seriously mentioned in a Korean sci-fi story. There were a lot of interesting concepts, though. Androids receiving humanizing surgery. A humanized android wanting to become a robot (couldn’t help but think of transition and detransition). The subjectivity of art – is it right that some art is perceived as having more value or meaning when some trait about its creator is known?
And the big question is why did 수브다니 want to rust? What was the real relationship between 수브다니 and 남상아 and was it as fraught at the end as everyone seems to think? Did 수브다니 ever want to become human?
My impression would be that 수브다니 still loved 남상아, but resented not being perceived as a legitimate artist, so he made one last work of art incorporating his own body and integrating it with his and 남상아’s last work.
But if he is really wanted by the police, I’m not sure if his art will be able to reach anyone.
What is unclear is what will happen now that his new skin has rusted. Does it actually impact the function of the skin? Is he going to die, or is he going to live on in a different hue?
At first, I thought that 수브다니’s desire to rust was a desire to reclaim his robot nature, but I wonder if it could have been a desire to age or change with the passage of time, especially triggered by the early(?) death of someone very important to him.
Lastly, you may have noticed that there are not many gender markers in these stories. I’m not sure if 남상아 is a man or woman. I’m not sure if I’m even correct in assuming 수브다니 to be male, but I think I am. 김초엽 writes a lot of gay characters in her work, so maybe we will see some of that in other stories if not this one.
Week 1:
Wow I loved this story!
I loved the imagery — the description of the the art piece with 수브다니 and all the other androids on the beach was so beautiful and melancholy.
I liked how it was unclear why 수브다니 wanted to rust, but in the end it kind of doesn’t matter? The narrator and her boss respected 수브다니’s desires and made them come true, like they did with the otherkin.
My theory is that 남상아 wanted 수브다니 to be human, and 수브다니 agreed to undergo humanization because of pressure or a desire to make 남상아 happy. But then he realized (maybe during the art piece) that it was the wrong choice / he was going against his true nature, and that’s why their relationship fell apart.
@suadang agree with your theory on why he wanted to rust. His final beach vacation was a tribute to 남상아, even though they ended on bad terms, but also an acceptance of himself.
(I also assumed 수브다니 as male 
)
New vocab for me:
Also happy to report that my Kimchi Reader comp was 89% before starting, and now is 90% after marking a bunch of words related to cells / biology / surgery 
I’ve finally finished week 1. I love the writting style of this author so far, and I was actually invested in what was happening, surprised by each twist, and it’s one of those stories that makes you think deeper as well.
Onto the gender of 수브다니, I would say they’re at least masc presenting. Beyond that, 수브다니 is an android, and indeed there aren’t that many mentions of gender, which I think is intentional on the author’s part. This one though is from the main character first meeting 수브다니:
수브다니의 첫인상은, 음…… 사실 그렇게 진상 손님 같지는 않았어요. 웃는 눈이 반달 같은, 선량한 인상과 수려한 외모를 지닌 마른 체격의 남자였죠.
I assumed 남상아 was male, but I also can’t seem to remember where I got that impression
It reminded me of this too! I got the feeling that 수브다니 didn’t really get a choice the first time. Kind of like surgery can be forced on young intersex people, and then as they grow up they come to realize that they never wanted this, and most importantly they never got that choice to refuse the surgery. But as an adult (or an android that isn’t stuck under the influence of someone else), they’re now free to do what they want with their body. So in the end, while I hadn’t heard of the concept of otherkins before, I found myself empathizing with 수브다니.
And speaking of freedom, there was a really interesting perspective of art on bodies. If your body has become art, does it still belong to you? It reminded me of this short story by Roald Dahl, and also the work of a doctor who offered to tattoo people in exchange for collecting their skin after they died. Things like this are still going on today, although with a larger focus on consent now.
Anything is possible, but I think with the concern of the functionality of the skin, that 수브다니 will at least live a few more years. I like the ambiguity though.
진상, 진상고객, 제이에스 (JS) (in 불편한 편의점) refers to a difficult customer who is rude, picky, demanding, etc. most similar to “Karen” (although god I hate that term)
When it comes to characters’ gender, I find that female sci-fi authors (김초엽, 정보라, 천선란, 정세랑) tend to use “그” for everyone on purpose – my 뇌피셜 / headcanon is that it’s to challenge readers’ potential assumptions of gender neutral as male especially when these characters are eventually revealed as female. 김초엽 particularly seems to like doing this. There’s one book where a character the MC is crushing on is only revealed as female 75% of the way through in a pivotal moment. Readers just assumed that character as male due to the MC clearly being female, heteronormativity, and that character’s vibes. And yes I did check blog reviews and find that native reviewers were making the same assumptions. I think it’s very cool, although sometimes it makes for a more confusing read.
As for 남상아, I just went back through the book and I couldn’t find any mentions of their gender. 상아 is a feminine coded name, but also very uncommon. I think I assumed male due to the description of them being a messy, controversial, and super-famous artist (let’s be real, female artists don’t get to be that). And also because they were not immediately assumed to be in a relationship with 수브다니 after starting collaboration. I also thought it was totally up 김초엽’s alley to have a little inclusion of MLM (men loving men not 다단계 lmao). But it’s interesting that in Korean I could write everything I wrote without delving into their gender at all, whereas in English it’s the #1 clue I have to uncover to figure out how to talk about the characters.
When I was a beginner in Korean, my teacher explained that Koreans don’t use “그녀” as it’s commonly used in poetry. I mistakenly used it when writing about my then-favourite actress, 박민영. She advised me to write the person’s name instead, or if it’s obvious who the person is, drop it entirely.
However, I don’t read many fiction in Korean. My Korean reading practice, aside from textbooks, mainly consists of entertainment news articles, descriptions of dramas or variety shows, and a few non-fiction books. Therefore, I can’t definitively say whether other genres use “그녀” more frequently than science fiction. This will be my first Korean sci-fi book. 
그녀 is used a lot in translated fiction. It’s also used in regular fiction. You can just look it up in any book in kimchi reader if you have it. 김초엽 has multiple books with 0 instances of 그녀, including this one (므레모사, 파견자들, 지구 끝의 온실…). There are other books by Korean authors with over 100 instances - 저주 토끼, 죽은 남편이 돌아왔다. Webnovels like 악역의 엔딩은 죽음뿐. 불편한 편의점 2. 너의 유토피아.
I suppose I misspoke before. 정보라, at least, seems to use 그녀 a lot. It’s 김초엽 in particular who never does and I absolutely believe it is a purposeful choice as someone who is reading her complete works.
Finnish doesn’t have gendered pronouns at all, so I wouldn’t have noticed the lack of gendered pronouns on my own.
I read the story twice. The first time without looking up words in the dictionary and I was glad I could still mostly follow the story and get an idea of what was happening.
The second time I checked every unknown word. Sounds horrible, but 1) I’m used to doing it, 2) it’s really easy on google books app and 3) I could understand enough pn my own that it didn’t distract me too much. I feel like I could feel the story and that I actually understood it, which is kind of cool!
This was my first sci-fi story in korean and I think it was a good introduction to the genre as well as the author. I’m definitely interested in reading more. Seems like 김초엽 hasn’t gotten such great ratings/reviews, but I’m not sure why, I really liked the story.
Aside from gender related themes and transhumanism I found themes related to things like AI in art making. (Can AI make art and all the copyright issues etc). I think one of the strengths of this story is how versatile it is. But deep down I feel like it’s trying to explore questions related to living and non-living things. Consider the two times the narrator gets sidetracked, first with the story about the doll and then with the desert people. (Trying to be vague as I couldn’t figure out how to get spoiler tags.)
On desktop, you’ll want to click the gear icon and select “Blur Spoiler” from there:
The process should be very similar on mobile. Alternatively, you could just type in the tags yourself:
[spoiler]spoiler text here[/spoiler]
Not very good reviews? Who’s saying that??? I’ve never seen anyone who isn’t a fan 
Well that sounds better! I’m pretty sure I read some korean review that said she writes well if you don’t read too many of her stories… Or something along the lines and I think her stars on some site (can’t remember which one) were mid-level. But like I said, I don’t care. I liked this story and I’m very interested to read more
Maybe they binge read her stuff 
I would honestly pick her as my favorite sci-fi author regardless of language, over Ted Chang, Ken Liu and Cixin Liu. Average quality is very high even if no one story has remained in my head like Story Of Your Life or The Paper Menagerie, and very few duds. Anyway, if you keep joining these book clubs you will probably be able to judge for yourself, because if there is enough interest I will continue to do 김초엽 short story collection book clubs (정보라 is way harder and I like 김초엽 more anyway)
Started reading the second story. Honestly, the beginning was a bit confusing even to me, so I’m sure it will be more confusing to others. If it helps, “셀븐인” on the first page refers to a member of an alien species
ALSO in this story different fonts are used and it’s important to distinguish. I suggest you keep this open in Calibre while reading in kimchi reader
I assumed as 남상이 as He too. But I just search this name and apparently it’s a female name? 
As for 수브다니, I thought it’s gender neutral since it’s an android. I just came here and noticed most of you thought it is He too.
Anyway, I just felt in the story is too one sided from the perspective of the saleswoman as it’s from a short story. I wish to know 수브다니’s perspective too.
Thanks for the tips. I hope it works in my Kobo ereader. The ereader itself doesn’t support Korean but it automatically downloaded a Korean font when I transferred the book.
How many different fonts? I’ve noticed two so far.
