It’s time for another book club! All discussions will take place within this home thread that will be updated each week with the current week number. So, make sure you use spoiler tags and indicate which part of the book you are going to refer to ahead of the tag to show respect to your follow-readers an any possible late-comers.
고2 반윤환은 새벽과 저녁 아르바이트로 학교에서는 잠만 자는 생활을 한다. 누구와도 말하지 않고 공부에도 관심이 없다. 어느 날 반에서 왕따로 통하는 지나루가 윤환이 일하는 편의점으로 찾아와 친구가 되자는 제안을 한다. 윤환은 1초의 고민도 없이 거절하고, 나루는 예상했다는 듯한 표정으로 편의점을 나선다. 며칠 뒤 복도에서 지나루와 한 여자 아이가 다투는 소리가 들리고, 곧 나루를 향해 “좀 꺼져라. 기생충이야?”라는 거친 말이 들려온다. 그 후 나루는 수업에도 들어오지 않고 정말로 사라져버리는데…….
English Summary
“Do You Know My Name?” Candid language and a fresh perspective like you’ve never seen before. A remarkable first novel by a 25-year-old author A Korean novel that bypasses the conventional paragraphs and offers new possibilities has arrived. This is a remarkable debut novel by a young writer born in 1994 who has never majored in literature or taken a writing class. The author, who currently works in the airport security industry, began writing fiction on his own when he was in his twenties, and his first novel, The Unexpected Season, is a story about characters who have been hurt in relationships. He portrays the loneliness of human beings, which is compared to an island, and the ‘relationship’ between people who cannot help but reach out to each other with a fresh perspective unique to young writers. This is a young novel with a new sensibility that conveys unexpected comfort without offering hasty hope.
Reading Schedule
This book has 280 pages or (234 RIDI pages when scaled on a tablet), so I did my best to break the weekly readings into somewhat regular sections varying between ~15-30 pages per week based on chapter length.
The starting pages below are based on the RIDI page numbers.
I just finished week one! So far not much to say, although the main character so far does remind me of 또다시 같은 꿈을 꾸었어 | L27, which is nice. I really hope we’ll get to see progress in his personality and how he approaches others, but I guess I’ll have to wait for next week to see what happens. Although it is Sunday technically, so I could (and probably will ) read it tomorrow, still following the schedule. The class president character I am particularly interested to see more of, I want to see how that storyline develops.
Interesting new vocab for this week includes 제비뽑기 drawing lots, 반장 class president, 수행평가 performance evaluation and 보건실 school clinic, so mostly school related vocab, which makes sense.
And this sentence I found quite nice: 예언이었는지 예상이었는지 운이었는지 감이었는지 모르겠지만 우리는 완전히 패했다.
Level wise, vocab is at a nice level where I don’t need to do lookups every page but I’m picking up a thing or two, which is nice. No new grammar points so far though, but at least that means I’m not held back by the grammar to understand what’s happening.
This book is a bit above my level but I’m enjoying reading it so far. From what I understand, these are the main characters:
The main character (반윤환)
The girl who follows him around (지나루)
The class president (idk their name?)
The person introduced at the the end of Chapter 2 (이하은)
Am I missing anyone / mistaking any characters? I’m writing this out because I mistakenly thought characters #2 and #3 were the same person until late in Chapter 2… T_T
Another sentence that stood out to me: 내가 싫어하는 것들도 나와 마찬가지로 날 싫어하고 있다는 것을 알기 때문이다.
Man what a downbeat start! We’re two chapters in and the MC’s main characteristic is his aggressive refusal to interact with anyone. He’s obviously depressed and chronically sleep-deprived but right now he’s not an easy guy to like. I assume he will change over the course of the story. So far it feels very heavy, but on the up side, I could follow most of the content pretty well.
I marked a bunch of stuff, but I’ll just ask about a couple of points.
First, does anyone know what 마저 is in sentences like, “체육 시간, 아직 끝나지 않은 수행평가를 마저 했다.” I looked it up as a post-positional particle, in this case it’s not attached to anything but maybe it has the same basic meaning? Or am I failing to conjugate some completely different word / grammar point?
Second, at the very end of chapter 2, the MC says that suddenly his back felt warm. But then he goes on to say, “추측이지만 사람의 등 같았다.” (It’s just a guess but it seemed like a person’s back.) I was expecting something like he was feeling someone’s gaze, but then I wasn’t sure if he could even see the other person? He said it seemed like a person’s back, suggesting that he couldn’t even see the other person… Is this kind of like one’s spine tingling because you sense something?
For the end of chapter 2, I took it literally. I think he was sitting, and then he felt someone’s back against his, and he knew who it was without even turning around. I could 100% be wrong about this though haha
Related to #3: He says he hates his dad because his dad is incompetent and doesn’t follow this principle in relation to his mom: 내 것이라면 뭐가 어떻게 됐든 지겨야 한다는 원칙이었다. Am I reading this incorrectly, or is describing his mom like a possession? I found it kind of off-putting
A grammar question:
세계의 끝과 끝이었다.[/spoiler] Not sure what the 끝과 is doing here…is it for emphasis? Or is this a saying? This pattern is also used in a sentence later in the chapter: [spoiler]둘을 보고 있으면 끝과 끝을 보는 느낌이었다.
wah been busy but managed to fit the reading in for this and catch up. This kid is so reluctant to communicate with anyone but is very ~poetic in his own thoughts. I didnt expect his internal monologue to be like that.
Yeah i got the feeling 끝과 끝 was a specific phrase. Naver seems to suggest it meams something like “end to end” so i think its like either ends of the spectrum. they are at opposite sides of the world. and later when its used about 지나루 and 윤건 i got the meaning that they are polar opposites kinda thing?
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) read it tomorrow, still following the schedule. 
