A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories by
Young-moon Jung
My rating:
0 of 5 stars
Since this is a dnf for me (at least for now), this is my review thus far. I won't give it a rating since I haven't finished it yet.
The first story was excellent. Probably 5 stars. The next two were ok. But it went seriously downhill from there. The other stories reminded me of "A Contrived World", by the same author, which I started and could never finish. I'm not sure if I'll continue this book.
Also, since Goodreads doesn't allow enough space for my personal notes, I am going to write a brief summary of each story here below. This is for my own notes, so it is full of Spoilers.
SPOILERS BELOW!
Mrs. Brown - A Korean lady married an American and they're living somehere in the midwest. A young man shows up to rob their house, and is soon joined by his girlfriend. During the robbery the wife thinks about her married life and realizes she wants a divorce. The robbery ends with the two being caught and taken away. We find out that the lady then divorced her husband and took flying lessons
The Joy of Traveling - The protagonist gives the feeling of a 3rd wheel. He and a girl go on a trip, which was K's idea. K is a bisexual friend of both. Most of the story is each of them reminiscing on meeting up in Europe and life in Korea.
- Another 3rd wheel feeling. A girl and a guy and the protagonist. The girl and guy are cousins, but also hooked up (we find out toward the end). The guy seems to have neurological issues, and seems to be fading a bit. Most of the story is filled with their inane meanderings and thoughts. A man shows up looking for his dog, but they don't take it seriously and make odd remarks.
A way of remembrance - Probably the darkest of all the stories. It seems to be about mosquitoes, or frog, but it turns out the narrator's companion (wife?) was dead when he woke up one morning, so he buried her in their garden and frankly seems to be a bit off. The entire story is the meandering of his (possibly disturbed) mind.
Together with a Chicken - What?? These stories are getting weirder and weirder. A guy hears a rooster, tells his lady friend about it. Then he says he has a habit of taking more and more sleeping pills until he falls asleep. Then he takes us through his drug-addled dream while slowly falling asleep. It involved scenes of nature and animals and some other weird things.
At the Amusement Park - Some guy sneaks into an amusement park that has long since been abandoned. He reminisces about the amusement park and other stuff. He gets on a marry-go-round horse and falls off. He gets on a children's ride of a plane and tries to make it fall but it doesn't....
Animal Song of Boredom of Fury, Part One: The Sound of the Alarm in the Water - Ok, what's happening? These stories are getting weirder and weirder. Some guy is living along the shore and eating fish and berries and reminiscing about his girlfriend and how she killed their two parrots in a fit of rage or something. Then he sees a watch underwater, and a bull on the bridge, and his mind keeps wandering.
Animal Song of Boredom of Fury, Part Two: The Cave Dweller: Ok I might have to dnf this book, or at least take a break. Some guy lives in a cave, reminisces about an ex-gf who played the cello and about his pet rabbit who drowned. He eats sardines and other fish from cans, and then some fisherman gives him a hook, but it doesn't work without bait. But he's able to use a net some catch some fish. Yeah. That's it.
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