Title: North Station
Author: Bae Suah
Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith
Publisher: Open Letter Press
ISBN: 978-1940953656
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
I have always maintained that most of the time the short story has so much more to say than a novel on so many levels. Whether it is Munro or Atwood, or Murakami, or Carver, or Anita Desai – each of their short-story collections to me is progressively better than their novels (barring Carver as he only wrote short stories). Something about the craft of the short story that always draws me to it. The same is the case with Bae Suah’s collection “North Station”.
Emotionally haunting and stimulating, these seven stories represent the entire range of Suah’s distinctive voice and style. Each story then somehow has multiple storylines which lends them a different dimension. The stories then again aren’t easy to follow, but I am glad I kept up and didn’t abandon the read. You have to slow down and get perspective of the author’s space and time. I guess only then will one truly understand these stories.
A writer is struggling to come to terms with the death of her mentor. A play’s staging goes awry. There is also a story when time freezes for two lovers on a platform and more that make you aware of the range of the beauty in Suah’s writing. The translation then again is spot-on. The stories contain the element of the European and German style of writing, that somehow lends itself very well to Korean characters and places they inhabit.
Deborah Smith has ensured that the translation doesn’t take away from the original – in the sense that you can read Korean even though it is in English. The stories themselves like I said are all over the place – in terms of places, people, time, and jumping from one narrative to another. All said and done, this is one short story collection you must read for sure.
Of Books and Reading 