121 Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan — Gossip and the Grotesque

Julia and Victoria grapple with the grotesque narrative choices in Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translated by Chi-young Kim. Julia incorrectly uses the word “epigraph” when she means “epitaph” approximately 25 times.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan

• Bonus: Weird Short Fiction with Evan James Sheldon

• Minari (film)

• Pachinko (TV series)

• Modern Family by Cheon Myeong-kwan

• The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante

• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• International Booker Prize – Whale

• Namjoon’s Bookshelf Twitter thread on Whale

• Aschenputtel - Grimm Fairy Tale version of Cinderella

• Bakhtin on The Grotesque

Recommendations:

• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

• Children and Their Cages by Evan James Sheldon

• Books that inspired Cheon Myeong-kwan's Whale 

• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Currently Obsessed:

• Handsome (podcast)

• Guilty EP by Taemin

• Marry My Dead Body (TV series)

• Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber

• Madewell curvy jeans