Table for One opens with a curious scene: a woman is dining alone.

“The woman drinks half a glass of soju for every three pork wraps, using both hands to have a quiet meal. Flipping meat with tongs, cutting it with scissors, grabbing it with chopsticks, putting it in her mouth with her hands—a typical way to eat. Even so, she feels uncomfortable, trapped by the gazes of those around her. The table, covered with one set of silver ware, is like a boxing ring. The woman sits alone and faces the fluttering stares. The curious spectators throw a left hook, a right hook—the woman’s only way to defend herself is steadfast eating.”

The woman turns out to be taking classes to feel comfortable eating alone in public. It’s that uncomfortable feeling you have too, when you do so, just … more so. The lives and reactions of the characters in this collection are mostly like this: it’s the mundane and quotidian, taken to a slightly surreal extreme.

Take the man in Sweet Escape who starts off worrying about bedbugs when he and his wife take a trip to Europe—but then he starts to feel imperilled when he gets back home and there’s an invasion in his own neighbourhood. Fortunately for his neighbours, and unfortunately for his wife, he is well-prepared. But where’s the line between a normal reaction to a threat, and obsession? Yun Ko-eun messes with the reader.

In another very cool story (my favourite), Roadkill, a salesman/vending machine operator gets caught up in a huge snowstorm, and takes refuge in a motel that grows increasingly creepy (a little like that fabled hotel in a sunny part of the US, perhaps). Most of the surrealism in the book seems to be packed into this one story. The best part is, although you can sort of see the ending coming, it’s super thrilling when it happens.

Other stories: a meta story (so many layers!) about an author, her protagonist, and invader graphics (and of course this one felt almost autobiographical); the one about the man who sells dreams, literally, until competition catches up with him; a story about a time capsule, which is possibly really about lost time and regret; Iceland, a story about escapism; one with a very unreliable narrator; and, finally, a story that perfectly captures the border between childhood and everything else.

I loved this collection, and wish I could read it again much more slowly. Yun Ko-eun has fantastic range and presents a delightfully weird perspective in her fiction, like a prism bending light and twisting reality just so. But don’t take my word for it: pick up this collection and read Roadkill first, and then enjoy all the rest on your morning commute (although the world may feel just that little bit stranger when you put the book down). Highly recommended.

Thank you to Columbia University Press and NetGalley for early access.

This book is a collection of short stories and the concept and stories were interesting it sometimes felt hard to push through the stories, but i liked how each story thematically gave the reader a feeling of loneliness and perhaps anxiety. The writing style was just not my personal cup of tea but I greatly admire it!

I’m a bit conflicted about this short story collection. On the one hand, I am grateful to the publisher for this opportunity to discover a new author and I was interested by almost all the stories. It took me a while but I did read the whole book till the end. On the other hand, I felt that most stories were dragging and as a result it was not a fun as it could have been.

As I’m thinking it over, it feels to me that each of the story has a very good idea at its core, quirky and unique, but the writer seems to take it on and on, and on, until the idea not only has run its full course, but way beyond. It would have been stronger if each story had been shorter.

Among those weird stories, a person enrolls into a course that teaches how to eat alone in a restaurant (social pressure is no joke in South Korea!), a man is obsessed by bedbugs, another gets obsessed by Iceland and joins a weird association on this country, a man gets stuck in a hotel where he had come to service a weird vending machine, a man works in a company that sells dreams for customers, a person lives by taking advantage of all the free amenities in department stores, cafés and such… You can get that each of those stories have slightly odd premises, and sometimes I didn’t get the point of it, although I was happy to be taken for a ride. The only story I chose to not follow was about infected piercings, I was totally grossed out.

The writing is straightforward, smoothly translated by Lizzie Buehler. If I have to find some common themes for all these stories, I would name loneliness and anxiety. The author has a great imagination, but the stories are still out of my comfort zone.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for review consideration.

I had a hard time reading this. Interesting blend of stories, they just didn’t grasp my attention. I found myself skimming most of the time.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Columbia University Press for giving me the opportunity to read and review ‘Table for One.’ This collection of short stories by Yun Ko-Eun is a wonderfully intimate kaleidoscope of the human condition, with particular focus on how lonely a place the world can be. I really loved this selection, finding the stories to be an exploration of surrealism within very pedestrian settings which as a reader, made the tales more accessible despite their bizarre plots. I particularly loved ‘Bedbugs’ with it’s deep dive into paranoia and shared anxieties, taking something minimal and blowing it up to terrifying proportions to wonderful effect. This collection wasn’t necessarily a page tuner, but deeply engaging and highly rewarding, leaving a lasting impression well beyond the final page.

"Table for One" is an outstanding collection of stories, as good as any short stories I've read in the last few years. The stories feature characters out of step in modern Korea, trying to blend in, escape, or simply survive. The stories are a mix of comedy, pathos, and hope; the protagonists generally find some measure of accommodation with society and its demands; and none are totally defeated. The style (in translation) is matter-of-fact and straightforward, no matter how surreal the situation.

Highly recommended.

A collection of 9 short stories, reflecting life in contemporary South Korea. The stories are loosely thematic - our protagonists are often lonely and trying to find their place in society and life. There is a deep sense of dejection in nearly all stories, but despite this - they also have a glimmer of hope, and suggest there is a path to move forward, even if it's not what expectations might lead one to believe. Many of the stories are absurdist in nature, but this is done in such a creative way that it adds a lot to the quality of storytelling and messaging.

The first story, "Table for One" (giving the book its name), talks about a woman who struggles to fit in, and to be comfortable with who she is. Through joining a course that teaches her how to eat alone, the routines she adopts slowly help her come out of her shell. Gently told, and with a tender protagonist - an emotive and hopeful story about introverts. 4/5.

The second story, "Sweet Escape", tells the story of a young man, who, having lost his job, is slowly sinking into despondence, driven by an uncontrollable fear of bedbugs. As reality forces him to confront his worst fears he also finds solace and calm through this process. A story about, essentially, how losing one's job can affect your psyche and motivations. It's also a fun story about bedbugs, and how society reacts to them! 5/5

The third story, "Invader Graphic", is about routine. Our narrator has her own, and, in turn, tells the story, where the protagonist has his own. Both struggle with society's expectations and the constant comparisons and competitiveness imposed on people. As the story progresses the story within a story follows the protagonist as his structured existence starts falling apart, and give rise to something better. At the same time, we learn more about the narrator, who, in defiance of societal norms, actually seems quite happy going to department stores. A story about following your own path in careful and subtle defiance, even if all there is to it is deciding to spend time in a department store. 5/5

The fourth story, "Hyeongmong Park's Hall of Dreams", tells the story of Hyeongmong, an entrepreneur, who decides to set up a business to sell dreams to busy people who don't have time to dream. The story follows the rise and fall of his business, but the main topic, in my view, is the commoditisation of hope and leisure in modern society, and how even the most beautiful of ideas can be corrupted by commerce. 5/5

The fifth story, "Roadkill", is my favourite. It is the most absurd, telling the story of a vending machine owner that, while servicing one of his machines in a remote hotel, gets stuck in same hotel due to a horrific snowstorm. As the days of his forced "imprisonment" extend, we see his buoyancy diminish, hope lost, and living space contract. A powerful analogy of what effects capitalist and consumerist society, whether knowingly or inadvertenly, has on the individual, and how, eventually, a person can become roadkill in the Kafkaesque struggle to live a normal life. 5/5+

The sixth story, "Time Capsule", tells the story of a time capsule that gets unearthed before its time due to corrosion, while the protagonist, responsible for cleaning and restoring it prior to reinterment, struggles with her own memories of her step daughter. A story about the artificiality of memory and the futility of objective memories, as well as their haunting nature, and power to influence the present. 5/5

In the seventh story, "Iceland", our protagonist is not happy, and looks for escape in her obsession with Iceland, which an online survey suggested she matches best with. The story follows her increasing fascination with Iceland, and the dangers and hopes this can lead to. 4/5

The eighth story, "Piercing", is the horror story in the bunch. It follows a man, who struggles to balance his natural docility with the need to rebel somehow. Being unemployed (and perhpas unemployable), and having divorced his wife, the protagonist seeks solace in inflicting pain upon himself, and in tiny glimpses of hope stemming from casual encounters with a local prostitute. Reminiscent in style of Ryu Murakami. 5/5

The ninth and last story, "Don't Cry, Hongdo", is told from the perspective of a 10 year old girl, who struggles to be a child in a world of adults who keep disappointing her. It's not a hopeless story, but it's a sad one, talking about how adult obsessions and preoccupations can affect and harm children. 5/5

Overall - this is an excellent story collection, and perhaps one of the best I've read in a long time. It's doesn't just offer an excellent glimpse of life in South Korea - it also reflects some of the sadness that afflicts Gen Z, and how, in some cases, hope can be found in simple quotidian things.

Highly recommend it to anyone interested in South Korea, or frankly what it means to be 10-30 year old in our contemporary world.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Read from April 4th, 2024 to April 8th, 2024. Written on April 9th, 2024.

DNF at 23%.

Unfortunately, this book did not do it for me. From the short stories dragging out more than I thought necessary, to the two ones I read just not being interesting enough to get me to continue reading, I had to DNF.

The writing was okay, a bit confusing at times but overall I could push through it. I think my main issue was actually the theme of the two stories I read. They were just not what I was expecting, I mean, a lot thing about bedbugs? Over 20 pages just talking about bedbugs? I can't do that, sorry. I do have to say, maybe later on I will pick this up again, but I am intrigued by the time capsule story from the synopsis. Hopefully, if I come across this book in the future, it will hype me up to try again. For now, I leave it at this.

Signing off,
B.

(Free ARC from NetGalley and Columbia University Press that I chose to review after reading)

This kindle version is extremely difficult to read. The formatting includes the publishing house's name every few pages in a font size four times bigger than the story font. There's random numbers scattered throughout the writing that don't make sense to the writing, so I assume these are some kind of improperly added code like the publishing house name. There's also weird page breaks and paragraphs breaking off into new lines where they shouldn't. It's unfortunate because the story holds my attention, and I'd like to understand more about our narrator and her desire to be able to eat alone. It's scary, I know! But I just can't get around the weird formatting. It's exhausting to try to read just because of the formatting.

I really enjoyed some of the stories in this collection. In the best way, it reminded me of Bora Chung's collections "Your Utopia" and a little "Cursed Bunny." The title story was the clear standout for me, "Table For One," it took on loneliness and isolation and office culture in a way I have never read before. The following story, "Sweet Escape" was my second favorite, it touches on anxiety and paranoia in a way that is almost too much but is still so intriguing. Some of the others fell flat for me, but all in all, her collection is worth picking up, even if you skip a story or two that doesn't compel you.

Table for One is a collection of 9 short stories, all based in South Korea. After each one, I had to stop and think through what I had just read. Most had an underlying theme of anxiety or obsession over a certain thing. Ranging from bedbugs to Iceland, and even dreams.

My favorite of the stories was “Roadkill” followed closely by “piercing”. The way these two stories resolved really stuck with me and had me second guessing everything I had read. While some of the stories in this book left me confused at the end, I thought these two wrapped themselves up nicely. They were both kind of gruesome, which did not bother me but if you are not into that, maybe skip this book.

I don’t think that this book is for everyone. I don’t even know if it is for me. It’s certainly strange and thought provoking, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. It was puzzling, and at times interesting. I’m glad that I read this book but I don’t think it’s something that I will read a second time.

Well, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this short story collection, but I was pleasantly surprised! Stories range from the not-so-graphic and odd (“Don’t Cry Hongdo”) to very graphic and very odd (“Piercing”), so there’s truly something for everyone in “Table for One” written by Yun Ko-eun and translated by Lizzie Buehler.

My favourite stories were “Table for One,” “Sweet Escape,” “Hyeongmong Parks Hall of Dreams,” “Roadkill,” “Iceland,” and “Piercing”, although I enjoyed every one of Ko-eun’s stories. Thematically, this collection is reminiscent of Bora Chung’s “Cursed Bunny” and Hilma Wolitzer’s “Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket” in which the characters are anxious and slightly unhinged as they try to navigate—at times—their unhappy lives. In terms of writing style, Ko-eun’s collection is similar to Chung’s and Sayaka Murata’s short story collection, “Life Ceremony”.

At times rooted in the real and at times rooted in the surreal, it’s easy to see why “Table for One” is so well-loved by reviewers: it’s a thoughtful and humorous meditation on contemporary Korean life for males and females of all ages.

If you’re a fan of short story collections, contemporary Korean literature, surreal and icky imagery, and insight to the anxieties that people in modern societies are experiencing, then I would highly recommend Yun Ko-eun’s short story collection! Furthermore, if you enjoy reading stories that are a bit odd and wacky but use the odd and wacky to convey important messages about everyday issues, then this could be a collection for you!

Many thanks to Columbia University Press and NetGalley for an ARC of “Table for One” written by Yun Ko-eun and translated by Lizzie Buehler in exchange for an honest review! It was an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to review this new collection which is another demonstration of the incredible literary talent coming out of Korea!

Thank you publisher for the approved copy. Unfortunately, the font and format in both kindle and in-app versions are hard to read. I decided to check it out when it officially comes out, but thank you again for the arc!

Thank you so much, @netgalley and the publisher, for the ARC of Table for One: Stories by Yun Ko-Eun, translated by Lizzie Buehler.

The book was a collection of 9 stories and it was truly a rollercoaster ride of emotions.
One word in which I would describe this book is; obsession!

All the stories follow a specific theme and they are mostly about extreme level of obsessions about any particular thing in question. The idea of escaping the routine and monotony of the daily life and how the protagonists focus their energies in following those hobbies or interests quite obsessively until the plot twists happen is absolutely intriguing and it keeps the reader hooked.

I couldn’t make sense at some points but this book was such a different one from the other books.

The human emotions of loneliness, boredom, passions, burn-out from the strict jobs and routines and relationships are portrayed in a unique way.


Table for One: an unknown narrator becomes an expert at eating alone. This reads like a documentary at times but is also very relatable to everyone who is afraid of eating or doing stuff alone.

Sweet Escape: the obsession with bedbugs was a bit too much and it leaves you claustrophobic but the twist was a good one.

Invader Graphic: It was another tale of being obsessed with invader graphics to escape the routine but the ending got me confused.

Hyeonmong Park’s Hall of Dreams: this was truly weird. But also the concept of too much competition and the war between the original creators and the ones that came after was all too real. The idea of selling dreams or in fact selling just about everything that exists was quite interesting.

Roadkill: To be trapped in a Motel in a snowstorm was truly apocalyptic. The element of magical realism was just too good. It gave me the creeps for real.

Time Capsule 1994: This got me nostalgic with the concept of burying a time capsule with all the things that happened ages ago. But I couldn’t get the ending.

Iceland: The obsession with Iceland was literally on another level in this story.

Piercing: This broke my heart. It had its share of violence and the idea of patriarchy and how men want to control literally everything and consider women’s bodies as objects was scary, to say the least.

Don’t Cry, Hongdo: this is very relatable especially how everything with the word “organic” sells these days. It is also about a child’s loneliness because of constantly being misunderstood. It touches many intense themes.

Like her novel, "The Disaster Tourist", Yun Ko-eun's stories are captivating Kafkaesque tales. In one story, a woman enrolls in a course to learn how to eat alone in restaurants; in another, a man wears the pajamas of his customers and sells them dreams when they return; a man becomes trapped in a blizzard and is forced to stay in a seemingly empty motel stocked with hundreds of vending machines, where he cannot get in contact with any manager but still somehow receives traffic fines in the mail for his illegally parked car stuck in the snow; after taking an online quiz which tells her she only has a 2.3% match with her home country of Korea but a 42% match with Iceland, a woman joins an online fan group and memorizes every detail of the culture and geography of this Nordic island. Ko-eun's characters are often alienated and lonely—divorced mothers, orphaned children, disaffected workers, unemployed job-seekers, who sublimate their existential angst into petty paranoia: in one story, a man loses his job and, instead of applying for a new one, becomes increasingly worried about a potential invasion of bed-bugs in his apartment complex; in another, a mother rails against junk food in the school, carcinogenic chemicals in her cosmetics, and anyone wearing a hat—a potential kidnapper. The characters are desperate to find some authority who can give them advice and certainty: a woman watches an expert who can order beef stew by herself and even dares to ask for a fan to be turned on; another woman attends the lectures of an expert on Iceland, someone who lived there, and asks her everything (every topic from its glaciers to pizza joints).

Yun Ko-eun's characters are all anxious—worried about hidden dangers and imminent catastrophe—and yet, in each of the stories, their neurotic angst is paradoxically both a product of modern society and a precondition for the community they construct. The woman who has no one to eat with during her lunch-breaks ironically finds purpose and belonging in a school for people nervous about eating alone; the man who worries about bed-bugs ironically gets to know his neighbors better and become more involved in their lives; the woman afraid of the dietary risks of processed food joins an informal parents' association which agitates for organic food. In her comic, surreal style, Yun Ko-eun shows how loneliness and insecurity are a powerful basis for affinity with other lonely, insecure people who can indulge their paranoid fears. The remedy for neurosis isn't stability but dreams and fiction—the man who sells dreams finds that, after spending his whole life ignored, he can "assert his existence by dreaming"; a girl discovers that drawings are more real and powerful when she refuses to draw her school exactly as it really is but rather how she imagines it—a prison surrounded by a cavalcade of eccentric street hawkers and malingerers, a cotton-candy man, a fish man, a flasher.

These stories reminded me of Kikuko Tsumura's "There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job" and Hiroki Oyamada's "The Factory"—in each of Ko-eun's stories, work seems depressingly meaningless and trivial; the world is strange and surreal; and yet the characters find meaning in their re-imagination of the world around them, bonding with likeminded outcasts and finding solidarity in the absurd.

This was an interesting fiction anthology. I enjoyed the narrative style of each piece. Of the nine stories in the anthology I most enjoyed Table for One, Invader Graphic and Hyeonmong Park's Hall of Dreams. Each story was different but they were connected on their themes of loneliness, family relationships and introspection. Parts of this collection were more surrealist which made it interesting.

I think this is a good collection of stories if you are looking for something shorter to read, and something that makes you reflect on the actions of the characters and human condition.

Table for One, the first and titular story was my favorite. It is the story of a young woman learning to eat alone. She enrolls in a course which teaches her and others the rhythm of eating alone. I appreciated the musical analogy, and the way four-four time or other time signatures were assigned to different meals.

This is definitely a book you need to read a second time to further appreciate the nuance and messaging within the stories.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC.

I enjoyed reading this book a lot. I always really appreciate getting to hear the protagonist's unfiltered thoughts and perspectives on the world, and I loved the wit and depth that the author was able to convey in the characters' personalities in a relatively short book.

This book by Korean author Yun Ko-eun is a creative one. It is filled with unrelated short stories. Well, the stories are long short stories, like little novellas. They each delve into different idiosyncrasies of human nature. They get into deep detail, sometimes surprising, sometimes even gross detail, but always brutally honest. There is some repetitiveness within these stories, as the author sometimes drives the point home. However, the execution is clever and unique, and the author has talent.

Overall I found this collection a little slow and meandering, and while a couple of the stories were interesting, I think the whole premise of commentary on mundanity and the ordinary was lost on me. I thought the first three stories were the best, but at times even they felt a little too long, a little too drawn out, and I found myself checking exactly how many more pages of the story I had to get through.

I really wanted to like this, but it just wasn't a good match.

This was an interesting fiction collection. The tone was pretty conversational throughout, with the material ranging from strange to mundane. A few of the stories felt like they went on for a bit too long when they could have had very impactful and succinct endings if they were shorter. But I loved this author’s creativity and how things were sometimes worded. Example: saying that throughout your life in your relationships, from family members to partners, you are basically handed from person to person like a baton. I'll comment briefly on each story individually.

Table For One - I would definitely need to take this class for overcoming your anxiety about eating alone in public, but I would be too mortified to do the homework. Though I absolutely wanted to eat all of that delicious food! The idea of a barbecue restaurant being the hardest level was very funny.

Sweet Escape - A man becomes OBSESSED with preventing bedbugs from getting into his home. The way this story educates you about bedbugs in general made even me more paranoid. Though as you can probably imagine, the residents in this story take things to absolute extremes.

Invader Graphic - This one is odd. A writer uses the public bathroom/lounge area of a department store as an office to write her book, and the paragraphs switch back and forth between her life and the plot of the book she’s trying to write. I liked how the author wrapped everything up in this one. There's a plotline about Space Invader imagery showing up as graffiti around the city, and that seemed like such a random thing to write about but the author made it work.

Hyeonmong Park’s Hall of Dreams - This story was by far my favorite. As someone with an “Inception” tattoo, I’m a sucker for anything with dream-related content and I loved the concept here. (Essentially, a dream vendor.) I do think the story was a little too long and I didn’t completely understand the ending, but I still really liked it.

Roadkill - A very depressing story about a hotel with vending machines on a conveyor belt. It ends up being about the cruelty and hopelessness of life in general. 

Time Capsule 1994 - Another sad story, about the passage of time and a symbolic emptiness. I like how the author chooses things to use as metaphors that don’t feel terribly obvious, but they work well for the stories.

Iceland - Probably least favorite story. It’s just not as interesting as the others. The narrator becomes very interested in the country of Iceland and considers moving there. Not a lot more to it than that. 

Piercing - A story that’s a little disjointed and contains pretty gross descriptions of infected piercings. Something bad happens to a dog in this one, too. Pretty disturbing ending that kind of comes out of nowhere.

Don’t Cry, Hongdo - My other least favorite, probably. About a kid who just wants to eat junk food but her mother insists on only organic. There’s more to it than that, and it did have some funny statements such as: “My teacher took us to McDonalds, like a dork.” But parts of it were confusing and I couldn’t quite understand exactly what was happening, and the young girl’s crush on her teacher was unsettling.

Overall, a pretty decent collection. I'm giving it a 3.5. I think it was worth reading just for the dream story and the title story alone.

TW: Animal abuse/death, Suicide, Bullying, Sexual harassment