The first part of this book focused on the contents of Cabinet 13, describing strange stories that the narrator encountered. The way the narrator told those stories gave us a glimpse on him as a person. Additionally, there were sections that focused on his life & work. The second part of this book, while still including some stories based on the cabinet's contents, started to focus more on the narrator's life as he navigated changing circumstances in his work. The third part went really off the rails, & got gory in a way that I was not expecting based on what I'd read up to that point. I could understand it as part of a larger narrative about modern South Korean office culture/society, but I could also understand if others found it upsetting. Throughout the book, the narrator had a satirical tone that I thought worked well & was enjoyable. Some of the other characters were not terribly likeable, & there was some fatphobia that I thought was unnecessary.

Overall, this was an engaging book that I generally enjoyed reading & was quite well-written. There were just some parts that were not the most pleasant. ( )

This book had me absolutely enthralled all the way through, deeply into the mix of absurdity and cultural critique, right up until the final section that took a hard turn into the gruesome and a graphic and far too long torture scene that had me wanting to hurl the book across the room. BUT WHY, THOUGH? I am still cranky about that, days later. ( )

I enjoyed the first half of The Cabinet - gentle reflections on humanity and our responses to adversity - rather more than the second; and it lost much of my good will with its fatphobia and the sudden emergence of plot in the final act.

Full review

I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )

I read this book as an electronic advance reading copy provided by NetGalley, and I have submitted my comments to the publisher via that web site.

This book imagines unusual, and sometimes disturbing, ways in which people adapt (or mutate?) in response to the anxieties of modern urban capitalist life. Unfortunately the ending descends into senseless gore, but as the narrator says, "That there is no moral of the story--that's the moral of the story." Recommended for all libraries. ( )

Un-su Kim’s novel The Cabinet weaves the real and the unreal together in ways that both reflect and challenge certain assumptions of modern life. Its narrative engages both playfully and touchingly with the humanization of the unusual and the outlandish, the dehumanization suffered by people in capitalist work culture, and the complexity of being human at all in an ever-changing world.

At its finest, The Cabinet’s intricate structure and tragicomic commentary on 21st-century South Korean office culture manage the neat trick of portraying something universal through their very specificity. The boredom and alienation of people who do not feel that what they do has value is artfully juxtaposed with the desperation of people who want to be anything other than what they are, resulting in a narrative rich with empathy for many types of existential struggles.

Overall, this is a fascinating and rewarding read. I would recommend it for anyone who has ever felt alienated by work, relationships, or society at large, and for people who enjoy their absurdist literature spiked with the occasional genuine shock.

I received a free e-ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )