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shivangi_pdf 's review for:
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
by Cho Nam-joo
The footnotes at first are quite jarring, breaking form for the reader to imply, "I am not making this up". This suits the content; all the over-explaining and shrieking and manoeuvring that women have to do to be heard. Being taken at face value—being believed—is also a male privilege. Our author maintains this through and through, the rational and measured, almost clinical tone of her writing, the footnotes to published research and statistics—in what is supposed to be a work of fiction—and I would say, the final reveal at the end as well, all a rouse to be taken seriously.
At several points it comes across as a case study, again, we find out why towards the end. She chooses the form to be able to do justice to her content—she wants to describe, list, archive, with painstaking details, just how pervasive patriarchy is around us, even the kind we may have gotten used to. As if egging women to wake up to it.
The ending, however, does seem badly written to me, while the rest of the book has an explanation for its tone, however the ending could have been the author's moment to show finesse of her art, which for me, did not land at all.
At several points it comes across as a case study, again, we find out why towards the end. She chooses the form to be able to do justice to her content—she wants to describe, list, archive, with painstaking details, just how pervasive patriarchy is around us, even the kind we may have gotten used to. As if egging women to wake up to it.
The ending, however, does seem badly written to me, while the rest of the book has an explanation for its tone, however the ending could have been the author's moment to show finesse of her art, which for me, did not land at all.