Name: Beauty Despises Me
ISBN: 9781628971774

Eun Heekyung

Beauty Looks Down On Me is a collection of by turns sad and funny stories about the thwarted expectations of the young as they grow older. HeeKyung's characters are misfits who by virtue of their bodies or their lack of social status are left to dream of momentous changes that will never come. Unsatisfied with work, with family, with friends, they lose themselves in diets, books, and blogs. Heekyung's collection humorously but humanely depicts the loneliness and monotony found in many modern lives.

Beauty Despises Me

azliana aziz

no mistaking that beauty looks down on me is exemplary of korean literature. the stark and highly elliptical way of writing that is synonymous with any korean lit is evident enough.

forgive me for going off tangent from here on but i was reminded of the recent controversy over deborah smith's translation for han kang's the vegetarian the whole time i was reading this book. i thought to myself this is what it feels like to read something inherently korean, if i dare say so without little attempt from the translators part to make the words, the prose 'easier' for the sake of appearing interesting and appealing. i understand both sides really, for smith's effort she was trying to do something and inevitably did something big enough, enormously i have to say that contemporary korean lit could have benefited from. 
also the other side (this book! the translators!), less glamorous way in giving almost 100% accurate to the original language which resulted with far less appealing read and sometimes too culturally bound that it was easy to just be done with it.
what i'm trying to say is translation is a hard and long work that should not be taken lightly. they're doing a god's work in order to bring diversity in what we can read.

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back to the actual review of this book!

i quoted this from the final story to summarized just what this book was to me, 

'They have no fear, but no excitement, either. It’s neither unhappy nor happy.'