Youngju, a South Korean woman, has done everything right; she went to university, married a decent man, and secured a respectable job. Then one day, everything fell apart. Overwhelmed by a sense of burnout, she left her old life behind, gave up her career at its peak, divorced her husband, and followed her dream. She opened a bookstore. That is where the story begins.
But do not worry, this is not a dramatic novel. She does not go bankrupt in her shop, she is not entangled in schemes, and no one causes major harm to anyone else. There are no tragedies that will leave you holding your breath. Quite the contrary…
I am talking about one of the calmest-flowing books I have ever read, a book that slows the reader down, quiet yet profoundly nourishing to my soul: Hyunam-dong Kitabevi (Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop). I do not know how South Korean author Hwang Bo-reum achieved this in her first book, but while reading it, I, too, went to that bookstore. I could smell the scent of freshly roasted coffee, I also stepped away from life’s speed and slowed down to observe. I listened to the worries of others. Together with those exhausted by modern city life, I discovered a space that would heal me and I, in fact, healed a little.
The small bookstore in Hyunam-dong is actually a sanctuary for those who want to flee from life. Here, different books are recommended to each person individually, and each of these books touches a different wound. Perhaps this was my favorite aspect of the novel: its tribute to books and to the culture of reading. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop also makes references to 25 other works, awakening in the reader the desire to say, “I must definitely read that book as well.” At the same time, it draws attention to the fact that although most of the books we read may not remain in our conscious memory – especially when we make decisions at the turning point of our lives – they provide invisible guidance from our subconscious.
As the author expresses: “I often find myself thinking that books settle not in the mind, but in the body. Or perhaps they are hidden in a memory at the edge of our minds. Even if I cannot recall them exactly, certain sentences and stories help me when I am faced with a choice. The foundation of almost all the decisions I make rests on the books I have read. I cannot remember the books I once read, yet their effects on me remain.”
This novel may not change life itself, but it changes the speed at which we look at it. It shows us how to turn down the noise, simplify, and heal with sincerity and warmth in small spaces, and when the book ends, what remains is not a grand event, but a profound feeling: sometimes a person does not need a new life, but simply a slower one…
Life: A Story that is lived by getting more minimal on each page
Do you remember the last time you played house? When was the last time you played tag, the last game of hide-and-seek? I think about this from time to time, and it always me sad to think that we did not play these games knowing that one day that would be the “last.” It happened the same way for all of us; one day our games simply ended up on their own, just like life. After all, we live our lives without knowing which day will be our “last” …
We never know whom we are seeing for the last time or who is seeing us for the last time. I think about this quite often, and perhaps that is why Margit Schreiner’s Book of Disappointments (Buch der Enttäuschungen), which says “we start dying the moment we are born,” left such a profound impact on me.
The book presents a deceased woman’s confrontation with her own life, narrated in her own voice, at times in a painful tone and at times with humor. Beginning in the womb and continuing through her final breath, to the moment her loved ones gather to bid her farewell, what she recounts is more or less the same as what each of us experience.
To give an example, after the age of 40 many of us say things like, “I have narrowed my circle; the fewer people, the greater the happiness,” and take pride in what we believe to be our “conscious” solitude. The character created by Schreiner, who has a background in psychology, realizes at the age of 50 that the people she had invested in and always assumed would be by her side were not nearly as close as she had thought, and she recognizes that her life has shrunk in size and become less crowded. This matter of shrinking is important. In many places, it is emphasized that we leave this life by becoming smaller.
Naturally, with age, life narrows in every sense and forces people to make choices.
The main sentence of the book could be “Everything ends, yet we never truly notice,” or perhaps, “Life is what it is – do not overanalyze it, just live” …
