Diary Of A Murderer: And Other Stories

If you're a crime junkie like me, a good serial killer story keeps you entertained, but there's a witty twist to the murderer. I do not want to feel compassion to any criminals but then again...

I love bleak books. Among my favorites: Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. I love odd books, especially stuff by Haruki Murakami, against which this collection is compared. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman are two of my favorites. I also am a little obsessed with Korea, more North than South, but still. Lastly, short stories are my favorite genre. So, it's with this background that I chose to read this collection. It consists of the 90-page novella Diary of a Murderer, which I loved, and three short stories, which I didn't.I'm a little clueless when it comes to figuring out plots before an author wants me to, and that was true of Diary of a Murderer. Young-Ha Kim did a great job, I think, with the Alzheimer's angle. I also loved how he handled the main character. I mean, how often can you say that you liked a serial killer? I enjoyed the way the story flowed and the way the author revealed a little bit here and there about the killer's history and the denouement. I did; however, suspect way ahead of time the biggest of the plot points. I rate the novella five stars.***The rest of this review contains major plot spoilers. Read on at your own peril.***The short stories were just okay to me. First of all, I'm all for destigmatizing mental illness and abuse, but there was just way too much of it. In The Origin of Life, one main character's father commits suicide, the other suffers repeat beatings, tries to kill someone, eventually commits suicide, and a third character beats the crap out of a fourth. In Missing Child, one main character becomes schizophrenic, seemingly as a result of her child's disappearance. Is that even a thing? Another character commits suicide, overdosing on antidepressants. The second main character contemplates suicide. The third story, The Writer, begins with a "man in a mental hospital." The main character contemplates whether or not another character "intended to encourage" the main character to commit suicide. Product information on the book's back cover describes the story as "a wild, erotic ride about pursuing creativity at the expense of everything else." I could have lived without the eroticism, but beyond that, this story most shows what I wonder are ideas, concepts and cultural differences lost in translation.(p 150)"I hate America. Those Imperialists!""I don't like the country either.""I despise it."This conversation takes place as parents discuss how to fund their daughter's education after she's accepted to several colleges in the US.(p 155)"I have two friends who both have sex partners." Shouldn't this be...who are having affairs?(p 158)"Cafe, rattling on and drunk on his own words, doesn't know that his wife is sleeping with Philosophy..."This comes up repeatedly, a nickname for a character, whose name the reader never learns, based on some association with something.(p 172)"I woke up to a rat on my chest, gazing at me."I honestly can't tell if this is supposed to be real or not, but it reads like a stereotype as it takes place in NYC.(p 173) A paragraph-long discussion of a Glock that the main character finds in the drawer of an apartment in NYC. Of course, there's a gun. Because that is bound to happen in America? More on this subject (Pp 184-185) "A third of the murder cases in the States are unsolved...Because the killers use guns." and "...over 87 percent of murders in America are committed by men...most of their victims are men -- 75 percent to be exact."Additionally, some stuff seems to translate strangely, like (p 112) when a father says to his wife, "Get up and get the kid ready." Who says that? And (p 125) he writes, "...the boy in front of Yunseok had long, slanted eyes and a belly."In summary, I'm a huge fan of odd, bleak books and especially short stories, and I loved the novella (Diary of a Murderer-5 stars) that starts this book, but in the three subsequent stories (The Origin of Life-3 stars, Missing Child-3 stars, The Writer-2 stars), there were too many suicides, mental illnesses, stereotyping for me. My average rating by pages (the Novella fills nearly half of the book) is 3.6, which rounds to 4.

This was a very interesting book of short stories, several of which received literary awards. The English used by the translator was an easy English and at times some of the terms used were awkward. A pity since the stories are well thought out and developed.The stories are very contemporary with allusions, in the last short story "the Writer" for example, to James Joyce's " Ulysses" and "Portrait of a Young Artist".

(3.5)This is a compilation of short stories that aren't related in any way other than they are all written by the same author. The first story is the title story, "Diary of a Murderer", and the best of the bunch. It was all over the place in the best of ways. It did a good job of messing with your mind and making you follow one path when you maybe could or should have gone another way, or not. The other three stories are okay. The first story stuck with me, the other three weren't as memorable. The last one was really weird but it had a good but still really weird ending. I don't know, some of the other reviews on here are really good! I just don't want to tell you too much since the stories are so short but I'm also telling too little because I closed the book and the stories went along with it! I would say if you like short stories that are well written and that are either good and bloody or just push the limits in some ways than you should give this a chance. It's not very long and you really can't go wrong with this one. It has good stories. For me, I think the first one just got so stuck in my head it was hard to get the others to stick. I liked that one a lot. It was nice and disturbing.

El libro llegó en muy buen estado y llegó antes de tiempo. Amé el libro. Muy recomendado.También es bueno que después de leer el libro, vean la película basada en esta historia Memoir of a Murderer dirigida por Won Shin-yun y protagonizada por el gran Sol Kyung-gu.

I found myself enjoying the diary of a murderer to becoming annoyed with how often paragraphs pop up during first story that seem out of place and sometimes even nonsense that had no purpose in book at all. In one part of the first story, what i was reading killer (or rather boring retired killer) talking about switched like 3-4 times within not even 2 pages, i had to remind myself the killer has Alzheimer's and what i am reading is apparently written that way as well.Some may find this style of written okay. for me, who use to be a big stephen king fan/book collector, going on and on and off subject at hand frequently is just not for me. till this day i have never finish king's It book, the jumping around that book did just drove me nuts and this book reminds me of that book in a way but, yet i find this diary of a murderer book still intriguing and feel the need to finish book itself but, not today, ended up stopping after first story and decided the others were best saved to get read on days where i have time to read each story in one sitting incase they too jump about a lot..easier to remember what you read that way!Don't like to rate books just because they are not my preferred writting style. the subject matter itself was decent and the others i scan through to get an idea of them seem to be too. i also received an advanced reading copy, which is basically an uncorrected proof, so the unneeded paragraphs/etc. could get rewritten/deleted before final copy so who knows, maybe finished copies will be better. and to be fair i am no book reviewer and i got this book and 3 others to read/review because i like killer/murder mystery subject matters and it sounded good. 4 stars for even though if went off current topic a bit, i didn't have to scan over boring parts/paragraph but, once.

Every story feels just perfect. Full of plot twists and never expected endings.

A great combination of stories and a must have for everyone who enjoys Asian literature with its strange kind of cool

I am so looking forward to reading his new book.

mit Hang zur Dichtkunst.Fantastische Erzählung.