This short story collection by South Korean author Yun Ko-eun covers a great variety of themes and genres, but it still manages to be coherent and cohesive until the very end. I enjoyed the stories, although not all of them reach the same degree of quality, in my opinion. The story I consider as the most interesting and accomplished is “Roadkill”, whose eerie atmosphere reminded me of Peter Cameron’s “What happens at night”, a novel I absolutely loved. Other stories are very deserving, such as the eponymous “Table for one”, and some other are less developed, as is the case with the time-capsule 1994 story. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this read and I think that Yun Ko-eun has something to say, and I’m looking forward to reading other works of hers.

•thanks to #netgalley for the #ARC in exchange for an honest review•

Table for One is a collection short stories that aims to demonstrate contemporary society’s messiness that sometimes difficult to believe that it’s real. Yun Ko Eun managed to play with this blurring realism and fantasy in some of her stories in this book. There is so much to be said about the world we live in today. Right off the bat, the first story will strike one of the biggest concern people have: loneliness, individuality, and solitude; how they differ from each other but intrinsically linked. I enjoyed the first story a lot. To me, it’s a solid start that introduced me to what I’m dealing with. The first story is about a woman office worker that attends a course outside work that she hopes can help her overcome the uneasiness of being excluded. As to not spoil further, this story ends with a deconstruction of the beginning of the story. The world building was established really well along with an engaging narrative from the main character. The main character was also developed nicely. It’s such a neat little story with layers social commentary.

Unfortunately, after that first story, the book started to drag for quite a while. I understand that the author is trying to write stories where the readers do not think that the curtains were not just blue. If anyone miss the humongous allegories presented in this book, then I’m at a loss of words. You don’t have to understand the true meaning of these stories that uses various symbolism, just that as long as you get the gist of it, this book isn’t so bad. But honestly, I wish the stories weren’t so convoluted with ideas and social commentaries that they lose touch in storytelling. A few of the stories feels like they are made after the author set a box containing the social commentaries she wanted to tell, so the worldbuilding is made to cross match those ideas rather than established to complement the plot and characters.
I did enjoy some of them more than the others. Like the one where the world commercialized dreams, and the last one with the pov from a kid living in a world of “organic” craze. I noticed that the ones that I like are the ones with well-rounded main characters. Their point of view are interesting enough for me to go on with the story, they have their unique individuality and distinct from other characters in the story. And those are the things to me that made them different from other stories that are more formulaic. I don’t think formulaic stories are always bad, just that I think even with formula there’s gotta be something different about how you presented them. Most of these stories incite grim after thoughts; they’re showing the readers repeatedly, look at our society bro, we’re doomed bro, fr this is the world we live in, ya see? I really don’t mind reading a book that has disheartening tone from start to finish. But to me this book does not have a singular core, like what one specific theme that connected all of these stories, so I am overwhelmed. Because it wants to reach topics as broad as it possibly can while applying a lot of symbolism, it’s a bit of a train wreck.

With that being said, I appreciate the amount of thoughts that must have been put into making this collection of short stories. After all Yun Ko Eun has created so many unique plots and worlds in this book that me as a reader may not encountered in any other place. The last story is probably one of the most nuanced and profound commentary on the complexities that children in the new generation faced while growing up in today’s world. It’s incredible. Here’s a great quote from that story:

“I’d realized that there weren’t many opportunities to talk about family at school, since we mostly gossiped about celebrities and clothing trends and dance moves. Kids spent the school day as fellow prisoners, and after class, we passed through the gates together, briefly making sugar candy and eating it before parting ways to our respective after-school tutoring programs. The next day, we’d convene at school and talk once again about celebrities and clothing and dances and teachers and the weird kids. At school and at home, I didn’t have the chance to talk about my dead father.”

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC to review this book.

Table for One (April 2024) is an upcoming collection of short stories by Yun Ko-eun, the author of The Disaster Tourist. It's translated by Lizzie Buehler, who had also translated her other title.

It has a total of 9 stories, of varied lengths. All of them are quirky, and the line between the fantastical and the realistic is a very thin one. A common element in all stories is a sense of isolation among city folks in the face of urbanisation and shifting lifestyles.

I thoroughly enjoyed all stories but the ones that really stand out are the title story and the last one titled Don't Cry, Hongdo. I've only found one story that seems rather weak but no less fun.

In Table for One, Inyoung is an office worker who enrols in a course on solo dining to learn how to eat alone without feeling embarrassed or awkward. There is an exam at the end of the course where students have to eat alone in ten establishments while being watched by examiners who are disguised as fellow diners or the staff. How many of us feel self-conscious about dining alone? I used to be, but not anymore.

Don't Cry, Hongdo is the longest story in this collection. Told from the perspective of a 10-year-old girl, it's about the organic food craze that has taken over the community. There are various snack vendors outside her school gates but the children's mothers are going all-out in declaring war on them. At the same time, Hongdo tries to set her mother up with a substitute teacher from her school, resulting in some comical moments.

A somewhat disturbing story is Sweet Escape, which centres around bedbugs. Yup, you read that right. LOL. The protagonist has lost his job and is planning a trip to Europe with his wife. He gets overly paranoid about the threat of bedbugs. When he returns to Korea after the trip, the bedbug hysteria has already spread in the country. Apparently this story was based on a real-life incident of bedbug outbreaks. Hmm.

This was a review copy from Columbia University Press via #NetGalley

Oh my, this was a delight to read from start to finish. It’s exactly my kind of humour, I love the quirky characters in each of the uniquely spun short stories. I read it with genuine glee on my face. I am now empowered to dine alone which is a great bonus after reading the initial story. I loved Table for One so much. Iceland was also a favourite of mine and Sweet Escape amused me no end. Hyeongmong Parks Hall of Dreams was also delightful. I just love whimsy reads and I feel light and airy after this short story collection.
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this. I look forward to reading more from Yun Ko-eun again. Such fun!

I loved the title story very much. Who knew that it was possible to write so compelling about the difficulties of dining alone and how to overcome them. A person so obsessed with eating alone that he doesn’t really address the problem that he likes being on his own!
Unfortunately the remaining stories did not hold my interest. The bed bug tale, although engaging was very uncomfortable to read and I spent a great deal of time scratching!

Mostly set in South Korea….
from an author to remember— and applaud!!

People do the most peculiar things— have peculiar circumstances — agonizing, and lugubrious distress —
These short stories (each) brought forth psychological barriers, and social barriers.
They’re unique, quirky, engaging stories showing how flaws are as beautiful as admirable qualities are…..
…..varied characters, fears, loneliness, insecurity, obsessions, geography, time, place, tones, culture, and physical structures….
Yun Ko-eun hits the emotional center with simplicity, intelligence with sweet surprising touches.

Wonderful & enjoyable!

the stories in this collection are delightful, not only are they wonderfully written but they also give us a glimpse into another culture, another way of thinking and being, with characters who worry about thins that may or may not occur to people from other countries. behind such apparent differences, however, these stories show our deep connection across culture and demonstrate our universal aspirations as well as fears.

An interesting premise for a book. The themes expressed within are loneliness, community, and how to exist in society when you feel like you are an outsider. While this book is set in South Korea, I think that many of the themes within this work are relevant to the modern human experience. Yun Ko-eun does an excellent job at crafting a story that lingers with you.

Many thanks to Columbia University Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this work.

This was a great collection of short stories. Each one was very different to the next and the scope of imagination was brilliant. I particularly liked the stories about bed bugs and the organic mums, bedbugs being a recent real-life worldwide scare and organic mums representing (to me) mass censorship of anything fun. Glad I was given the opportunity to read this, the translation was spot on and made for very smooth reading.

Thanks to #Netgalley for this ARC

This was an interesting collection of stories however the stories did feel a bit repetitive at times and a bit longer than necessary. Loved the premise though and I'd be excited to see what other works Yun Ko-eun brings in the future.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC!

In this collection Yun Ko-Eun creates a series of stories which all had their own whimsy and narrative which just kept me hooked. Reflecting on the stories I enjoyed every single one. I loved how each new short story focused on such mundane topics from new, almost obsessive angles. From a bedbug epidemic in 'Sweet Escape' to the obsession with different countries in 'Iceland' I couldn't get enough.

The way Yun Ko-Eun really incorporated Korean culture and topics into the stories was done so well. The writing was clean, simple and effective. I'll definitely be picking up their other works.

A great collection of stories. I really enjoyed all of them..looking for books my this author now. Great prose and unique stories.

Table for One is a collection of short stories that cover a range of human experiences and make the reader ask themselves new questions about second-nature habits (like eating alone). Each story was unique which I really appreciated and I could see the author had a talent for sharing a lot of information in a short number of pages without feeling like an overload.

Unfortunately I just didn’t find myself invested in any of these stories, it felt like work reading them for no real pay off because they were so light (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I couldn’t connect with the text). I enjoyed Table for One and it’s whimsy the most and I definitely think there are readers who would love the entire collection!

Overall, these stories were unique, quirky, and fun, but with underlying importance in all of them. I thought both the writing and the translation flowed nicely, and pulled in to the stories well. All in all, an enjoyable read, if not 100% impactful.

Table for One: Stories (2024) is Lizzie Buehler's translation of the 2008 debut collection 1인용 식탁 by 윤고은 (Yun Ko-eun) originally published when the author was in her late 20s.

It is published by Columbia University Press in their Weatherhead Books on Asia series which has typically featured posthomous collections of work by 20th century Korean authors, such as the forthcoming Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories.

NB the title story itself has previously appeared in translation by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton - the Goodreads entry here - Table for One: Stories - is just for that story as are reviews written pre late 2023, but Buehler's new translation is for the whole collection.

This is the second book in English from the author, after The Disaster Tourist, Buehler's 2020 translation of the 2013 original 밤의 여행자들 (Night Travellers).

This is collection of cleverly constructed, often quirky, stories, the ideas rooted in Korean urban culture but with many universal messages, and with a particular focus on characters driven to obsession by isolation and disconnection.

There are some neat, if low-key, links between some of the stories (e.g. the bedbugs from one popping up in a very different context in another, the use of beats as a way to explain how things should work). Against that the length of each means that if a story doesn't work for the reader it can outstay its welcome, and the endings were often a little too pleasantly wrapped up for what's are otherwise very offbeat stories, with Piercing (the collection's highlight) a very notable exception.

Overall - 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

The stories here (with original title) - page count - and my rating:

Table for One (1인용 식탁) - 27pp - 4*
Sweet Escape (달콤한 휴가) - 28pp - 4.5*
Invader Graphic (인베이더 그래픽) - 28pp - 3.5*
Hyeonmong Park's Hall of Dreams (박현몽 꿈 철학관) - 40pp - 2.5*
Roadkill (로드킬) - 28pp - 2*
Time Capsule 1994 (타임캡슐 1994) - 20pp - 3*
Iceland (아이슬란드) - 22pp - 3.5*
Piercing (피어싱) - 21pp - 4.5*
Don't Cry, Hongdo (홍도야 울지 마라) - 57pp - 4*

The narrator of Table for One is an office worker who finds she isn't typically invited to join her colleagues for lunch hour and so eats alone. She ends up attending a course to learn the skill of asking for a Table for One without social embarrassment, the ultimate level to be able to order a for one in a 고기구이 (BBQ) restaurant when minimum portion sizes of meat are for at least 2 people:

"Not weekends but weekdays, not lunchtime or dinnertime but the hours in between—target those times. Target corner tables rather than those in the middle. Seats at the bar are also good. Hang your coat or bag on the chair facing you and take advantage of tools like a book, earphones, a cell phone, or a newspaper. Become a regular customer and befriend the owner or waiters. Befriending the cook isn’t a bad idea, either. When going to a nice restaurant, call ahead and reserve a table for one. If you make a reservation, no one will pay attention to you. If possible, avoid going out on couples’ days like Valentine’s Day, White Day, or Christmas Eve.

Step One—coffee shop, bakery, fast-food joint, snack bar,neighborhood Chinese restaurant, food court, cafeteria
Step Two—Italian restaurant, large Chinese restaurant, traditional Korean restaurant, family restaurant
Step Three—wedding, first-birthday party
Step Four—barbecue restaurant, sushi restaurant"

The course comes with an exam at the end, where students have to eat alone in ten establishments while watched by examiners (who might be disguised a fellow customer or the waiter) which she fails. But she realises that the companionship of others in the same situation was what she really valued and re-enrols:

"Only after failing the exam did I understand why a mere 15 percent of students got a diploma in one go. The thing that 85 percent of people were afraid of wasn’t the test. It was the real life that came after the test. After completing the course, there was no more reason to attend class, and with that, be part of a group. The dispersion of a crowd united by common interests and goals, people whom they’d sat with at every lunch hour, and just a diploma to show for it; the absence of a reason to come to this place; having to really go out into the world and face eating alone— these were all objects of terror. To them— no, to us— what was necessary was not the diploma but the time to delay reality.

The thing I’d wanted to learn was how to eat alone naturally, but instead I'd gotten from the course the comfort that I wasn't the only person eating alone.

시험에 떨어지고 나서야 나는 왜 이 수료층을 한번에 받는 사랑들이 15퍼센트에 그치는지 알 것 같았다． 85퍼센 트의 사람들이 두러워한 것은 시헝이 아니었다． 시헝 이후에 찾아올 진짜 현실이었다． 수료를 하고 나면 더 이상 학원에 찾아올 필요가 없고， 그 말은 곧 ’우리 ’라고 부를 만한 소속이 없어지는 것 아닌가． 검심시간마다 흴，『o『와 공 통의 관심사와 목표 아래 앉아 있을 무리가 흩어진다는 것， 수료증 하나로 더 이상 이곳에 찾아올 이유가 없어친다 는 것‘ 그래서 이제는 겅말 세상으르 나가 혼자만의 식사와 마주쳐야 한다는 것‘ 바로 그것이 공프의 대상이 었다， 그들에게， 아니 우리에게 필요한 것은 수료층이 아니라 현실을 유예할 수 있는 시간이었던 것이다．

내가 배우고자 했던 것은 혼자 자유롭게 먹는 방법이었으나， 정각 내가 얻은 것은 수강 기간 동안 내가 혼자 먹는 유일한 사랑이 아니라는 위안이었다."

Sweet Escape (달콤한 휴가), set in 2007, is a coincidentally timely story given the hysteria in late 2024 over bedbugs in Paris which then spread (the hysteria as much as the bugs) to Korea.

The protagonist, having lost his job, plans a trip to Europe with his wife with the redundancy money, but with time on his hands over-plans it, becoming part of an online group of people over-planning similar trips. In particular, he becomes obsessed with the threat of bed-bugs:

"One day before the trip, he posted in his club’s online forum. Like many of the members, his comments were imbued with the excitement and fear of someone leaving the next day for an unknown world. Despite the fact that he might have to face pickpockets, contagious diseases, terrorist threats, and bedbugs, he was still eager to embark, he wrote. He also mentioned that he’d invested one hundred thousand won toward bedbug prevention. The aroma oils, salves, and medicines he’d bought really had cost almost that much. He didn’t forget to add that this was all thanks to what he’d learned from the other club members."

And when he returns to Korea, just as in real-life in 2023, the bugs and the hysteria has spread to Seoul, his neighbourhood residents association re-naming themselves the WWB (Word Without Bedbugs).

Invader Graphic (인베이더 그래픽) is narrated by a woman whose main aim in life is to subsist entirely on free, if purloined, products (toilet rolls, electricity, WiFi, sugar from the coffee shop, free samples from the food section etc) provided by a large department store where she spends every day, typically camped out, writing, in the luxurious bathrooms (she usually goes to the menswear floor as the women's toilets there are the least busy):

"Soon after I’ve dodged two bathroom checks, the morning is over, and both my mind and my belly have grown empty. It’s time to go to the underground food court, where the sample cor ner is open to anyone. Freshly fried pork cutlets, vegetable pan cakes grilled golden brown, fat sausages—I grab a skewer of each and chomp on the bite-size morsels. Some days, I come across udon noodles in paper cups, or fruit to cleanse my palette."

She is an unpublished novelist (who, as usual with Korean literature, has won a short story competition in a newspaper) hence the need to be able to support her work at close to zero cost. The novel she is writing is about a man who becomes obsessed with the work of the real-life anonymous French street artist Invader, famous for his graffiti based on console games, particularly Space Invaders:

But as the department stores generally track down on freeloaders - e.g. asking for a receipt before you can use the bathroom facilities - she realises she is the real space invader. Here I found the set-up of the freeloader more successful that the parallel novel-in-progress story.

Hyeonmong Park's Hall of Dreams (박현몽 꿈 철학관) is narrated by the assistant of the titular character, a serial, and not entirely successful, entrepreneur who has now moved into the business of selling dreams, even changing is name from Hyeonbong (현봉) to Hyeonmong (몽 meaning dream):

"Hyeonmong Park was the type of person who was always selling something. Over the years, he had hawked children’s books, water dispensers, and roasted chestnuts. Leftovers that he hadn’t sold took up more space in his house than people did. His sales record wasn’t good. He was drowsy, thin, and had little drive. Finally, when he could no longer sell physical objects, he’d begun to peddle dreams. Dreams were his most successful sales item to date. They didn’t take up space, they didn’t require any capital, they didn’t grow dusty, and each one brought in a good amount of money. They were the things he sold best."

His model is to dream dreams to order on behalf of his clients which he then retells to them in detail, but as his business expands rather more professional competitors move in and then one day he finds he can't dream anymore and reverts to inventing dreams instead.

This was one of the less successful stories in the compilation for me, although it did have a nice link to Sweet Escape (달콤한 휴가) when the first sign of the problems to come is a proliferation of commas in his write-up of the dreams:

"They were an ominous mark and an evil code. Hyeonmong Park tried to erase the commas that now appeared in each of his dreams, but they bred without paying him any mind. “They’re just like bedbugs!” he shouted. “Bedbugs!”."

Roadkill (로드킬) is a Kafkesque tale of a vending-machine operator who finds himself stuck in an odd motel where one of his machines is based (guests never leave the room but anything they could want comes round to the door of their room on a conveyor belt of various vending machines) in a massive snowstorm - and increasingly finds he can never leave and that (in an uncanny twist to what is otherwise a relatively conventional collection) that he is turning into an animal.

Time Capsule 1994 (타임캡슐 1994) is based on the real-life (from Wikipedia) Seoul Millennium Time Capsule in Namsangol Park (남산골공원) buried in 1994 to celebrate Seoul's 600th anniversary as the capital of Korea with 600 items chosen to represent the city. The time capsule is set to be opened on November 29, 2394, on the city's 1000th anniversary, but in the story has to be opened only 14 years later as it has (quite how this was discovered is not explained) started to corrode. The narrator is one of those charged with replacing the objects found therein with reserve items:

"They discuss what to do with items that are now associated with scandal, like CDs containing songs exposed as works of plagiarism. Some have even curated six hundred entirely new pieces to go in the time capsule. “If what we believed to be the truth in 1994 wasn’t actually the truth, don’t we have to get rid of it?” That’s what they’ve said. Others have asked what we will do if the truth of 2008 turns out to be a lie, and the truth we knew in 1994 was the real truth."

But the story centres on a mysterious and blank CD found in the capsule that shouldn't have been there.

Iceland (아이슬란드), which was the author's debut story, has the protagonist, dissatisifed with his life and particularly his job, becoming increasingly obsessed with Iceland after he undertakes a compatibility quiz and finds he is only 2% compatible with Korea but scores over 40%, much his highest score, for Iceland, and joins a club of people with similar obsessions - "Not many of them had actually been to Iceland, but they knew an awful lot about the country, and they liked to talk about it". The star member is one who claims to have lived in the country although her insights seem remarkably similar to those in the Lonely Planet Guide - and then the 2008 financial crisis strikes the country.

Piercing (피어싱) was my favourite of the stories and the one exception to the neatly wrapped up endings. This is a disturbing tale of a man who has separated from his wife, herself a vet who specialises in neutering dogs, an act that gives her peculiar pleasure and fires her taste for both meat and sex:

"She was an expert: she could tell a dog’s breed just by looking at its nose. But honestly, to my wife, there were only two kinds of dogs: dogs that were docile and dogs that weren’t. If a once- d ocile dog entered heat or wanted to mate, it typically became distracted and aggressive. So really, the division was between dogs that had been fixed and dogs that hadn’t. My wife was a recognized spay and neuter expert. The customers who put their pets in her care loved dogs, although she didn’t really like them herself. There was a difference between knowing dogs and loving dogs, but it didn’t really matter."

The narrator takes consolation in having his body pierced in multiple places, and a disturbing relationship witnh an equally piercing-obsessed young woman, which, as the story progresses, we realise may have ended in violence.

Don't Cry, Hongdo (홍도야 울지 마라) is an almost novella length coming-of-age tale told by a 10 year old girl who starts by describing the various snack vendors outside her school gates:

"The dried fish fillets, roasting over a food stall’s hot fire on this warm spring afternoon, were so fresh they looked like they might rise from the dead days after being cooked. The lettuce in my hamburger crinkled like cellophane. Children crossed through the school’s front gate with rolling backpacks as high as their hips. They dropped their bags and headed to the sugar candy stand, where golden-brown sugary discs were stamped with shapes like stars and hearts."

(yes that last-one is Dalgona (달고나) of later Squid Game fame)

But as a craze for organic food takes off, the local school mums declare war on the vendors, and Hong-do tries to set up her bereaved mother with her substitute Korean teacher.

A gorgeous set of tales with very interesting ideas, from the girl obsessed with her home room teacher to the man with bedbugs to the woman learning to eat alone. A very good set well translated and very thought provoking. Thanks for the arc and cheers

I definitely struggled a bit with this one. Some of the stories were fantastic, but I found myself wanting to skim through several. The stories didn’t quite mesh with me. I found the first two stories really interesting, as well as the last two, but the entire middle was very meh to me. I feel like it might be more of a me problem than an issue with the book, as many others have seemed to enjoy it. I found it a bit slow and long-winded, so I maybe I’m just a fan of more concise short-stories.

One of the best short story collections i've read in a while. Though the subject and even the genre/themes of each story varied, the author has a clear voice which made the collection feel cohesive.
Weird, quirky, surreal, funny, thought-provoking, what more could you want!
Definitely going to be on the look out for other works from this author in the future.

I wanted to read this because I really enjoyed The Disaster Tourist by the same author, but I think Table for One was even better. Almost every story was interesting, fun to read, and thought provoking. I think my favorites might be Table for One, Invader Graphic, and Iceland. But honestly I loved the bedbug story, too, I read it a week ago but it is still so fresh in my mind. I am excited for the release day because I want to buy a couple copies as gifts!

I want to write more and gush about this but I also don't want to spoil any of the stories.

A really versatile short story collection that shows off the author’s talents in a multitude of ways. My personal favorites were ‘Iceland’, which had a fantastic humorous tone to it, and ‘Pierced’, due to the author’s brilliant switch in genre; it was also where I believed the best writing in the collection resides.

Some of the translations were quite wordy and would maybe benefit from another round of editing, as I believe they impacted the storytelling, most noticeably in the first few stories. Nothing to do with the author herself, of course.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this collection.