In the short story collection Cursed Bunny, Bora Chung will amuse you with all the unusual things that are considered perfectly ordinary.
Location: South Korea
Cursed Bunny synopsis
Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.
Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.
Book review
Each story is different, but they deal with the abnormal in the same way. Some stories are absurd and others are more mundane, with the unusual being a part of that world. And as such, it is only natural that one should treat other people, abnormalities and androids with respect and humanity. Even the unusual wants to be loved. Not understanding them doesn’t mean you can treat them like trash or own them. You still have to play fair and respect their rights even if their social status is lower than yours or if they make less money than you do.
Many of the characters need someone who can help them release some ties. Ties to life, but also to greed, family members, debt, and strange things that happen to them. Those who accept the unusual are at peace, while those who don’t are the only ones who struggle.
Even the unordinary wants to be loved
The first story in the collection, The Head, is about a head made of things dumped in the toilet. A very amusing story that shows how people and things that look different are sometimes shunned as a result. Yet the head itself is not as bothered by this as the narrator, who lets it stop her from living her own life.
In our rapidly changing world, old things quickly become obsolete. In Goodbye, My Love, it is very clear that many disagree about who has the right to decide who is obsolete. So it is important to love even those you think don’t care about your love.
The stories Scars and Home Sweet Home are about outcasts. If you don’t have people backing you and you are different and alone, people will be afraid of you and try to use you for their own good. When you move into a new neighborhood, the residents expect you to follow the unwritten rules. Turf politics and regulations can easily destroy you unless you get help from an unexpected source.
Spinning out of control
Society likes ordinary families consisting of a mother, a father and a child. If the other parents’ profession is acceptable, parents will let their children play together. You have a responsibility to the next generation and if you don’t do it right, others may take that out on your family with a Cursed Bunny: “When we make our cursed fetishes, it’s important that they’re pretty.”
In a normal situation this can already be very difficult to deal with, but if you are a character in one of Bora Chung’s stories it becomes even more challenging. In The Embodiment, the author lets her imagination run wild when the main character experiences pregnancy as a result of taking birth control pills for a long time. Of course, this only happens because her body is “abnormal,” but what counts as normal? Then she starts looking for a father for her child because the fetus cannot grow properly if there is no father in the picture. How did the author come up with all this? This is absurdism at its best, two of my favorite stories.
Ghosts and fairy tales
Ghosts appear in many of the stories. The Frozen Finger is very interesting because of the way the author tells the story and introduces the characters. This is another example of what happens when you don’t consider the feelings of others.
Or the feelings of a fox or your own children. In Snare, greed leads to cruelty. This story reminds me of a fairy tale and not one of the merrier ones. Ruler of the Winds and Sands is another fairy tale about people blinded by greed. In this story, fantasy meets science fiction and Bora Chung proves that she has mastered these genres as well.
The last story in the collection, Reunion, feels special because it seems to connect all the stories in spirit. The main characters have suffered trauma and know how difficult it is to overcome their extreme view of the world that results from it. This story shows how children suffer from the illusions of their parents for whom survival comes first. And because of those traumas, they endlessly repeat that one moment that they were surest to be alive, not realizing that their lives were slipping away while they were ensnared in the past. This applies to the past, but also to greed, misunderstanding, and disrespect.
Conclusion
Cursed Bunny is a wonderful collection of stories featuring ghosts, self-sustaining autonomous body parts, and blood that turns to gold. Each story is different: some are more horror and others are more ordinary with a touch of the surreal. This book is a lot of fun to read, so pick it up if you have the chance.
Interested?
Book details
Title: Cursed Bunny
Author: Bora Chung
Translator: Anton Hur
Language: English
Publisher: Honford Star
Pages: 256
ISBN (13): 9781916277182
Publication date: 15 July 2021
About the author and translator
Bora Chung has written three novels and three collections of short stories. She has an MA in Russian and East European area studies from Yale University and a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University. She currently teaches Russian language and literature and science fiction studies at Yonsei University and translates modern literary works from Russian and Polish into Korean.
Anton Hur was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He won a PEN Translates award for Kang Kyeong-ae’s The Underground Village. He lives in Seoul.
