Cheese Story _7
Deposit Refund _35
Wind blowing through daffodils _73
Half-Headed Angel _127
Sora Forever _175
Second Haeyeon _227
Island of Comfort _281

Commentary | Danyo (novelist, literary critic)
Cheese, Panoramic Human _329

In a life that is tangled, entangled, and broken
The captivating irony that is finally complete

“It has always been said that food tastes better when shared.

“I called you because I felt it was a shame to keep this ecstatic taste to myself.” (Page 33)

In the room where the narrator of the title piece and the first included work, “Cheese Story,” arrives at the natural and innocent invitation of the narrator, a sick mother is lying there, giving off a foul odor.
That smell brings back memories of my childhood, when I was abandoned by my parents in that very room and on the verge of death.
The nightmare I had back then, where I was ecstatically tasting my parents turned into cheese, was perhaps a strong wish I had unconsciously harbored.
The moment the novel instills this suspicion, the foul stench emanating from the mother, rotting away without proper treatment, begins to feel like the appetizing smell of “well-aged cheese” (p. 20).
I, who have been persistently longing for the taste of a fantasy filled with hatred and revenge, can finally get one step closer to the cheese of my dreams.

Underlying the bizarre and brutal images that unfold in the first half of the novel is this very everyday fear.
In "Getting Your Deposit Back," that fear is connected to the anxiety of the young female speaker who is experiencing housing problems.
Based on the author's real-life experiences, this novel depicts the battle between the landlord and the tenant, Seong-ah, over the deposit for a rental property.
As the scuffle drags on, Seong-ah repeatedly witnesses bizarre beings swarming around, attacking innocent people.
Seong-ah, who has come to realize that laughing until her mouth is splitting and pouring out all kinds of garbage from her intestines is the very providence that has long existed in this space called the city, decides to return the threat and fear she has received in this city where even the most basic safety is difficult to guarantee.


The author's attempt to shed light on those whose safety is threatened and who are at risk of being marginalized from society continues in "The Wind Blowing Through Daffodils."
Under my mother's coercive rule of completely differentiating between material and spiritual love and giving only one to each person, 'I' chose the role of yielding everything to my twin sister 'Seon-hee' instead of monopolizing my mother's love.
Although born with the same appearance, 'I' gradually became shabby like a root digging into the ground, and Seonhee became beautiful like a flower by absorbing the resources that 'I' gave up.
While Seon-hee is working as an influencer and monopolizing the attention and love of many people, 'I' claims that he raised Seon-hee through sacrifice and tries to control Seon-hee's life as he wishes.
But can we really say that Seonhee is completely intact without losing anything?
As the hidden truth comes to the surface, the relationship between the two people, which had been maintained precariously, faces a completely different phase.

"Half-Headed Angel" also depicts the meeting of two young men who have stepped down from their main roles.
One day, 'I', who gave up on his dream of becoming a track and field athlete due to a leg injury and works at a movie theater in a small town, meets 'Ki Joo-young', an extra character who suddenly appears in a movie that was showing.


I, who was always the fastest, fell just as hard and comically.
Just by being scared and holding yourself back.
The friends behind me had already moved forward and moved away.
In fact, that was the most unbearable thing.
The fact that I am no longer the main character on the track.
(……) Ki Joo-young and I are quite similar in that we originally came from a different world and realized too late that we were supporting characters.
(Pages 148-150)

The reason why the sight of Ki Joo-young, with his head completely crushed and bleeding just like he died in the movie, feels pitiful and pathetic rather than disgusting or horrifying to me is because I see myself in him, straddling the border between this world and the next, having lost my destination.
In the process of unraveling the mystery surrounding Ki Joo-young's appearance, 'I' enjoys a sense of liberation as I run as fast as I can without worrying about falling for the first time in a long time.


As you progress through the collection, the genre's thrills intensify, and the setting of the novels shifts from the everyday to a more unfamiliar world. In "Sora is Forever," a novel brimming with science fiction imagination, Sora suffers a horrific accident at her father's factory, resulting in the amputation of her hand.
After gaining psychometric powers after her surgery, Sora becomes so tired of having to deal with all the dirty memories that come flooding in every time she touches something that she ends up cutting off her own arm.
After being confined to a mental hospital, Sora gets a 'mechanical arm' transplanted there, but when her abilities, which she thought were gone, return stronger, she decides that she would rather accept all the memories of this world.
A person dies, but the memories of that person left in an object do not disappear.
As Sora collects countless memories engraved on abandoned objects, the size of his own massive fortress grows.

The reflections on memory are concretized through the remaining two novels, “The Second Sea Breeze” and “Island of Comfort.”
In "The Second Haeyeon," Baekyeon suffers from Alzheimer's, and the only person who stays by his side is Haeyeon, an artificial human clone of his dead daughter, Haeyeon.
Unlike Baekyeon, who is hesitant to accept the existence of her new daughter, Haeyeon does not feel any discomfort about the fact that she is Haeyeon because she retains all of the memories of the original Haeyeon.
Haeyeon feels helpless at the thought of Baekyeon trying so hard not to think of her as her daughter.
As the emotional gap between the two grows, the novel slowly follows the changes in their relationship.
The two, who had an unexpected accident while on a space trip by chance, crash-land on an unfamiliar planet, and while waiting to be rescued, talk endlessly about Baekyeon's life.
Haeyeon speaks to Baekyeon, who is gradually losing track of who she is.

“I have always been your daughter, and your story still lives within me.
“It doesn’t disappear.” (p. 280)

The belief that as long as you remember, it will not disappear is also valid in "Island of Comfort."
In 2100, humanity is thrown into chaos by the sudden visit of the aliens, the Karins.
In exchange for a human body to be handed over for the purpose of collecting and studying extraterrestrial life, I move to New Death Island with my dying companion dog, Flu.
While spending time with 'Rami', who has suffered from an amnesia but is trying to hold on to her precious memories, 'Na', who thought life after Flu's departure was meaningless and only wished for death, begins to gradually change his consciousness.
It is a realization that one's life, which had felt so useless, was actually filled with the familiar and valuable nutrients of memories.

“Isn’t it too sad to pretend everything is gone and return to nothing? Memories fade.
And precious things are reborn.” (p. 324)

Jo Ye-eun gives each character, who has lost their place and is teetering on the edge, a powerful motivation to build their own lives.
The reason it doesn't read as horrifying despite its mostly unfamiliar and grotesque imagery is probably because of the author's thoughtful desire for the characters to exist safely.
Just as the world's most perfect cheese is made in the darkest and most gloomy place, cut off from the outside world, the wounded are each preparing to be reborn as new beings in their own space, each in their own way.
Those who have gone through the recovery period magically conjured by Jo Ye-eun gain the strength to face any fate without easily succumbing to it.
They resist the temptation of death and return to life.
“Even though I have fully experienced the extent of the loneliness that I must endure alone,” life is something that “cannot be rejected” (p. 327).

Author's Note

This is already my third novel collection.
It's summer again, and I'm writing this while listening to the sound of rain and thunder.
When the night sky sparkles, I feel a tickle in my chest for some reason.
The anticipation I feel when I open the first page of a novel is somewhat similar to the tension brought on by ominous weather.
(……) In the hot and humid season, I hope these are stories about eating snacks while rolling around on the cold floor.
Please enjoy the sweet and salty, soft and rough taste and texture.

Capturing the flashes of light in a thunderstorm.

July 2025
Jo Ye-eun