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English(English) Article

We Live in a Building-Turned-Society: The Vertiginously Satirical Sci-Fi of Bae Myung-Hoon’s Tower

About the Article

Article
https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/the-korea-blog/live-building-turned-society-vertiginously-satirical-sci-fi-bae-myung-hoons-tower/
Journal
BLARB – BLOG
Issued Date
March 14, 2021
Page
-
Language
English(English)
Country
UNITED STATES
City
-
Book
Tower
Writer
Bae Myung-hoon
Translator
Sung Ryu

About the Author

  • Bae Myung-hoon
  • Birth : 1978 ~ -
  • Occupation : Novelist
  • First Name : Myung-hoon
  • Family Name : Bae
  • Korean Name : 배명훈
  • ISNI : 0000000054946791
  • Works : 6
Descriptions - 1 Languages
  • English(English)

Bae Myung-hoon’s Tower (타워) comprises six interlinked stories, which take place almost entirely within a single building inhabited by 500,000 people. To that setting I imagine Western readers reacting with the look of the stunned distaste I sometimes receive when, back in the United States, I describe the standard form of middle-class housing in Seoul: clusters of 10, 20, 30 buildings, rising to 20, 30, 40 stories each. That verticality alone signals dystopia to many Americans, but to no few English as well — most notably J.G. Ballard, whose 1975 novel High-Rise dramatizes the swift and total breakdown of society that occurs in, and is seemingly caused by, a luxury apartment complex of the titular form. No such fate befalls Beanstalk, the 674-story tower imagined by Bae, though it does experience a few close calls, subject as it seemingly is to constant threat from within and without.

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