네모 돼지

A book about the relationship between animals and humans. It comprises of seven stories, each told from the perspective of an animal. Some focus on house pets while others talk about animals raised in farms.

This one was heart-wrenching ngl. I had no idea what to expect before picking up this book and was quite shocked at how sad each story was.

To give you an idea, 네모 돼지 is just one of the stories featured in this book. It’s about pigs raised in pens. As they get fed, they become more square-shaped. To keep their spirits up, one round pig is assigned to preach to the square pigs that becoming square will help them reach heaven and to continue eating. Their fate is, of course, not actually heaven. This story, among others, is one that I still have to wrap my head around.

In terms of language, the harder parts for me were the verbs related to what the animals did. I am generally weaker at verbs anyway. Without looking up every verb, I mostly guessed based on context and that carried me along pretty well.

If your Korean skill can handle this book, I really recommend giving this a read. It’s something different than most novels, and I think being able to feel something after reading a book makes it worth it—even if it’s not a happy feeling.