A novel that defies convention, Kim Un-su’s The Cabinet begins with a series of scenes, all vastly different in setting, but all featuring a protagonist who is uniquely separated from the rest of humanity by some happening that left them singled out, sole survivors of fate’s cruel hand.
These illustrative, foreshadowing vignettes transition to a focus on the main character of the book, Kong Deok-geun. Deok-geun is both perfectly ordinary, in that he is part of the Korean professional class, but extraordinary in his exact profession. Unlike the chronically overworked white-collar workers he shares a city with, his job gives him no work at all.
Though this effortless paycheck should seem like a gift, the lack of work leads Deok-geun to despair. He quickly runs short of ways to pass the time, and the sheer boredom is unbearable.
As long as you don’t ask yourself why you keep doing something, you can keep doing it until the day you die.
For want of actual work, he wanders his office trying to occupy his days. He stumbles upon a cabinet that piques his interest: Cabinet number 13. The cabinet is dusty and secured by a 4-number lock, but perfectly ordinary otherwise, indistinguishable from the numerous other cabinets in his office.
Deok-geun goes through every number before he is able to open the cabinet and examine its contents. What he finds are detailed files on “Symptomers”, people who have begun metamorphizing in strange ways, one grows a ginkgo tree out of his finger, another has his prosthetic fingers grow into his body, still others are “Torporers” who seem to disappear into a hibernation state for days or years at a time.
But then again, what would you expect from a cabinet?
At first, Deok-geun maintains a casual ambivalence to the files, most of which are far too fantastical to believe, he simply reads them to pass the time. Some files pique a mild interest with terms such as “Chimera” or references to human evolution, but he pays them no particular mind.
He is caught reading them by their owner, Professor Kwon. The Professor is a crass, enigmatic man who has spent 40 years working alone on these files. He confidently sees the Symptomers as the next step in human evolution. The first members of a new race of hominids, who will supersede humanity, and cause the extinction of Homo Sapiens.
Deok-geun is drafted to be Professor Kwon’s assistant, answering the phone and dealing with the Symptomers and those who think they might be Symptomers. Deok-geun’s relationship with the files, particularly in light of the professor’s failing health becomes the snaking plot, leading Deok-geun down a path of ever intense, even violent involvement with the files—and the potentially life change, and preposterously lucrative information they may contain.
Does it mean that in the twenty-second century, tables, vases, and wine glasses will love to cry and feel loneliness like humans? Or does it mean that in the twenty-second century, people will live empty lives like vases and tables, unable to feel love, pain, or loneliness?

The book’s dry wit and subtle melancholy meander through themes of ennui and absurdity in the modern, hyper-capitalist world of modern-day Seoul. It highlights mundane, human desires, but with unreal effects and resolution. Deok-geun strives for a competitive job, only to be crushed by its overwhelming boredom, but too fearful of change to leave. Symptomers call, overwhelmed by heartbreak or directionless existence, but ask to be turned into cats or wander off into the mountains to give their body up to feed a ginkgo tree.
Deok-geun is a very human character, one of few strong views, and fewer ambitions. He moves through the pages borne on the tide of bizarre circumstances but deals with the outlandish in a realistic way. Although there are distinct cultural references and mannerisms, the perplexed angst Deok-geun feels towards the surreal shattering of his world is far more universal than belonging to any particular culture or place.
Kim Un-su’s narrative dances around reality, meandering between plot and atmospheric fables, both asking the reader to take the absurd with the mundane at the same time and hold them both as items for consideration. The story is a harmonious balance of profound and ridiculous, drawing the reader in with beguilingly depicted characters, and intriguing readers by cruelly pitting Deok-geun against a monstrous, yet banal evil organization simply called “The Syndicate.”
The author’s prose, still witty and surreptitiously profound in translation, cultivates a contemplative atmosphere for the reader to ponder how we, like Deok-geun and the Symptomers, are thrown to the winds of fate, yet must transcend the desire for explanations and endure the absurd trial.
The Cabinet is a story of contrasts, absurd and real, outlandish and genuine, where the most important information in the world, a species-changing discovery, is comically and tragically forgotten in a dusty cabinet in a dull research center.
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