Kim Jiyoung is a case study, but in so much more than a fictional sense. The reason for this (and the footnotes peppering the text) is only fully revealed in the final chapter, in which we learn that we have just been reading a psychiatrist’s report on his patient, Kim Jiyoung, who was referred to him by her husband when she started displaying signs of ‘abnormal behaviour’, chiefly by mimicking other women she knows. Aside from biographical events and reported conversations, we learn very little about her – thoughts and feelings, if expressed at all, are only relayed to us at considerable remove. From her very name to the life she leads as a stay-at-home Seoul mother, who used to work at an advertising agency but gave up her job to care for her daughter, everything about her is ordinary. Kim Jiyoung, the novel’s main protagonist, has often been described as an everywoman.
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