About Love & Fatigue: The Trunk Review
A reflective review of Kim Ryeo-ryeong’s The Trunk.
This reflective piece contains spoilers but is not enough to scare you off.
The book’s title, ‘The Trunk ‘, is a metaphor for the baggage that the main character, Noh Inji, carries throughout the story. It is advertised as a story about an illustrious matchmaking company that has discreet dealings of renting spouses for the VIPs and VVIPs of the society in this fictional modern South Korea. The synopsis of this book is as if it promises this story to be about this dystopian entity of matchmaking enterprise with VIP dealings of renting spouses under a contract — of love and mystery, perhaps? However, as I got deeper into the pages, I began to realise that that was not the case.
The main character, Noh Inji, often talks to us about the details of the company she works for: the things she needs to do, the things the company provides, the inner workings and the consequences of having said job. At the same time, she often reflects on other aspects of her life (I don’t think as much as she talks about her work). Her reflections and thoughts are plenty and so scattered, yet in the end, it kind of amounts to … nothing. The story feels like a highway with many lanes; so many paths of plots are introduced that could be exciting to explore, some leading into the mystery nature of power and capitalism, obsession, mental illness, and secret dealings (less subtle: crimes). Another is about dealing with relationships: filial relationships, friendships, and what to do when you have a friend who confessed and came out to you…. And yet, with those many lanes, the main character walks slowly towards an unmarked exit with a suitcase and a stalker in tow.
It’s a puzzle what Kim Ryeo-ryeong aims to convey with this story. It’s evident that it’s a commentary on gender roles, particularly within marriage. There are sprinklings of filial issues, discussions about infidelity, and modern forms of love like ‘sugar mommies’ and ‘sugar babies’. A sudden queer plot is introduced right before the story concludes. Yet, everything feels muddled as if Kim is grappling with the topics she wants to address, and she does not win. Interestingly, reading from start to finish mirrors the experience of an unsatisfied wife lying on the bed, a scenario that Kim illustrates more than once in the book: overall, it was okay, and there were some good, exciting moments, but the climax is ultimately unsatisfactory.
While I do have some hangups about the structure and the flow, as well as the bits and pieces I refer to as plots and subplots, I enjoy the monologues by the main character as she goes through these weird and difficult circumstances. In my opinion, the writing itself was nothing special, but I could experience the rush and that feeling of ‘I don’t have the time to deal with this’ whenever the main character was lost in her thoughts. It feels realistic, like how our day-to-day life goes, where you can only think about an issue as far as time allows because, sadly, the world will not stop for you. Or, as Noh Inji described, adults prefer to ignore and walk away from issues. I suppose the question is, how far would you be able to ignore life’s problems until all of the baggage has accumulated and you start to run with so much weight?
The book only mentioned this specific trunk in its last chapter. Noh Inji’s reflection on this baggage/suitcase (it was the trunk she uses for her work of playing house with rich men) was short-lived. What kind of lessened the impact of everything was that she expressed multiple times that she only took to and fro the necessities. She does not enjoy keepsakes and would prefer to start anew whenever she plays house and leaves carte blanche. And so I struggled to see ‘her baggage’ at first, seeing that she is indifferent to whatever her occupation brings.
Another way to see it is that bringing herself to a new house for each contract is enough baggage. She draws a clear line between her personal life and her work, so she does not bring personal things when she is the field wife Noh Inji, nor does she want to take more things to add to her suitcase when she leaves. If that is the case, then it is understandable that she feels heavy leaving her last husband, seeing that they are more intertwined than she thought they were; she was even enjoying their last night together more than she usually does — a first throughout the whole book — and perhaps more than she should.
Noh Inji’s internal dialogue interests me because she focuses on describing her work and the company she worked for so often, even more often than talking about the more personal relationships and aspects of her life. Perhaps it was just Kim’s way of fleshing out the world, but as I allow myself to read into it excessively, I appreciate that aspect of her reluctance to just talk about her personal life. It seems like she was avoiding these topics purposely, ignoring them until aspects of her work pushed her buttons, and she ended up having to face these things she wanted to ignore — her baggage. Even then, when all is said and done, she keeps her baggage when she resigns, unable to throw it away.
When I think of Noh Inji, I think about fatigue. She has that corporate job fatigue in her words and how she acts. Even more, her character seems to be a person who is just tired of it all; tired of doing things just for her mother, tired of hiding things from her friend, tired of catering to men, and tired of selling her soul and body (I do not care how much the book/the company tried to gaslight me into thinking that the contract marriage/rent a spouse thing is not prostitution; it is. Which is fine if you outright say it is, but they are on a moral high horse too high to come down) — she seems tired of it all, which is very much understandable since she went through so much and did not have the time to talk about it or even feel those feelings through. She longed for a normal life, and she does have a semblance of it somehow, but even then, the ending hangs on a note where she feels like normalcy is just a delusion. In the end, she needs to be compliant and surrender once again.
Reading this book made me feel lonely and empty. Perhaps because I was unsatisfied with the story overall, but also, I somewhat relate to Noh Inji. Of course, the flourishes of the dramas of the people around her and her secretive job is out of the picture for me, but that feeling of longing for something, yearning for something, and at the same time not wanting to do anything about it, and even despise it at times is something I know very well.
How does one live so carefree about not having the things they want, like Shi-Jeong, or having just enough to taste like Granny? One can criticise those lives like Inji does, but one also feels jealous of those aspects, just like Inji does. What kind of happiness does Inji long for — what kind of peaceful life does one want when things always go wrong and you are afraid to go wrong? Everything seems so complicated and tiring. Everything feels so heavy, like a suitcase you drag around all of your life, even after settling down and throwing things away, forgetting things you want to forget once those stages are done. How empty can one be when one simultaneously feels and experiences so many things?
I still don’t think this book is as good as I expected it to be, but I do have my own trunk that I need to bring around throughout my lifetime. As someone who has also grappled with the complexities of relationships, societal expectations, and personal desires, I understand what it tried to tell.
