The Hole

By: Hye-Young Pyun, Sora Kim-Russell - translator

Narrated by: Tim Campbell

In this tense, gripping novel by a star of Korean literature, Oghi wakes from a coma after causing a devastating car accident that took his wife's life and left him paralyzed and badly disfigured. His caretaker is his mother-in-law, a widow grieving the loss of her only child. Oghi is neglected and left alone in his bed. His world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his troubled relationship with his wife, a sensitive, intelligent woman who found all of her life goals thwarted except for one: cultivating the garden in front of their house.

But soon Oghi notices his mother-in-law in the abandoned garden, uprooting what his wife had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes. When asked, she answers only that she is finishing what her daughter started.

As Oghi desperately searches for a way to escape, he discovers the difficult truth about his wife and the toll their life together took on her.

The winner of the Shirley Jackson Award and a best seller in Korea, The Hole is a superbly crafted and deeply unnerving novel about the horrors of isolation and neglect in all of its banal and brutal forms.

©2018 Hye-Young Pyun (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Slow and steady

If you’re inclined to believe that simple is better, then this book will work for you. There are clear, simple, but deeply human lessons about living a truly present and sentient life. Still, while the vocal performance is excellent, the writer could have pushed more to exercise greater technical and artistic muscle. I don’t feel compelled to revisit this story; however, if you need a simple, straightforward distraction, please engage. Parts of this story are thought provoking.

really dark stuff

what a beautiful book. the reader is great. very sad and dismal, a good book for lonely reading. fantastic.

Interesting but not much more

First I should note that there are very obvious cuts in some of the narration where they’ve had to re-record lines. All audiobooks have these but this book’s were blatant, they didn’t even attempt to make it blend smoothly and it was very jarring at times.

The narrator was good, nothing to seriously note there.

The story was interesting, I kept listening just to find out what would happen, though I was never really scared of what the outcome would be. Frankly, the main character overly sensitive and judgmental and by the end of it I found myself rooting for his demise a little bit. Maybe that’s what the author intended, if so she succeeded. It wasn’t bad by any stretch, but it’s not something I would go out of my way to read.

great listen- very good story

spooky and disturbing well crafted story- a world of malevolent narcissism - each character isolated and loathing

an odd but worthwhile read

definitely weird. definitely interesting. it's a bit like watching a wreck take place; you know what's going to happen but you can't look away. overall, I'm glad I read it.

Great story!

if you are looking for a engaging story that won't take alot of time to listen this is the story. Once I started listening I made time to listen to the end.

Anticlimactic

Firstly the narration is excellent and the translation feels very natural. That said there's not much to the story. At first I thought the slow pace was simply exposition building to something of substance but the story never materializes and the ending couldn't have been more obvious.

Great read...

Short, surprising/shocking, with a great build up over time. Leaders to many questions. Gotta read it again....

First two-thirds are slow going

This story took a long time to build, with a lot of backstory, musings, and recollections. It was gripping once it got moving, but a bit of a drag up to that point.

Quick--but creepy--story

I enjoyed the increasing subtle creepiness of this story; good narration with distinct characters and intriguing situation. The story unfolds gradually, with each character revealing their motivation through well-placed backstory.