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Archive for July, 2025

Series Review – K-Drama – Encounter

Posted in KDrama, tagged , , on July 28, 2025| 8 Comments »

I am going through a reading slump right now. I’ve got four half-read books next to me but am not able to continue with them. My friend recommended some of her favourite K-Dramas. It has been a while since I watched one, and so I decided to watch one of them. I decided to watch ‘Encounter‘, because the story appealed to me. It is an older woman – younger man romance. My favourite kind of romance.

A young man is travelling to Cuba on a holiday. There while watching the sunset, he bumps into a woman. She is also Korean. She looks elegant and she seems to be lost. Someone has stolen her bag and she doesn’t have any money. This young man helps her, gets her something to eat and drink, spends some time with her and gets a taxi and drops her back at her hotel. Later he goes back home to Seoul. Sometime after that he gets a phonecall from a hotel where he had applied for a job. He discovers that he has got the job. On the first day at work, all the new recruits are invited to the auditorium, where the CEO of the hotel arrives soon and gives a talk and welcomes them all. Our young man is shocked to discover that this CEO is the same woman whom he had helped in Cuba. The CEO also recognizes him in the audience. What happens after that is the rest of the story.

‘Encounter’ is a beautiful love story. It is my favourite kind of love story, between an older woman and a younger man. We wonder how a CEO and a fresh recruit can fall in love and be in a relationship because their lives are worlds apart. But the way it is presented is convincing. Park Bo Gum as the young man Jin-hyuk, and Song Hye-kyo as the older woman Soo-hyun are wonderful in their roles. This is my third Song Hye-kyo series after ‘That Winter, the Wind Blows‘ and ‘The Glory‘. After watching ‘The Glory’, I felt that she did only intense, serious roles. I couldn’t imagine her in a romantic story, playing the lead character. But she does exactly that here, proving what a great actress she is. She is brilliant, and it is so hard to believe that she is the same actress who acted in ‘The Glory’. Clearly she is one of the legends of K-Drama.

The romance part of the story was sometimes a bit too much – it was like having too many sweets on Diwali or Eid or Christmas or having too much cake on my birthday 😊 But I loved it. Sweets and cake are always delicious and pleasurable, aren’t they? 😊

Somewhere closer to the end the story takes a sharp turn and then something unexpected happens which left me emotionally devastated. The last time I felt like that was when I watched ‘Something in the Rain‘. I never thought I’ll feel like that again while watching a K-Drama, but I was wrong, it happened again. If something like that had happened in my own life, I wouldn’t have been able to come out of that. I’ve failed miserably in less challenging situations. So I prayed for the main characters and I hoped the scriptwriters will listen to my prayers. I won’t tell you what was that thing which happened, and what happened after that, you need to watch the series to find out.

I loved many of the other characters too. Soo-hyun’s driver Nam is such a cool character. On paper he is the driver, but in reality he is her father’s friend and has known her since she was a kid, and so is like her uncle. The way he speaks his mind, and doesn’t care about what the other person thinks is charming to watch. Soo-hyun’s secretary Mi-jin who is also her best friend and confidante is also a wonderful character. Jin-hyuk’s family is very beautiful. His brother is an adorable fun guy and his parents are beautiful people. His mother is such a beautiful soul and I loved every scene in which she comes. She made me remember my own mom. She does some questionable things which leads to devastating consequences and sometimes it is frustrating to watch how a beautiful human being can sometimes be so wrong, but she does those things out of love and it is hard to get angry at her.

Hye-in, Jin-hyuk’s best friend since childhood who is secretly in love with him, and Dae-chan who runs a small restaurant and who is friends with Jin-hyuk and the rest of the gang, are also adorable characters.

What is K-Drama without one or two terrible moms? There is not just one, but two of them here. They are closer to the villains in the story and I hated them most of the time. One of them has some redemption at the end.

Talking about moms, one of the surprising things I discovered in this series is that Gil Hae-yeon, who played the role of the terrible mom in ‘Something in the Rain’, comes as a beautiful, affectionate, aunt kind of character who supports Jin-hyuk. It was such a contrast to her earlier role, that it was so hard for me to believe that it was the same person. The mom in ‘Something in the Rain’ was one of the worst moms in all of K-Drama. I hated her throughout the series and she gave me nightmares even after I finished watching. To see the same actress playing a beautiful, gentle role was amazing to watch. So brilliant and versatile she is.

One of the things that I love in K-Drama is the food that is shown on screen. I always look forward to those scenes and love discovering new food. Here in ‘Encounter’, Jin-hyuk’s mom makes a mandarin preserve. It looks so beautiful in a glass jar. Sometimes ‘preserve’ is used as a synonym for ‘jam’ or ‘marmalade’. But this is definitely not jam or marmalade. This is something totally different. This is mandarin preserve, Korean style. It looks amazing. I want to try it sometime. Another food I discovered was Acorn Jelly (Dotorimuk). One of the characters raves about it and I want to try that. Another was Makgeolli. It looks milky white and it seems to be rice wine, and I can already feel its delicious taste. It makes me think of the Chinese rice wine, Mi jiu, which is one of my favourites. There were also Korean fritters probably made of corn, and a Korean style stew which Jin-hyuk’s mom brings to the table when it is steaming hot. They are both very tempting. The next time I go to the Korean restaurant, I’m going to ask them for all these 😊

I loved watching ‘Encounter’. Hoping to watch more Song Hye-kyo and Park Bo Gum series.

Have you seen ‘Encounter’? What do you think about it?

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Book Review – Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon

Posted in Book Review, Essay, tagged , , on July 16, 2025| 3 Comments »

I’ve had this book with me for a while, and so I thought it was time to read it.

When he was reading a book and he discovered a beautiful sentence, or a beautiful passage, Brian Dillon copied it out in his diary. Across the years, these diaries filled with his favourite sentences accumulated on his bookshelves. One day he decided to pick twenty-five of those sentences, write an essay about each of them, and put those essays together into a book. And that is how ‘Suppose a Sentence‘ came into being.

The central idea behind the book is very attractive. What can be better than seeing a fellow reader take out his favourite sentences and share his thoughts on them? That is the reason that pulled me towards this book. And I think that is the reason that pulled many readers towards this book.

Of course, in these parts, we have this famous sentence. And it is time for me to say that. It is this. There is good news and bad news.

The good news is this. There are twenty-seven essays, two more than what we thought. Brian Dillon covers old authors from previous centuries like Shakespeare and Thomas De Quincey, and authors from the twentieth century like Elizabeth Hardwick, James Baldwin, Annie Dillard, Hilary Mantel, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and many others. Dillon has put in a lot of effort into unpacking each sentence, looking at it grammatically and stylistically, and trying to excavate its meaning, both the said and the unsaid, and trying to investigate why the sentence is beautiful. All good things.

Now the bad news. Most of the sentences didn’t do much for me. Standing on their own, without Dillon’s analysis, they didn’t look beautiful. I liked some of them, for example Annie Dillard’s and Janet Malcolm’s sentences, but in general, the included sentences didn’t create a big impression on me. I felt that Brian Dillon was paying homage to his favourite writers, many of them influential ones who wrote for The New Yorker or similar magazines, rather than picking beautiful sentences and sharing his thoughts on why he liked them. I also felt that that the analysis was overdone. It was like trying to explain a joke, or analyzing a beautiful song. If you do it a bit too much, you can’t see the beauty anymore. It is a tricky thing. How do you share your thoughts on your beautiful sentences? Especially on why you liked them? I don’t know the answer to that question. But I feel that Brian Dillon’s way of doing it didn’t work for me.

Others have raved about the book. They’ve said that it is amazing. Maybe it is. It is probably written for the intelligent reader, for the literary critic, for the literary scholar. I am a reader who reads for pleasure, and this book was probably not written for me.

So, after such high expectations, I found that this book was underwhelming. But don’t let that discourage you. If you like literary criticism type of analysis, you might like this book. Brian Dillon has written other books, one on essays (similar to this one, but on essays), a book which is like a memoir, and another on nine people. I’m thinking that I’ll try the memoir book sometime, because it is maybe more up my alley.

Sharing some of my favourite parts from the book.

“This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt : the universe as a clockwork of loose spheres flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds.”

– Annie Dillard

“A slight sense of quotation marks hovers in the air but it is very slight – it may not even be there – and it doesn’t dispel the atmosphere of dead-serious connoisseurship by which the room is dominated.”

– Janet Malcolm

“When you travel, Elizabeth Hardwick once wrote, the first lesson you learn is that you do not exist. It’s a fearful lesson to have to learn at home, or rather in the city you are still hoping is home…”

“As I write, I’m two-thirds of the way through ‘A Time in Rome’, which she published in 1960, and I think I have found, again, a writer after my heart. How many times does it happen, dare it happen, in a life of reading? A dozen, maybe? There is a difference between the writers you can read and admire all your life, and the others, the voices for whom you feel some more intimate affinity.”

Have you read ‘Suppose a Sentence’? What do you think about it?

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Book Review – The Holiday Game by Mihail Sebastian (translated by Marina Sofia)

Posted in Book Review, Plays, tagged , , , , , , on July 8, 2025| 2 Comments »

I discovered ‘The Holiday Game‘ by Mihail Sebastian through Marina’s recommendation. The play was originally written in Romanian and Marina was kind enough to share her translation of the play. (Thank you, Marina 😊)

A few people are holidaying in a mountain chalet. It is the year 1936. At one point, strange things start happening. The telephone stops working, the radio stops working, the newspaper doesn’t come anymore, the post doesn’t come anymore, and the bus doesn’t stop anymore. As you might have guessed, it appears that the chalet and the people there are cut off from the outside world. It feels like the beginning of an Agatha Christie novel or play. We soon start expecting strange things to happen. Probably there will be a snowstorm and people will start dropping dead and a murderer will be loose among the chalet-mates. But what actually happens is very different and unexpected and it is very interesting. And it is very different from any Agatha Christie novel or play.

‘The Holiday Game’ is a beautiful study of the conflict between the buzz of the real world and our yearning for a quieter time and place. Though this play is set in 1936, it is very relevant to our world today. Though much has changed today – we have television and telephone and planes and the internet and smartphones and social media – the timeless yearning for a quieter time in the middle of our chaotic world hasn’t changed. And this play beautifully captures that.

My favourite parts of the play were the scenes in which two of the main characters Ştefan Valeriu and Corina have a conversation. Those scenes were very beautiful, especially the first long conversation that they have. I want to quote the whole conversation in full here, but I don’t want to reveal any spoilers and so I won’t. I’ll share a couple of excerpts here so that you can experience the beauty of that conversation.

“You see, you were right when you said earlier that I am a nice man. Yes. Eleven months a year, I am. But I have one month of freedom – and there is only one supreme form of freedom – that of being idle. So I have one month of idleness. From the 1st to the 31st of August. And I do all I can so as not to lose it. You are agitated, talk, repair telephones, move constantly, in a state of perpetual anticipation. While I sit, watch, am silent and don’t anticipate anything. If only you knew how wonderful it is not to expect anything. Eleven months a year I too am a busy person, tightly wound up, running about, discussing, resisting, but after eleven months, I go somewhere far away from the city and I take lessons in idleness. From this rock, or from that tree. Look at it. Don’t you feel there is something majestic about its indifference? I’ve always felt somewhat humbled when I stand next to a tree. Its lack of movement…”

“I’ve only been here five days and I’m fed up with it. Change it. Forget it. But no, you cannot forget. None of you here – none of you know how to forget. You feel faint if you forget for three seconds what day it is. That is why that old fruitcake, as soon as he gets up, hasn’t got anything better to do than write the date on the blackboard. 5th of August, 6th of August… You gather round the radio to listen to the exact time. I don’t want to know the exact time. And I don’t need to know what day it is today or tomorrow, or what it was the day before yesterday. What’s today? A sunny day. That’s all I need to know. I feel such pity for you, honestly, when I see you all hanging desperately onto everything you should have left behind at home in Bucharest. In actual fact, you haven’t left anything behind. You’ve brought it all with you in your suitcases : your little tics, your regrets, your smiles, your love affairs. You said: ‘Shall we start afresh with another game?’ Of course I want to do that, but can’t you see that my game is the new one, while yours is forever the same old pathetic game?”

I loved reading ‘The Holiday Game’. It is one of my favourite books of the year. I hope you’ll pick this play and read it and experience its pleasures yourself. Mihail Sebastian has written more plays, some of which are available in English translation. Hoping to read them one of these days.

You can read Marina’s review of the play here.

You can read Marina’s post on Mihail Sebastian here.

Have you read ‘The Holiday Game’? What do you think about it?

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