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The Library of Musical Instruments
The second short-story collection by Kim Jung-hyuk, the author of Penguin News, features a total of eight short stories, including “Syncopation D” which won the 2nd Kim You-jeong Literary Award in 2008. They represent the many sounds sampled by the author when he recorded over 600 kinds of musical instruments. Like instruments coming together in a symphony, the stories combine to make an opus consisting of variations on a theme. While the stories begin in an upbeat fashion and work to a crescendo, they end with notes in a minor key filling the vacuum. The Library of Musical Instruments is a collection to contemplate on more than one occasion.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
230 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 14, 2023
The Library of Musical Instruments (2016) is Kim So-Young's translation of 악기들의 도서관 (2008) by 김중혁 (Kim Junghyuk) and part of the, sadly underpromoted, Dalkey Archive Library of Korean Literature
I came to this via the 2023 collection The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories which included Kevin Rourke's translation of the author's Glass Shield, which is also included (in Kim So-Young's version) here, a wonderful comic story of two friends seeking work, who end up turning interviews into performance art, but with an underlying message of the difficulties experienced by the younger generation in modern Korea.
This was perhaps the highlight of the collection here - 8 stories all 20 pages or so long - but many of the others are of a similarly high standard. Several although not all have a musical theme and some a Murakamiesque narrator (without the bingo and the sexism).
The author's own introduction:
이 소설집은 제가 여러분께 드리는 녹음테이프입니다. 테이프 속에는 모두 여덟 곡의 노래가 녹음되어 있습니다. 저에겐특별한 노래들입니다. 오래 전 친구의 생일선물로 만들던 녹음테이프가 기억납니다. 나만의 특별한 노래들을 모아 만들었던 녹음테이프도 생각납니다. LP나 CD를 재생시킨 후 카세트 데크의 빨간색 녹음버튼을 누르면 ‘실시간’으로 소리를이동시킬 수 있었습니다. 저는 그때 소리를 붙잡았다고 생각했습니다.
지금은 잘 모르겠습니다. 소리란, 그리고 음악이란 어디에서 만들어지고 어디로 사라지는 것일까요? 사라진 소리들은 모두 어디로 가는 것일까요? 이 녹음테이프 속에는 제가 이 년 동안 세상 여러 곳에서 붙잡아둔 소리가 담겨 있습니다. 그리고 여기에는 저의 취향과 마음과 선택이 담겨 있습니다. 이제 여러분의 카세트 데크에 있는 파란색 플레이버튼을 눌러 제가 녹음한 소리를 들어봐주십시오
Per ChatGPT's translation:
I came to this via the 2023 collection The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories which included Kevin Rourke's translation of the author's Glass Shield, which is also included (in Kim So-Young's version) here, a wonderful comic story of two friends seeking work, who end up turning interviews into performance art, but with an underlying message of the difficulties experienced by the younger generation in modern Korea.
This was perhaps the highlight of the collection here - 8 stories all 20 pages or so long - but many of the others are of a similarly high standard. Several although not all have a musical theme and some a Murakamiesque narrator (without the bingo and the sexism).
The author's own introduction:
이 소설집은 제가 여러분께 드리는 녹음테이프입니다. 테이프 속에는 모두 여덟 곡의 노래가 녹음되어 있습니다. 저에겐특별한 노래들입니다. 오래 전 친구의 생일선물로 만들던 녹음테이프가 기억납니다. 나만의 특별한 노래들을 모아 만들었던 녹음테이프도 생각납니다. LP나 CD를 재생시킨 후 카세트 데크의 빨간색 녹음버튼을 누르면 ‘실시간’으로 소리를이동시킬 수 있었습니다. 저는 그때 소리를 붙잡았다고 생각했습니다.
지금은 잘 모르겠습니다. 소리란, 그리고 음악이란 어디에서 만들어지고 어디로 사라지는 것일까요? 사라진 소리들은 모두 어디로 가는 것일까요? 이 녹음테이프 속에는 제가 이 년 동안 세상 여러 곳에서 붙잡아둔 소리가 담겨 있습니다. 그리고 여기에는 저의 취향과 마음과 선택이 담겨 있습니다. 이제 여러분의 카세트 데크에 있는 파란색 플레이버튼을 눌러 제가 녹음한 소리를 들어봐주십시오
Per ChatGPT's translation:
This short story collection is a cassette tape that I present to all of you. Inside the tape, there are recordings of eight songs. They are special songs to me. I remember the cassette tape I made as a birthday present for a friend a long time ago. I also remember the cassette tape I made, collecting my own special songs. After playing an LP or CD and pressing the red record button on the cassette deck, I could transfer the sound in real-time. I thought I captured the sound at that time.
Now, I'm not sure anymore. Where does sound, and music, come from and where does it disappear to? Where do the vanished sounds all go? This cassette tape contains the sounds that I have captured from various places around the world over the past year. And it contains my preferences, my heart, and my choices. Now, please press the blue play button on your cassette deck and listen to the sounds that I have recorded.
January 27, 2020
Making daily life not so mundane.
March 16, 2026
Kim Junghyuk’s The Library of Musical Instruments (translated by Kim So-young) allows us to spend time with a number of young(ish) people with an interesting tale to tell. None of them are particularly rich or successful, but each is getting by as best they can, with most of the stories beginning with a turning point in their lives and then showing how the protagonists cope with it.
Some of the stories can be rather drifting in nature. A prime example of this is ‘B and I’, in which a young man afflicted with an unusual condition makes friends with a musician. Their first encounter? When the musician tries to steal some CDs from the shop where the other man is working… This is just one of the stories that puts the focus on the casual nature of employment for young workers:
So I began working again, then quit again, started working on something, and then quit again. My quitting was forced by my employer’s situation more often than it was voluntary. Is my destiny of my own making?
‘B and I’, p.132 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2016)
Unlike in many Korean stories, though, there’s little bitterness regarding these work woes, merely an acceptance that this is the way life is.
A slightly more successful worker appears in ‘Manual Generation’, where a writer of manuals for various products is asked to work on a new magazine, dedicated entirely to manuals. As he becomes absorbed in his new task, working closely with a woman at a publishing company, we wait for something to happen, whether that be romance or the failure of the project. Instead, the story drifts to its end, but surprisingly, it’s all the more enjoyable for the lack of any real action.
Another interesting piece is ‘Runaway Bus’, which has a student returning home after his mother goes missing. Again, though, what could have been a two-hanky story is instead a rather curious little number, with the woman’s disappearance linked to an old journal the youth is unable to find at home – which points him to the bus terminal at the bottom of the hill. Interestingly, there’s a slight Oulipian twist to it all, as a footnote tells us that the first and last two sentences of the story are ‘borrowed’ from another writer’s work!
As mentioned, there’s a fair bit of humour in the collection, most prominently in ‘Glass Shield’ (available in The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories in Kevin O’Rourke’s translation). We begin with two men on a subway train, unravelling a ball of wool, and from there things get ever more bizarre as we learn of their unusual hobby – joint job interviews:
We’d done the job interviews together as well. More specifically, we’d always walked into the interview room together. Some puzzled interviewers asked us if we were gay partners and others clarified that they had only one position open. We didn’t care. We pleaded with the HR managers to let us be together for their interview if they wanted to see what we were really capable of. Some of them declined, but most of them approved with “As you wish.”
‘Glass Shield’, p.89
The wool was part of their most recent interview, one that went badly (as usual), but matters are about to take a turn for the better when a video of the two messing around with wool goes viral, turning them into minor art celebrities…
More than art, however, it’s music that seems to run through Kim’s stories. The opening piece, ‘Automatic Piano’, features a pianist whose career takes an unusual turn after he becomes friends with a mysterious composer, and there’s the wannabe DJ of ‘Vinyl Maniac Generation’, whose encounter with a fellow record collector leads to a rather traumatic experience. ‘The Library of Musical Instruments’ has a man recovering from a serious crash taking up a job in a music store, where he develops a side-line in recording various instruments, an activity which soon grows into something many people appreciate.
Perhaps my favourite story is the one that plays us out, so to speak, ‘Syncopation D’. This one begins with a music promoter revisiting old memories of an unusual kid in a high-school choir:
Everyone knew that joining the choir meant free time to study independently without doing any activities. Everyone but Syncopation D.
‘Syncopation D’, p.160
It’s a shame, then, that this eager student is completely tone-deaf…
The actual story involves the promoter being contacted by this blast from the past to help organise a concert for an up-and-coming band, and the way Kim sets things up, most readers will be waiting for a cringe-worthy disaster. What we actually get is a funny, moving tale of someone getting the chance to put things right, with the roles reversed, and everyone (reader included) enjoying the show.
It’s always nice when a book turns out to be a cut above what you expected, and for me that was certainly the case with The Library of Musical Instruments. It’s a lovely collection of enjoyable stories, and (sadly) another title that’s sunk beneath the collective lack of publicity for the series. In any case, it’s given me a fresh impetus to get a hold of the last few unread books in the series, and who knows – maybe it won’t take me so long to get to the next one.
Some of the stories can be rather drifting in nature. A prime example of this is ‘B and I’, in which a young man afflicted with an unusual condition makes friends with a musician. Their first encounter? When the musician tries to steal some CDs from the shop where the other man is working… This is just one of the stories that puts the focus on the casual nature of employment for young workers:
So I began working again, then quit again, started working on something, and then quit again. My quitting was forced by my employer’s situation more often than it was voluntary. Is my destiny of my own making?
‘B and I’, p.132 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2016)
Unlike in many Korean stories, though, there’s little bitterness regarding these work woes, merely an acceptance that this is the way life is.
A slightly more successful worker appears in ‘Manual Generation’, where a writer of manuals for various products is asked to work on a new magazine, dedicated entirely to manuals. As he becomes absorbed in his new task, working closely with a woman at a publishing company, we wait for something to happen, whether that be romance or the failure of the project. Instead, the story drifts to its end, but surprisingly, it’s all the more enjoyable for the lack of any real action.
Another interesting piece is ‘Runaway Bus’, which has a student returning home after his mother goes missing. Again, though, what could have been a two-hanky story is instead a rather curious little number, with the woman’s disappearance linked to an old journal the youth is unable to find at home – which points him to the bus terminal at the bottom of the hill. Interestingly, there’s a slight Oulipian twist to it all, as a footnote tells us that the first and last two sentences of the story are ‘borrowed’ from another writer’s work!
As mentioned, there’s a fair bit of humour in the collection, most prominently in ‘Glass Shield’ (available in The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories in Kevin O’Rourke’s translation). We begin with two men on a subway train, unravelling a ball of wool, and from there things get ever more bizarre as we learn of their unusual hobby – joint job interviews:
We’d done the job interviews together as well. More specifically, we’d always walked into the interview room together. Some puzzled interviewers asked us if we were gay partners and others clarified that they had only one position open. We didn’t care. We pleaded with the HR managers to let us be together for their interview if they wanted to see what we were really capable of. Some of them declined, but most of them approved with “As you wish.”
‘Glass Shield’, p.89
The wool was part of their most recent interview, one that went badly (as usual), but matters are about to take a turn for the better when a video of the two messing around with wool goes viral, turning them into minor art celebrities…
More than art, however, it’s music that seems to run through Kim’s stories. The opening piece, ‘Automatic Piano’, features a pianist whose career takes an unusual turn after he becomes friends with a mysterious composer, and there’s the wannabe DJ of ‘Vinyl Maniac Generation’, whose encounter with a fellow record collector leads to a rather traumatic experience. ‘The Library of Musical Instruments’ has a man recovering from a serious crash taking up a job in a music store, where he develops a side-line in recording various instruments, an activity which soon grows into something many people appreciate.
Perhaps my favourite story is the one that plays us out, so to speak, ‘Syncopation D’. This one begins with a music promoter revisiting old memories of an unusual kid in a high-school choir:
Everyone knew that joining the choir meant free time to study independently without doing any activities. Everyone but Syncopation D.
‘Syncopation D’, p.160
It’s a shame, then, that this eager student is completely tone-deaf…
The actual story involves the promoter being contacted by this blast from the past to help organise a concert for an up-and-coming band, and the way Kim sets things up, most readers will be waiting for a cringe-worthy disaster. What we actually get is a funny, moving tale of someone getting the chance to put things right, with the roles reversed, and everyone (reader included) enjoying the show.
It’s always nice when a book turns out to be a cut above what you expected, and for me that was certainly the case with The Library of Musical Instruments. It’s a lovely collection of enjoyable stories, and (sadly) another title that’s sunk beneath the collective lack of publicity for the series. In any case, it’s given me a fresh impetus to get a hold of the last few unread books in the series, and who knows – maybe it won’t take me so long to get to the next one.
May 19, 2018
"The concert opened with a short silent film. A man in a suit was lying on a railway track, attempting a suicide. The train didn't come. The man got up and then lay down again. The man appeared to be uncomfortable and turned in his lying position. The next day, the man showed up again, this time with a pillow in his hand. He placed the pillow on the railway track before he lay down on it. The day after that, the man showed up with a blanket. The day after that, the man showed up with a shack on his shoulder. The man placed the shack on the railway track. The shack was lit from within. The light went out and a train was seen approaching from far off. The train was getting closer and closer. When the train almost came in contact with it, the shack was lit again. The moment when everyone was expecting a collision, ban, they heard guitar sounds."
That sounded like a really cool concert to me. This book was very refreshing. A collection of short stories made to be harmonize like an orchestra. And the stories themselves were fun and original. For example, one of them (aptly called a Remix) took the first and last two sentences from another famous novel, with a made-up story in between. Anyway, I usually don't like short stories, and I feel like I didn't get some of these, but it's still 4.5 stars, rounded up.
December 26, 2025
The Library of Musical Instruments was a charming collection of short stories. I think my personal favourites were the first and last tales, but all those in between were also enjoyable in their own ways. Many, but not all, had a musical theme, which appealed to me as a music lover, and all offered thoughtful scenarios that stuck with you after you finished each story. I would certainly be keen to read more works by Kim Jung-hyuk in the future as I see from online research that he has also written several interesting-sounding novels. I am giving this collection of stories 4 stars. Recommended for fans of Korean literature and short-form fiction, particularly if you also love music.
December 27, 2024
“Can one fix a life full of mistakes with the help of music?”
8 different but equally interesting stories, each with its own flavour. Not all of them are necessarily related to music, but music does not always necessarily consist of solely musical sounds, does it?
Two stories in particular, “The Library of Musical Instruments” and the final “Syncopation D”, were very emotional and touching.
8 different but equally interesting stories, each with its own flavour. Not all of them are necessarily related to music, but music does not always necessarily consist of solely musical sounds, does it?
Two stories in particular, “The Library of Musical Instruments” and the final “Syncopation D”, were very emotional and touching.
December 25, 2019
A beautiful symphony of short stories. Lightly written, with just the right balance of poignancy, optimism and quiet wit.
February 8, 2021
A lovely mix of Facinating short stories
March 12, 2021
eight very well-crafted stories with no substance
September 17, 2021
A unique compilation of short stories. Some were better than others, my favorites being the book’s namesake, The Library of Musical Instruments, Automatic Piano, and Syncopation D.
February 14, 2023
日本語題名「楽器たちの図書館」
「日本人製作家のヴィオラ展」があったので、なんとなく借りてみた。
短編集なので、予想通り星3つ。
最近韓国の文学作品を読む事が多いが、わざわざ翻訳されている作品なだけあって、似ているけど微妙に違う隣国の文化を感じさせつつ、普遍的に感じるテーマが多かった…気がする。
読み終わったのがほぼ1ヶ月前なので、ちょっと記憶が…
あぁそうだ、全ての短編は「音」が関係し、どの短編読んでいても、音が聞こえるような気がした。
ピアノやギターのみならず、バスのエンジン音や、吹き抜ける風の音、そして無音。文字情報しかないはずなのに、聴覚にも訴える文学、とでもいうか。
また、巻末の翻訳者による解説も、短編を理解する手助けになった。
「日本人製作家のヴィオラ展」があったので、なんとなく借りてみた。
短編集なので、予想通り星3つ。
最近韓国の文学作品を読む事が多いが、わざわざ翻訳されている作品なだけあって、似ているけど微妙に違う隣国の文化を感じさせつつ、普遍的に感じるテーマが多かった…気がする。
読み終わったのがほぼ1ヶ月前なので、ちょっと記憶が…
あぁそうだ、全ての短編は「音」が関係し、どの短編読んでいても、音が聞こえるような気がした。
ピアノやギターのみならず、バスのエンジン音や、吹き抜ける風の音、そして無音。文字情報しかないはずなのに、聴覚にも訴える文学、とでもいうか。
また、巻末の翻訳者による解説も、短編を理解する手助けになった。
August 18, 2016
Un petit recueil de nouvelles aux histoires originales, qui se lit agréablement vite. Les personnages sont tous plus loufoques les uns que les autres et essayent de trouver leur place au sein de la société. Je regrette simplement que le style reste somme toute assez classique. On aimerait presque que l'auteur aille un peu plus loin. Mais c'était une bonne découverte, parfaite pour l'été.
July 17, 2017
엉뚱하고 통통 튀는 상상력. 그치만 나에겐 2% 부족하다.
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