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The Hive and the Honey: Stories
A New York Times , Time , and Literary Hub most-anticipated book of the fall.
From the beloved award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a spectacular collection of unique stories, each confronting themes of identity, belonging, and the collision of cultures across countries and centuries.
A boy searches for his father, a prison guard on Sakhalin Island. In Barcelona, a woman is tasked with spying on a prizefighter who may or may not be her estranged son. A samurai escorts an orphan to his countrymen in the Edo Period. A formerly incarcerated man starts a new life in a small town in upstate New York and attempts to build a family.
The Hive and the Honey is a bold and indelible collection by celebrated author Paul Yoon, one that portrays the vastness and complexity of diasporic communities, with each story bringing to light the knotty inheritances of their characters. How does a North Korean defector connect with the child she once left behind? What are the traumas that haunt a Korean settlement in Far East Russia?
Lauded as a “quotidian - surreal craft - master” ( New York magazine), Yoon’s stunning stories are laced with beauty and cruelty, and The Hive and the Honey is the work of an author writing at the very height of his powers.
From the beloved award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a spectacular collection of unique stories, each confronting themes of identity, belonging, and the collision of cultures across countries and centuries.
A boy searches for his father, a prison guard on Sakhalin Island. In Barcelona, a woman is tasked with spying on a prizefighter who may or may not be her estranged son. A samurai escorts an orphan to his countrymen in the Edo Period. A formerly incarcerated man starts a new life in a small town in upstate New York and attempts to build a family.
The Hive and the Honey is a bold and indelible collection by celebrated author Paul Yoon, one that portrays the vastness and complexity of diasporic communities, with each story bringing to light the knotty inheritances of their characters. How does a North Korean defector connect with the child she once left behind? What are the traumas that haunt a Korean settlement in Far East Russia?
Lauded as a “quotidian - surreal craft - master” ( New York magazine), Yoon’s stunning stories are laced with beauty and cruelty, and The Hive and the Honey is the work of an author writing at the very height of his powers.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published October 10, 2023
About the author
Paul Yoon
14 books356 followersPaul Yoon was born in New York City. His first book, ONCE THE SHORE, was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Debut of the Year by National Public Radio. His novel, SNOW HUNTERS, won the 2014 Young Lions Fiction Award.
A recipient of a 5 under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, he is currently a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard University along with his wife, the fiction writer Laura van den Berg.
A recipient of a 5 under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, he is currently a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard University along with his wife, the fiction writer Laura van den Berg.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 161 reviews
July 30, 2024
If I were inclined toward audiobooks, The Hive and the Honey (Audibook Version) is one that I would want to listen to.
The book would gain an added depth of engagement through the reader's voice and the emotional content beyond the text itself.
I would recommend the book to anyone who loves a well-crafted story, and especially to anyone who enjoys exploring the emotional core of a character through the process of reading literary fiction.
The stories in this collection offer a subtle exploration of identity and culture that sheds light on the things that have shaped the individuals who appear in these tales. Korean characters predominate, and the timeline of the stories extends from our own contemporary moment to the World Wars.
The stories explore themes such as loss, the process of growing up, and ceasing to be one person and exchanging that identity for another, whether intentionally or not. Several of the stories were particularly captivating, and I found myself hoping for more, a fuller engagement with the characters and their underpinning stories, a longer narrative. In any case, they stand on their own, and I will remember them and am glad to have had the opportunity to read them.
The book would gain an added depth of engagement through the reader's voice and the emotional content beyond the text itself.
I would recommend the book to anyone who loves a well-crafted story, and especially to anyone who enjoys exploring the emotional core of a character through the process of reading literary fiction.
The stories in this collection offer a subtle exploration of identity and culture that sheds light on the things that have shaped the individuals who appear in these tales. Korean characters predominate, and the timeline of the stories extends from our own contemporary moment to the World Wars.
The stories explore themes such as loss, the process of growing up, and ceasing to be one person and exchanging that identity for another, whether intentionally or not. Several of the stories were particularly captivating, and I found myself hoping for more, a fuller engagement with the characters and their underpinning stories, a longer narrative. In any case, they stand on their own, and I will remember them and am glad to have had the opportunity to read them.
June 6, 2024
Come. I want to show you something. I learned it from the missionary. We haven’t seen him in a while, yes?…I retrieve my teacup where there is a little honey left, and I walk toward the perimeter of the woods and hold it up. I hear her coming up behind me, the slow rustle of her skirt in the grass, but I don’t turn.In The Hive and the Honey Paul Yoon returns to areas that readers of his earlier work will recognize. This is his third story collection, following Once the Shore (2009) and The Mountain (2017). He has published two novels as well, Snow Hunters (2013) and Run Me To Earth (2020). He treats often in themes of Korean diaspora, losing a sense of home, trying to build new families and communities, feeling alone, often being alone, the impact of history on one’s lived experience, and the impacts of war. That holds here.
A few minutes later, a bee appears, hovering, circling, then dips into the cup. Then it flies away into the woods. I follow it. She follows me. When I can’t see it anymore or hear it anymore, I stand still and hold up the cup and wait for the bee to come back. Which it does. So we move on, and as we head farther into the woods, I tell the daughter that it is a trick I learned from the missionary. We’re creating a trail.
“To the hive,” I say. “And the honey.”
I can’t speak to a unifying Korean identity, but I think, growing up, because I had very little access to an extended family, I was often searching for my own version of that. And I think all my characters are searching for their own version of family. They’re quite literally and figuratively orphans. And they want to rebuild. They want to find a home in all sense of that word. - from the Pen-Ten InterviewThere are seven stories in the collection, ranging from 17th century Japan to 20th century New York. The age of the primary characters covers a wide range. One lead is 16, others are in their 20s, returning from war or prison, or still in uniform. There is a couple in their forties and we see one life across decades.
Paul Yoon - image from Interlocutor – shot by Paul Yoon
A persistent challenge is to make a home. In Bosun, Bo tries to find a home and family in a small upstate NY town. In At The Post Station, Two samurai must repatriate a 12yo Korean boy to officials from his country. Toshio, the samurai who has been raising his young charge for many years, must face this direct loss of family. The boy must face introduction to an entirely alien culture. Cromer offers a middle-aged London shop-keeper couple, both children of North Korean refugees, who had opted to never have children of their own. But when a 12 yo apparently- battered runaway boy turns up in their shop, many miles from home, it makes them face the insular, child-free lives they had chosen, the community they had not built, the family they had not made. In The Valley of the Moon a man returns from a settlement to his isolated family farm after The Korean War. It is a moonscape, littered with bones and craters. He slowly but steadily brings the farm back. He even takes in two orphans to make a proto-family, but the damage from the war, and from an act he commits before the kids arrived, haunts him for the rest of his life.
Biological families here are all dispersed, or worse. Characters are often stuck on their own. Relations in other places are unreachable, unresponsive, or dead. Some of the impetus for the collection was Yoon’s own familial diaspora.
My grandfather was a Korean War refugee who eventually, after the war, settled in a house in the mountains in South Korea. Where he lived wasn’t nearly as isolated as the setting of “Valley of the Moon,” but my memory of him was that he was—or had become after the war—a bit of a loner, someone who kept to himself, and so I think (a) the character of Tongsu and where he returns to was always linked from the start, and (b) that initial push forward into this story stemmed from wanting to create and capture, perhaps, some corner of family history that felt, and still feels, really distant to me—to engage with that distance, creatively, and to engage with him and with so many others of that generation who had to flee their homes and do anything they could to survive during those horrific years. - from the New Yorker interviewYoon’s characters also travel far afield. Bosun came to the USA at 18. In Komarov, a Korean cleaning woman is living in Spain. At the Post Station features a boy who was held prisoner by Japan for his entire life and will now be faced with living in an alien culture in Korea. In Cromer, the parents of the couple living in London all escaped from North Korea, and a young Korean boy flees apparent physical abuse. In The Hive and the Honey, the community over which the young soldier watches is comprised of Koreans who had left Korea and were establishing a small community in eastern Russia. In Person of Korea, the lead’s father had taken work far from home and had become unreachable. Families that remain (the survivors) are severely depleted, family trees having been pruned to stumps or worse by war and dispersion. Holding on even to images of one’s past can become a challenge.
Bo thought he would eventually miss Queens or perhaps even South Korea, where he had spent the first eighteen years of his life, but as the months went on, they were like the faces he tried to recall: far away, as though the places he’d once lived had been homes to someone else.But for all the travails, the challenges, there is an intrepid spirit at work that pushes them onward. How easy would it have been for the farmer to simply walk away from his devastated fields? For the convict to have given up hope?
The use of imagery is exquisite, illuminating themes, showing how the past impacts, intercedes in, and informs the present.
Every night, the moon rose from here, and fell, and shattered. And then built itself back up again.This certainly stands in well for the challenge of all these characters, forced as they are to reconstruct lives after the world has caused them so much disruption. The quote at the top of this review offers another wonderful image. Luring bees with honey then following them back to their nest, taking the steps one can take, however many may be needed, to reach your goal, whether the location of a hive, a home, or something else. A tree grows through the skull of a corpse, offering a (perhaps grim) reminder that life continues, creating a future by feeding on the past.
These are very moving tales, as rich with hope, tenacity, and sweetness as they are with loss, disappointment, and sadness, personal tales told against a backdrop of a nation’s history. The Hive and the Honey is an outstanding literary short-story collection, well deserving of all the award buzz it has been receiving. What could be sweeter?
economic reasons.”During the pandemic, Yoon says, “we were all scattered. I was separated from friends and to cope I imagined a kind of map. We were all in different places, but we were all part of one world. That got me thinking about the family tree, thinking of that as a map as well. This was the seed of the collection: the movement of a country and its people.” - from the Louisa Ermelino PW interview
THE STORIES
Bosun - a Korean man, just released from an upstate New York prison, tris to make a life for himself in a small community nearby.
Komarov - A refugee from North Korea is working as a cleaner in Spain when she is approached by Korean agents to spy on a Russian boxer they believe to be her son.
At the Post Station - Two 17th C. samurai accompany a Korean boy, who had been held hostage all his life, to Korean officials who will take him home.
Cromer - The children of escaped North Koreans, a middle-aged couple in London consider their life choices when a 12yo runaway boy happens into their convenience store.
The Hive and the Honey - A young Russian soldier is charged with overseeing a Korean settlement in remote eastern Russia. Things get out of hand when there is a killing, then another.
Person of Korea - When the uncle with whom he had been living dies, a 16yo boy travels to find his father, a security guard on an island off the east coast of Russia.
Valley of the Moon – two years after the Korean War a man returns home to a devastated, vacated farm, and tries to bring it back to life. He takes in two orphans and has a difficult, life-changing encounter with someone looking to cross the border.
Review posted - 02/09/24
Publication dates
----------Hardcover - 10/10/23
----------Trade paperback - 3/14/24
I received an ARE of The Hive and the Honey from Simon & Schuster in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.
This review is cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi!
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Paul Yoon’s personal site
Profile – from Wiki
Paul Yoon (born 1980) is an American fiction writer. In 2010 The National Book Foundation named him a 5 Under 35 honoree.Interviews
Early life and education
Yoon's grandfather was a North Korean refugee who resettled in South Korea, where he later founded an orphanage. Yoon graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1998 and Wesleyan University in 2002.
Career
His first book, Once the Shore, was selected as a New York Times Notable Book; a Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Publishers Weekly, and Minneapolis Star Tribune Best Book of the Year; and a National Public Radio Best Debut of the Year. His work has appeared in the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories collection, and he is the recipient of a 5 under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation. His novel, Snow Hunters, won the 2014 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. His 2023 story collection, The Hive and the Honey, was named a finalist for The Story Prize.
Recently a part of the faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars, Yoon is now a Briggs-Copeland lecturer at Harvard University.
-----Publishers Weekly - In Seven Stories, Paul Yoon's New Book Spans 500 Years of Korean Diaspora By Louisa Ermelino | Jul 07, 2023
-----The Pen-Ten Interview - Paul Yoon | The PEN Ten Interview by Sabir Sultan - October 12, 2023
-----The New Yorker - Paul Yoon on the Korean War’s Aftershocks by Cressida Leyshon – about Valley of the Moon
-----Publisher’s Weekly - Paul Yoon’s Haunted Geographies by Conner Reed
-----LitHub - Writing as Transformation: Who Paul Yoon Needed to Become to Finish His Book by Laura van den Berg (Yoon’s wife)
December 31, 2023
4+
The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon is a brilliantly penned collection of seven stories set across varying time periods and continents exploring the experiences of the Korean diaspora, touching upon themes of identity, displacement, the migrant experience, loss and regret.
In Bosun, we follow a South Korean immigrant who, after a short stint in jail, begins working in a casino in Canada. (4/5) Komarov(5/5) revolves around a North Korean defector, a resident of Barcelona who travels to a small hill town on the Costa Brava to meet a Russian boxer who might be the son she left behind. Set in the Edo period, At the Post Station(4.5/5) follows a samurai who is tasked with escorting an orphan boy to his own people. We meet a Korean couple, both children of North Koreans who settled in London, whose chance meeting with a young Korean boy leaves an indelible imprint on their lives in Cromer(3.5/5) Set in 1881, The Hive and the Honey(5/5), a young man soldier posted at a Korean settlement in Russia, chronicles a bizarre incident in a letter to his uncle. In Person of Korea (4/5), we meet a Korean teenager who travels to e remote Russian island from his home in East Russia after the death of his uncle to find his father whom he has not seen for over five years and who works as a prison guard. After two years in a refuge settlement, a man returns to his native village to lead a reclusive life until two orphaned children join him, unaware of his violent streak in Valley of the Moon.(4/5)
Sparse prose, compelling characters, and varying themes make for a powerful and thought-provoking mix of stories. Each of these was impactful and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection. This is my first time reading Paul Yoon and I can’t wait to explore more of his work.
Many thanks to Simon Element and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The Hive and the Honey was published on October 10, 2023.
Connect with me! ✏ Instagram ✏ My Blog ✏ The StoryGraph
The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon is a brilliantly penned collection of seven stories set across varying time periods and continents exploring the experiences of the Korean diaspora, touching upon themes of identity, displacement, the migrant experience, loss and regret.
In Bosun, we follow a South Korean immigrant who, after a short stint in jail, begins working in a casino in Canada. (4/5) Komarov(5/5) revolves around a North Korean defector, a resident of Barcelona who travels to a small hill town on the Costa Brava to meet a Russian boxer who might be the son she left behind. Set in the Edo period, At the Post Station(4.5/5) follows a samurai who is tasked with escorting an orphan boy to his own people. We meet a Korean couple, both children of North Koreans who settled in London, whose chance meeting with a young Korean boy leaves an indelible imprint on their lives in Cromer(3.5/5) Set in 1881, The Hive and the Honey(5/5), a young man soldier posted at a Korean settlement in Russia, chronicles a bizarre incident in a letter to his uncle. In Person of Korea (4/5), we meet a Korean teenager who travels to e remote Russian island from his home in East Russia after the death of his uncle to find his father whom he has not seen for over five years and who works as a prison guard. After two years in a refuge settlement, a man returns to his native village to lead a reclusive life until two orphaned children join him, unaware of his violent streak in Valley of the Moon.(4/5)
Sparse prose, compelling characters, and varying themes make for a powerful and thought-provoking mix of stories. Each of these was impactful and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection. This is my first time reading Paul Yoon and I can’t wait to explore more of his work.
Many thanks to Simon Element and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The Hive and the Honey was published on October 10, 2023.
Connect with me! ✏ Instagram ✏ My Blog ✏ The StoryGraph
September 21, 2023
Paul Yoon has become one of my favorite authors to seek out. His writing while poetic and haunting, carries weight and even his cruelties aren't gratuitous. This is the third book of his that I've read, and I'm always surprised at his choices. Here there are seven stories in which he continues exploring underlying themes of diaspora and trauma, misunderstandings fostered by cultural differences, attempts at blending in. As I've made clear many times before, a well written collection of stories can be more challenging than a novel of equal length since it requires more work, but in this case, each story is worth the effort. If I were to single out just one, I believe it would be Cromer, but this is that rare instance when each story is a winner.
October 20, 2024
This collection of 7 short stories from the very talented Paul Yoon is about Korean people of different ages displaced from their home and family. In an interview I read with him he said he is interested in this subject because his family too was displaced and he doesn’t know what happened to many of them.The stories are set in different periods from edo period Japan to recent times when an inmate in upper NY state gets paroled. Stories are set in Russia and Spain, England, and Korea too. The KGB is involved in one story; His writing is simple and he captures beauty tied to nature or animals or farming and a father touching his son’s hand after a five year separation. He evoked beauty in one of his characters and she felt so alive Each story is unique and he surprised me a lot by the turns he made. There was a lot of surprises of kindness in them and also some violence. One person was so kind until he drank. All of the people are everyday people and Paul Yoon brings their uniqueness out and makes them so real. It speaks to loneliness when ther is no family and how people create families in unique ways. I really enjoyed these stories. The placement of the stories brings a continuity to the collection. He has written about the Korean diaspora and to trauma before in his book The Mountain. It was intense. This is not like that. It’s a different view of the Korean diaspora
March 23, 2023
I realized while reading my third Yoon book, “Snow Hunters”, that he might be my favorite writer at the prose level. “The Hive and the Honey” confirms it. Such stunning, sparse language, minimalism with incredible power.
There are unforgettable images in these stories: a mechanized shooting star over the sea, a shattering moon, a butterfly hovering above a hot spring.
It’s a short collection that’s incredibly expansive, covering a swath of history to explore diaspora, identity, and belonging. I loved all of these stories.
There are unforgettable images in these stories: a mechanized shooting star over the sea, a shattering moon, a butterfly hovering above a hot spring.
It’s a short collection that’s incredibly expansive, covering a swath of history to explore diaspora, identity, and belonging. I loved all of these stories.
October 31, 2023
This is my first time reading Paul Yoon and I truly enjoyed his writing. My favorite stories were Komarov and Cromer.
Komarov made me smile big time, it not only features a North Korean in Barcelona, but also in la Costa Brava (where I’m from) - it’s my first time seeing it mentioned in a book. It was a nice read but it was all ruined because it referred to Barcelona as Spain five times and it didn’t mention the local language or Catalonia, which is yikes personally speaking. Idk why I keep expecting people who write about characters in Barcelona or surrounding areas to at least refer to how we don’t speak Spanish but oh well, that would be too hard.
Speaking generally, I found every story different enough and truly well written, but they had no oomph. I liked the themes in the stories: hyphenated identities, family, the Japanese occupation, etc. They were interesting but they felt a bit inconsequential if that makes sense. I have been meaning to pick up Snow Hunters for ages, so I’m hoping to like his novel-length writing more.
Komarov made me smile big time, it not only features a North Korean in Barcelona, but also in la Costa Brava (where I’m from) - it’s my first time seeing it mentioned in a book. It was a nice read but it was all ruined because it referred to Barcelona as Spain five times and it didn’t mention the local language or Catalonia, which is yikes personally speaking. Idk why I keep expecting people who write about characters in Barcelona or surrounding areas to at least refer to how we don’t speak Spanish but oh well, that would be too hard.
Speaking generally, I found every story different enough and truly well written, but they had no oomph. I liked the themes in the stories: hyphenated identities, family, the Japanese occupation, etc. They were interesting but they felt a bit inconsequential if that makes sense. I have been meaning to pick up Snow Hunters for ages, so I’m hoping to like his novel-length writing more.
September 23, 2023
Seven stories set over centuries and ranging across continents that explore Korean displacement, shared history, identity, alienation, and the effects of war. Lean and spare, the historical stories apparently hewing close to truth, it's a fascinating collection, mingling the extraordinary and the ghostly with the ordinary, the natural world often at play, the prose striking in its simplicity.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci Books and Netgalley for the ARC.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci Books and Netgalley for the ARC.
November 15, 2023
by no means badly written but i found yoon's storytelling rather flat. the scenarios explored in these various stories had the potential to be compelling slice-of-life type of narratives but the execution struck me as stiff. short review to come.
July 23, 2023
It was so hard to put this book down!! Paul Yoon did a brilliant job in captivating my attention in each story. The book is compromised of sections that offer a small glimpse into the lives of each character, but don’t end leaving you feeling like you’re missing out. While I would have loved to read a full novel on each one of these sections, I felt that they ended in a way that you could just accept that you were only meant to know a piece of their lives. A quick, interesting read that I would recommend to others.
September 8, 2024
3.5/5
What I loved
-great writing. It’s hard to describe- his style feels textured but not over manufactured (does this make sense lol)
-each story uses a central plot to move forward. Such a tough thing to do in short stories but Yoon does it amazingly
-covers lesser known Korean history and the long history of displacement
What didn’t quite work
-I have trouble extracting the deeper meanings from several stories. His points get lost for me and I couldn’t quite interpret the messages. Maybe there isn’t and I’m just overthinking?
-I adore the craft and the actual reading experience. But there’s just something not quite connecting for me 😅
What I loved
-great writing. It’s hard to describe- his style feels textured but not over manufactured (does this make sense lol)
-each story uses a central plot to move forward. Such a tough thing to do in short stories but Yoon does it amazingly
-covers lesser known Korean history and the long history of displacement
What didn’t quite work
-I have trouble extracting the deeper meanings from several stories. His points get lost for me and I couldn’t quite interpret the messages. Maybe there isn’t and I’m just overthinking?
-I adore the craft and the actual reading experience. But there’s just something not quite connecting for me 😅
April 16, 2024
Ehh, I wanted to like this collection more than I did, especially considering that Yoon focuses on the Korean diaspora. Something about the writing didn't really stick with me, though I didn't hate this collection or anything! (Might write more on this later.)
October 9, 2023
I like Paul Yoon's work. And I prefer the longer form of a novel in general and for his writing.
This collection of 7 short stories is good and it's certainly unique. Each story depicts a Korean in diaspora as well as across time. I liked "Komarov" and "The Hive and the Honey" the most in this set. Unlike reviews where I advise against reading each story sequentially, I think you can readily distinguish each story here as each is significantly different.
Yoon's writing style and tone possess an understated quality. It's consistent throughout this book. One could describe it as gentle or calm. While reading this title, I thought often of Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping and particularly how the climax in Asian stories is arrived at differently from Western ones.
Thanks to Simon Element for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This collection of 7 short stories is good and it's certainly unique. Each story depicts a Korean in diaspora as well as across time. I liked "Komarov" and "The Hive and the Honey" the most in this set. Unlike reviews where I advise against reading each story sequentially, I think you can readily distinguish each story here as each is significantly different.
Yoon's writing style and tone possess an understated quality. It's consistent throughout this book. One could describe it as gentle or calm. While reading this title, I thought often of Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping and particularly how the climax in Asian stories is arrived at differently from Western ones.
Thanks to Simon Element for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
May 5, 2023
Gorgeous, haunting, powerful.
April 5, 2024
Rating is partially because Paul Yoon is a king. I enjoyed these, some more than others. All deal with Korean diasporas at various times in history and in life. Paul Yoon does textures really well— the stories have a lot of complexity. Was not a fan of the diaristic nature of the Edo one and the Hive and the Honey, though— it almost always ends up feeling clunky/written rather than a natural entry, because let’s be honest no one wants to read someone’s actual diary entry, it’ll lack key context. (Still searching for a piece that plays w form that carries off this diary entry format well though, Hernan Diaz came p close)
Bosun — so gentle. The eye to ordinary detail, the sketch of the rise and fall of emotion, everything. Gorgeously imagistic.
Komarov — like this one a bit less but still, the delivery of the secret was delicious. confused about Kye and Tak though.
At the Post Station — a little disappointed by this, I feel like it’s rare to see historical fiction so far in the past in short stories, so I was really excited about a Paul Yoon take on an Edo-era setting. This one was just alright, pretty simple. Plot was rather boring.
Cromer — also okay, neat but not breathtaking
Hive and the Honey— namesake piece, a (surprising) ghost story / diary entry. He accomplishes his task but loses something as well. Actually rather complicated when I think about it. But not a fan of the form.
Person of Korea— read this in the Atlantic back when it was initially published. I actually didn’t remember much from my initial read and this was not what I expected. Very tight and polished. Father-son relationship.
Valley of the Moon— my fave of the collection, read this in the New Yorker. So imagistic and an amazing POV change in the middle. The story gets pieced together from Tongsu and Eunhae’s perspectives — Eunhae picks up where Tongsu leaves off, in a way. Executed in a way that makes me wonder how he did it.
Bosun — so gentle. The eye to ordinary detail, the sketch of the rise and fall of emotion, everything. Gorgeously imagistic.
Komarov — like this one a bit less but still, the delivery of the secret was delicious. confused about Kye and Tak though.
At the Post Station — a little disappointed by this, I feel like it’s rare to see historical fiction so far in the past in short stories, so I was really excited about a Paul Yoon take on an Edo-era setting. This one was just alright, pretty simple. Plot was rather boring.
Cromer — also okay, neat but not breathtaking
Hive and the Honey— namesake piece, a (surprising) ghost story / diary entry. He accomplishes his task but loses something as well. Actually rather complicated when I think about it. But not a fan of the form.
Person of Korea— read this in the Atlantic back when it was initially published. I actually didn’t remember much from my initial read and this was not what I expected. Very tight and polished. Father-son relationship.
Valley of the Moon— my fave of the collection, read this in the New Yorker. So imagistic and an amazing POV change in the middle. The story gets pieced together from Tongsu and Eunhae’s perspectives — Eunhae picks up where Tongsu leaves off, in a way. Executed in a way that makes me wonder how he did it.
May 13, 2024
Made me fall in love with short fiction all over again. Bosun, At the post station, and the Valley of the moon were exceptional short stories. Most of these stories deal with alienation and coming to terms with the weight of your actions, and the author very deftly brings to life the worlds of these stories. Even though they're set on wildly different stages: New England, Edo-period Japan, or near the rural, mountainous part of the Korean border - all these stories seem believable. In my experience so far, Korean literature had always been steeped in Korea, the country. These stories speak to the reader on a much deeper, more human level.
December 15, 2023
A good collection. However, I didn’t enjoy most of the stories.
June 25, 2024
Two best stories in the collection:
- At the Post Station
- Valley of the Moon
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I do not understand what she ever saw in that man, but I understand the marriage was an opportune one in many other ways. I confess that if I had had a child close in age to marriage, I would be remiss if I ever pretended to be uncertain over which was the clear choice for a secure, lasting future: a lord or samurai. I neither begrudge the life she chose nor do I begrudge mine. It is a great privilege to have spent my time in my lord's service with her nearby, inside the same castle walls, to spot her so often walking down a long hallway toward me in deep discussion with a visitor or a tutor and feel the joy it always brings me to step aside for her and bow. P. 54
- At the Post Station
- Valley of the Moon
----------------------------
I do not understand what she ever saw in that man, but I understand the marriage was an opportune one in many other ways. I confess that if I had had a child close in age to marriage, I would be remiss if I ever pretended to be uncertain over which was the clear choice for a secure, lasting future: a lord or samurai. I neither begrudge the life she chose nor do I begrudge mine. It is a great privilege to have spent my time in my lord's service with her nearby, inside the same castle walls, to spot her so often walking down a long hallway toward me in deep discussion with a visitor or a tutor and feel the joy it always brings me to step aside for her and bow. P. 54
June 9, 2024
Beautiful writing, haunting stories, yet -and I know that is how it’s supposed to be- yet, I can’t feel like many stories were left hanging, more than purposefully unfinished.
February 23, 2024
Stunning.
May 21, 2024
The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon is a collection of short stories of the past and present. The stories are really different from one another and you just can't expect how the story will go. An interesting book that I finished in one sitting.
I honestly am not a huge fan of the stories set in the past. The present, however is quite fascinating. If I have to choose a favourite and one that I find most impactful is the second story, Komarov.
All in all, I'm on the fence for this one so I don't highly recommend it nor do I dislike it either.
I honestly am not a huge fan of the stories set in the past. The present, however is quite fascinating. If I have to choose a favourite and one that I find most impactful is the second story, Komarov.
All in all, I'm on the fence for this one so I don't highly recommend it nor do I dislike it either.
July 19, 2023
[arc review! thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review]
“the hive and the honey” is a collection of seven short stories all following diasporic communities with a particular focus on japanese and korean individuals all over the world, and shares the complexities of the lives of these individuals impacted by war, displacement, and trauma.
this was such an amazing collection of short stories—possibly the best i’ve read to date. while in other short story collections i often have ones i love and ones i don’t, but there genuinely wasn’t a single story here that i wouldn’t have rated at least 4 stars individually. there was so much humanity throughout this novel, with themes of identity, grief, loss, family, war, love, and so many more weaved throughout. the prose, as well, was fantastic. it was captivating. in all honesty, i’m not one to spend too much time on detailed descriptions of landscapes and scenery or anything, but yoon’s writing had me holding on to and spending time with every word.
if i were to pick out of the stories, my favorites would definitely be bosun, komarov, and person of korea; but literally *all* of them were phenomenal. i highly recommend this collection, and i will definitely be seeking out more of paul yoon’s work in the future!
“the hive and the honey” is a collection of seven short stories all following diasporic communities with a particular focus on japanese and korean individuals all over the world, and shares the complexities of the lives of these individuals impacted by war, displacement, and trauma.
this was such an amazing collection of short stories—possibly the best i’ve read to date. while in other short story collections i often have ones i love and ones i don’t, but there genuinely wasn’t a single story here that i wouldn’t have rated at least 4 stars individually. there was so much humanity throughout this novel, with themes of identity, grief, loss, family, war, love, and so many more weaved throughout. the prose, as well, was fantastic. it was captivating. in all honesty, i’m not one to spend too much time on detailed descriptions of landscapes and scenery or anything, but yoon’s writing had me holding on to and spending time with every word.
if i were to pick out of the stories, my favorites would definitely be bosun, komarov, and person of korea; but literally *all* of them were phenomenal. i highly recommend this collection, and i will definitely be seeking out more of paul yoon’s work in the future!
July 16, 2024
3.5 I would say I liked the writing and the stories but I agree with some others that they tend to fall a little flat or have not much of an impact I guess. But I liked them for what they are which feels more like thought experiments
October 22, 2023
Portraits of the Korean diaspora. Each story a whisper of a different time, the reader feels like an intruder, along for the ride. Hauntingly beautiful, you feel like the stories trail off into the mist just as you begin to warm up to them. Yoon has crafted something wonderful.
March 8, 2024
Perhaps recency bias, but "Valley of the Moon" was my favorite story from this collection.
Ultimately, I can recognize this as objectively good, and the intimate interweavings of the diaspora experience as a throughline for these narratives was masterfully done. The humanity of every character was stark. However, I think I just didn't connect as well with the writing style. The language was often short and to-the-point, opting away from lingering in the moments and instead moving on, beat for beat, often entrusting readers to know the depth of emotional responses without actually engaging with them in the writing. Ultimately, this was a point of personal preference--it's a short collection and an accessibly read, and I can imagine many people would have an excellent time engaging with this work.
Ultimately, I can recognize this as objectively good, and the intimate interweavings of the diaspora experience as a throughline for these narratives was masterfully done. The humanity of every character was stark. However, I think I just didn't connect as well with the writing style. The language was often short and to-the-point, opting away from lingering in the moments and instead moving on, beat for beat, often entrusting readers to know the depth of emotional responses without actually engaging with them in the writing. Ultimately, this was a point of personal preference--it's a short collection and an accessibly read, and I can imagine many people would have an excellent time engaging with this work.
February 9, 2024
The Hive and the Honey is a collection of short stories by Paul Yoon about the Korean diaspora, which I think I need to know much more about in order to thoroughly enjoy these works. As is the case with most short story collections, the stories were uneven in quality, but I enjoyed the “Bosun,” “At the Post Station,” and “Valley of the Moon” most. Yoon’s writing is beautiful and haunting, and the stories I named are definitely worth reading and possibly assigning as readings in a world literature or Asian literature course.
March 10, 2024
The short stories in this book left me feeling unfulfilled. Not one of them gave me any sense of completion at all. I don’t always need completion in life, but sometimes having a satisfying gives me those warm, fuzzy feelings that feel nice on a cool, windy day such as today. The only completion I got out of this book is that it eventually ran out of room and ended. I now need to go and contemplate life.
April 19, 2024
Absence, loss, separation, and displacement are the common themes in this collection of beautifully written but uniformly melancholy stories. Yoon displays an impressive range in his characters and settings, but tonally one might wish for a bit more variety. Still, each story makes an impression in its own quiet but compelling way.
May 28, 2024
I liked this collection of short stories. They were short enough to complete in a sitting, and long enough to develop character, plot, and relationship. They were about places and situations completely unknown to me, which I appreciate. The stories were intriguing and complex. For the most part they didn't have tidy endings, and I'm quite fine with that, but if you aren't, you probably wouldn't like this book.
December 2, 2023
The seven stories are spare and dour, tales of displaced loners, lives affected by war, poverty, political turmoil. A few are set in North Korea, and present an uncommon locale, places of desolate beauty, cruelty and kindness. Intergenerational trauma is a theme that courses through most tales of diaspora, and it pulses beneath the surface of these tales. The fate of lineage is interrupted, dead bodies are buried by the side of the road-- there is significant carnage--a visceral extension of psychic tolls.
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