[Book Review] Cursed Bunny (2017)

Bora Chung’s bizarre and queasy short stories were nominated for the 2022 International Booker Prize and it’s no surprise why. Despite their brevity and oddness, these stories address the hidden (and not so hidden) horrors of capitalism, patriarchy, and insular communities.

Throughout the ten stories in this collection, Chung ranges from magical realism and fairy-tale to myth and science-fiction. However, horror runs through them all too, particularly body-horror which is an insidious presence throughout. Chung deftly moves between genres without losing her signature voice, an almost wry and detached style which is expertly crafted by the translator Anton Hur. The feeling of being held at a slight remove from the events of the stories is interesting for a horror collection. It may well take away from some of the more visceral horror  but it  also helps ground the stories rather than allowing them to become too fantastical. Such a feature is important for stories that are exploring the horror of real-life systems like capitalism and patriarchy, although it may disappoint readers who are looking for more extreme horror.

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The titular story is not in fact about psychedelic Watership Down-esque rabbits as the cover might suggest, although anyone who has seen the 1978 film adaptation would agree that this would be perfectly horrific. Instead, the cursed bunny in question is a ‘cursed fetish’, in this case a lamp shaped like a rabbit sat beneath a tree and complete with a realistic looking, soft, and inviting fur. The narrator’s family is from a long line of cursed fetish makers who sell to those who want to wreak havoc. It’s a classic curse-gone-wrong narrative with characters facing improbable accidents, failing businesses and grisly deaths as the bunny takes hold and renders them unable to care about anything else. There’s also a profound sense of justice running throughout as Chung utilises the revenge plot to detail a struggling family’s revenge against a corporate CEO’s exploitation. What makes this story particularly interesting is the sweet framing device of a grandfather telling his grandchild a story, making it reminiscent of all the best children’s fairy tales: dark, gruesome, and deadly.

One of the longest stories in the collection ‘Scars’ heavily draws on mythic conventions, dropping readers into an already established world where a young boy lives in a cave, tormented by a seemingly all-powerful being known only as It. It’s not known what It wants with the boy, nor what It does to him every time it arrives and consumes something from him, whether for sustenance or purely torture. The mythic quality of the narrative serves to universalise the story, exploring the scapegoat figure and how capitalist society relies on the exploitation and exclusion of those deemed unworthy, or even just those unlucky enough to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

‘Snare’ also explores capitalist exploitation, telling the story of a business owner and his children who produce gold in place of blood when they are cut. Like ‘Scars’ this story also has a mythic quality as no character names or locations are ever given, however due to the clearly modern setting it resembles urban legend. The story is a brutal and harrowing look at the lengths people are willing to go to preserve their wealth, status and lifestyle, with the conflation of precious metals with the human body suggesting that the most valuable resource for exploitation is human capital.

It's clear then that Chung’s stories cover a lot of ideas and feel fully complete despite their brevity. They are, on the whole, very satisfying stories - the reader is rarely left yearning for more. Yes, we might have questions or uncertainties, however this ambiguity adds to the horror as perfectly concluded stories would perhaps undermine the sense of dread inherent in all these tales.

While ‘Cursed Bunny’, ‘Scars’ and ‘Snare’ are all explorations of how power thrives off abuse in some form, this is not the only theme of the collection. Stories like ‘The Head’ and ‘The Embodiment’ are searing indictments against patriarchy and the constraints it places on women’s lives and expression, specifically ageing and childbearing. These also use body horror in a subtle yet superb way to illustrate the creeping encroachment of patriarchy into the very marrow of their female protagonists. Chung also tackles the hot topic of AI in ‘Goodbye My Love’ and puts her own spin on the haunted house story for economically uncertain times in ‘Home Sweet Home’.

Overall, Cursed Bunny is a fantastic collection that ranges across an impressive breadth of genres with ease and innovation. Brilliant for fans of Sayaka Maruta, Kate Folk or Carmen Maria Machado.

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