A Contrived World
Set in San Francisco, A Most Contrived World recounts the author's visit to the mythic Californian city. While the novel is based in this real experience, the narrator's imaginative reflections cause the narrative to balloon outward into the realms of fiction and fantasy. Each chance encounter provides an opportunity to unfurl a fictional world that simultaneously complements and compromises the real world. In this mirthful anti-novel, the ambiguous fusion of observation and invention disrupts the conventions of personal memoir and travel writing, resulting in a chronicle that sets fiction against experience.
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Far more conventional than his prior book Vaseline Buddha, Jung Young-moon revisits some familiar themes with his expansively tangential storytelling. Diarrhea, dwarfs, suicide, and unusual things floating past appear again along with him plotting revenge on mayonnaise, kicking pebbles down hills and a tense standoff with a seven year old girl over a discarded love seat.
He'll meander for a page or two, musing on the nature of penises then tell a story of a monkey visiting the north pole or something perhaps a little more plausible like dropping fruit off the Golden Gate bridge then admit it never happened. Still, it's a bit easier to get your bearings with this one.