Almond: A Novel - Won-Pyung Sohn (Translated by Sandy Joosun Lee)
- page ix | Location 86-87 | Added on Tuesday, 28 October 2025 14:21:57
neither you nor I nor anyone can ever really know whether a story is happy or tragic.
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Meanwhile, as her love came to an end once and for all, I, the uninvited guest of their young love, was being completely forgotten.
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When we walked farther away, I looked up to see Granny with her lips pressed tight. “Granny, why do people call me weird?” Her lips loosened. “Maybe it’s because you’re special. People just can’t stand it when something is different, eigoo, my adorable little monster.” Granny hugged me so tight my ribs hurt. She always called me a monster. To her, that wasn’t a bad thing.
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Mom started worrying that I might have a low IQ, but there was no other proof of that. So, like any mother, she tried to find a way to cast her doubts about her child in a positive light. He’s just more fearless than other kids.
- page 23 | Location 270-273 | Added on Thursday, 30 October 2025 13:15:57
Mom blamed stress during her pregnancy, or the one or two cigarettes she had smoked in secret, or the few sips of beer she couldn’t resist in the last month before her due date, but it was obvious to me why my brain was messed up. I was just unlucky. Luck plays a huge part in all the unfairness of the world. Even more than you’d expect.
- page 43 | Location 434-435 | Added on Thursday, 30 October 2025 15:30:29
Books took me to places I could never go otherwise. They shared the confessions of people I’d never met and lives I’d never witnessed. The emotions I could never feel, and the events I hadn’t experienced could all be found in those volumes.
- page 43 | Location 440-442 | Added on Thursday, 30 October 2025 15:31:04
But books were different. They had lots of blanks. Blanks between words and even between lines. I could squeeze myself in there and sit, or walk, or scribble down my thoughts. It didn’t matter if I had no idea what the words meant.
- page 59 | Location 573-579 | Added on Thursday, 30 October 2025 17:32:51
Thousands of times a day, I asked myself question after question until I went back to square one and started all over again. But I had no answer to any of them. I even shared my questions with some policemen and a therapist, who listened with worried expressions, who said I could tell them anything. But nobody could give me answers. Most stayed silent, others tried to answer but gave up. I knew why. It was because no one had the answers. Both Granny and the man were dead. Mom would be silent forever. So the answers to my questions were gone forever, too. I stopped asking my questions out loud. Mom and Granny were gone, that much was clear. Granny was gone in both body and soul, and as for Mom, the only bit of her left was her shell. Now nobody would remember their lives except me. That was why I had to survive.
- page 64 | Location 595-596 | Added on Thursday, 30 October 2025 18:26:55
I asked her to give me some time. But it didn’t mean I would actually think it over during that time. I just needed time.
- page 73 | Location 683-684 | Added on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 16:17:42
Your mom was the type of person who made everyone around her happy.”
- page 73 | Location 686-687 | Added on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 16:18:31
If somebody was sad for my sadness, then I should be happy. The principle that two negatives made a positive.
- page 78 | Location 737-738 | Added on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 16:34:21
It was incorrect to say I was fine to her question yesterday. You can just leave me alone. That was what I should’ve said.
- page 82 | Location 780-785 | Added on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 17:07:48
“Parents start out with grand expectations for their kids. But when things don’t go as expected, they just want their kids to be ordinary, thinking it’s simple. But son, being ordinary is the hardest thing to achieve,” he said. Looking back, Granny must’ve wanted an ordinary life for Mom, too. But Mom didn’t have it. Dr. Shim was right—being ordinary was the trickiest path. Everyone thinks “ordinary” is easy and all, but how many of them would actually fit into the so-called smooth road the word implied? It sure was a lot harder for me, someone who was not born ordinary. That didn’t mean I was extraordinary. I was just a strange boy wandering around
- page 83 | Location 787-789 | Added on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 17:30:02
My advice to you is this: remember that the brain grows. The more you use it, the better it becomes. If you use it for bad, you’ll grow a bad brain, but if you use it for good, you’ll have a good brain. I heard certain parts of your brain are weak. But if you practice, you can make them stronger.”
- page 85 | Location 804-808 | Added on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 17:34:21
But on second thought, hunches aren’t usually just randomly felt. The brain subconsciously sorts your daily experiences into conditions or results and keeps a growing record of them. And when faced with a similar situation, you unconsciously guess the outcome based on that data. So a hunch is actually a causal link. Just like when you put fruit into a blender, you know you’ll get fruit juice. The way he looked at me gave me that kind of a hunch.
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Mrs. Yun lay there, surrounded by flowers like she was already inside a coffin.
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There is no such person who can’t be saved. There are only people who give up on trying to save others.
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Shim used to be a heart surgeon at a big university hospital. He performed many surgeries, and the results were great. But while he was busy looking at other people’s hearts, his wife’s heart started to ache. She went speechless, but he still had no time to look after her.
- page 127 | Location 1163-1165 | Added on Sunday, 9 November 2025 10:16:13
To borrow Granny’s description, a bookstore is a place densely populated with tens of thousands of authors, dead or living, residing side by side. But books are quiet. They remain dead silent until somebody flips open a page. Only then do they spill out their stories, calmly and thoroughly, just enough at a time for me to handle.
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“I mean, you and me, maybe someday, we might become people we never imagined we’d be.”
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And May was the month that always reminded me I was different from the rest of the world. Everything on the earth glittered, vibrantly. Only me and my bedridden Mom were stiff and gray, like an eternal January.
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That’s what practice can offer—miracles and also limitations.”
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But basically, all he plans is to pour concrete over my life and construct a new building of his own design. But I’m not that kind of a person . . .”
- page 162 | Location 1498-1509 | Added on Sunday, 9 November 2025 11:24:05
I could see Gon’s face reflected in hers, though I hadn’t known back then. “She looked like you.” “I saw her pictures but I couldn’t see the resemblance,” Gon scoffed. But then he asked, “Which part?” He looked straight at me with glaring eyes. I superimposed my memory of her face on his. “The eyes. The outline of your face. The way you smile. Your eyes drooping at the corners when you smile, making dimples.” “Shit . . .” He looked away. “But she saw you and thought you were me.” “Anybody would do the same in her shoes.” “But she must’ve tried to find her features in your face.” “What she said to me was meant for you.” “What—what were her last words?” “She just hugged me. Very tight.” Gon shook his head. Then as if he could hardly get the words out, he whispered, “Was it warm? Her arms . . .” “Yes, very warm.” His shoulders, which had been hunched and still, gradually sank. His face turned wrinkly like a deflated balloon. His head slowly hanging low, his knees buckled. His body was shaking, his head sunk down against his chest. There was no sound, but I knew he was crying. I looked down at him, saying nothing. I felt like I’d become uselessly taller.
- Your Note on page 162 | Location 1509 | Added on Sunday, 9 November 2025 11:24:35
becoming uselessly taller
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Gon was the simplest and the most transparent person I’d met in my life. Even a dunce like me could see through his mind. He often said, We have to be tougher in this tough world. That was the conclusion that his life had led him to.
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We couldn’t possibly resemble each other. I was too numb and Gon didn’t admit he was vulnerable. He just pretended to be strong.
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People said there was no way to understand Gon. I didn’t agree with them. It’s just that nobody ever tried to see through him.
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I also thought of the stories of people who forgave the unforgivable after hearing just three words: “I love you.” From what I understood, love was an extreme idea. A word that seemed to force something undefinable into the prison of letters. But the word was used so easily, so often. People spoke of love so casually, just to mean the slightest pleasure or thanks.
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Gon cleared his throat. “I think love is bullshit, pretending to be all grand and everlasting and everything. It’s all a bluff. I’d rather be tough, none of that soft shit.” “Tough?” “Yeah, tough. Strong. I’d choose to be the one hurting rather than getting hurt.
- page 178 | Location 1608-1611 | Added on Sunday, 9 November 2025 12:05:58
Dora was usually surrounded by people and ate with a group. The groups weren’t always the same. She wasn’t a loner but she wasn’t necessarily attached to certain friends, either. She didn’t seem to care who she ate with or who she walked home with. Sometimes she was by herself. Still, she wasn’t bullied and never looked out of place. She seemed like someone who could exist on her own.
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Mom was a person who could find constellations even from a dizzy wallpaper.
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People’s eyes light up when they talk about things they love. Dora’s were radiant.
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“What do your parents want you to do?” “No idea. Before, they said if I wanted to be an athlete so much, I should play golf because at least it has a chance of making money. But now, not even that. They just tell me not to embarrass them. It was their choice to have me, but that doesn’t mean that I have to accomplish the missions they’ve set up. They keep threatening me that I’ll regret this, but even if I do regret it, that’s my choice to make. I think I’m just living up to my name. They named me Dora, so I guess I just have to be a dorai, a ‘freak.’”
- Your Bookmark on page 187 | Location 1703 | Added on Sunday, 9 November 2025 13:56:05
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Dora found beauty in everything. She found nature’s magnificent work and incredible symmetry in a turtle’s carapace, or a stork’s egg, or an autumn reed from a swamp. How wonderful, she would often say. I understood the meaning of the word, but I could never feel the splendor it carried.
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I wanted to tell her about my small ember before it went out.
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I was also looking down. Her shoelaces were untied. One end was hiding under my shoe. “You’re nice. And you’re normal. But you’re also special. That’s how I understand you.” Dora looked up, her cheeks flushed. “Am I,” she whispered, “qualified to be in your story now?” “Maybe.” She laughed. “That’s not a good enough answer.” Then she skipped out the door. My knees gave up and I slowly slumped down. My head had emptied of thoughts, filled only with racing pulses.
- page 217 | Location 1955-1960 | Added on Sunday, 9 November 2025 14:29:42
Yes. I know. That Gon is a good kid. But if someone asked me to talk about him in more detail, I’d only be able to say that he beat me and hurt me, he ripped apart a butterfly, he set his face against the teachers, and threw things at my classmates. That’s how language is. It is as hard as proving that Leesu and Gon are the same person. So, I simply said, “I just know he is.” Professor Yun smiled at my words. The smile lasted for about three seconds and suddenly broke. Because he started crying again. “Thank you, for thinking of him that way.” “Then why are you crying?” “Because I feel sorry I couldn’t think of him the same way.
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If you think about it that way, then it would’ve been better if Gon had never been born. Because, more than anything, he wouldn’t have had to feel so much pain and loss. But everything loses its meaning if you think that way. Only purpose remains. Barren.
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When I came to, the intensity of pain was so strong. Strong enough to wonder why the human body was designed to endure so much of it. Painful enough to think it was unfair that I still hadn’t fully shut down.
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you are too full of emotions. I think you’d rather make a good artist or a musician,”
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Gon had often asked me—what it was like to be fearless. What it was like to feel nothing. Even though I struggled to explain every time, he always came back and asked me the same question.
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I do not know how this story will unfold. As I said, neither you nor I nor anyone can ever know whether a story is happy or tragic. It may be impossible to categorize a story so neatly in the first place. Life takes on various flavors as it flows. I’ve decided to confront it. Confront whatever life throws at me, as I always have. And however much I can feel, nothing more, nothing less.
