Author: Fernando San Basilio
- Fiction
- Editorial Impedimenta
- ISBN: 9788415979623
- Release Date: 08-01-2016
-Reviewed by: Erin Elizabeth Gaston-Owen
The first word in the title says it all: chronicles. San Basilio’s Crónicas de la Era K-Pop provides a detailed account of trends and personality types found in South Korea’s latest craze of caffeine-driven consumerism, but the Seoul-based narration lacks the kind of “soul” capable of attracting broad U.S. readership. With each passing chapter this reader hoped to be drawn into the storyline or character development of the protagonist (Fernández) and myriad secondary characters. Unfortunately, by the end she found herself asking the same question Fernández poses on the last page: “Un momento. ¿Qué es esto?, ¿qué es todo esto?”
In Fernandez we have a character who carefully observes a society in transition and attempts to relate those observations to his own sense of identity.
Strong points and the research they surely entailed, the compilation of colorful settings (the backstreets and hot spots of Seoul and all sorts of funky coffee shops) and eccentric characters (an expert in neuro-marketing and consumer behavior, the owner of a second-hand clothing store, and foreign “floaters” just as lost as Fernández) just wasn’t compelling.
