Life Is Like Bitcoin
인생 마치 비트코인
Insaeng Machi Biteukoin
A sharp-elbowed young building manager who trades stocks and crypto by night finds the diaries of a woman who died alone in unit 403, and the past of the living and the dead begins to unfold.
Synopsis
After high school, the narrator moved up to Seoul. When the friend who came with him gave up and went home, he decided the only way to survive a sharp, pointed city was to become sharper and more pointed himself.
He lives and works in a six-pyeong room in an officetel building: by day he manages the residents, by night he trades stocks and cryptocurrency, and now and then he drives his used Mercedes to car-club meetups. He is proud of this life.
Then, cleaning out unit 403, he finds two diaries left by a woman who died alone. Through them the stories of him and her, of the living and the dead, begin to unfold. Like a coin chart, his days spike and crash; again and again he is offered a chance to connect and make peace, and again and again he fumbles it. The author calls it a novel about reconciliation, and invites readers to read it twice: its structure and its clues may lead to a very different conclusion the second time.
Why it works on screen
- A six-pyeong officetel room. By day he fields residents' complaints, by night he watches stock and crypto charts, and now and then he drives his used Mercedes to a car-club meetup.
- Two diaries left by a woman who died alone in unit 403. Korea's lonely deaths, godoksa, are where the mystery begins.
- An unreliable narrator. The author says a second reading may overturn the conclusion: a structure built for a film or series with a twist.