http://book.naver.com/bookdb/book_detail.naver?bid=16405427 Dallergut Dream Department Store / Factory Nine / 2020.7.8 written by Lee Mi-ye. A book I came to read through a new-book reading group, it is a fantasy novel about dreams.
When people fall asleep they dream, and within the sleeping world they can buy that dream at a shop. The cost of the dream is paid with the emotion felt upon waking from sleep. Dallergut is the most famous of the shops that sell dreams, and through the eyes of a curious young person who comes to work there, the book explains dreams and the worldview of the sleeping world.
The very setting of a "country after falling asleep" was fun. At first I wondered whether the setting overlapped with Bernard Werber's novel "Sleep," but Dallergut Dream Department Store seems closer to fantasy or a fairy tale, and through an old tale within the novel called "The Story of the God of Time and His Three Disciples," it composes the characters with plausibility. The people who make dreams (dream makers) are like the wizards in Harry Potter.
Through this novel, the author unravels phenomena such as "conception dreams," "premonitory dreams," and "inspiration" by way of dreams. Because these are things we commonly encounter in our actual lives but cannot explain the reasons for, the author's interpretation comes across as plausible. In particular, the setting that Santa Claus is a dream maker was so ingenious it made me chuckle.
The book also lightly tosses out small pieces of advice about life. For example, the price of a "dream to overcome trauma" is "confidence" and "self-esteem." The value of a dream lies with the dreamer, and it is important to realize it oneself. The fact that behind past difficult and hard times also exists the image of oneself who overcame them... it tells through dream stories so that we can look at trauma from a new perspective.
Also, a dream maker with a disabled leg wins this year's grand prize with a "dream of becoming an eagle soaring up from a cliff" and says this. It is a good book to read at a brisk pace, but the message it holds is not light.
I recommend the mysterious Dallergut Dream Department Store. ★★★★☆