Against the backdrop of a secret society and hidden files, deliciously fantastic, skillfully paranoid, The Cabinet is as much a fable as it is a one-of-a-kind noir novel, pure Kim Un-su.
The narrator is a young guy, not very ambitious, rather slow, quiet. He hung around after his studies, time goes by, his thirties arrive when he finally gets a job, in a private laboratory. In fact, he has practically nothing to do, just receiving the daily arrivals. At first he is embarrassed, until he discovers that, roughly speaking, nobody does anything in this laboratory, except pretend to be busy.
One day he finds a cupboard closed with a combination lock. Out of sheer idleness, methodically, he will try to open it. And when he suddenly succeeds, he comes across some fascinating files. Some people consult a certain Dr. Kwon from the laboratory. But the “illnesses” of these people are anything but usual. One has a ginkgo growing on the tip of his finger, another makes abrupt jumps in time, a woman becomes several people at once.
And these files seem to interest a strange secret society, ready to do anything to get them back...
