It has been classified as part of the East Asian magical realism movement by multiple reviewers and compared it to the works of Charles Dickens.
[2][3][4] Whale tells the story of three characters: Geumbok, a woman seeking to relive the thrill of seeing a whale crest in the ocean; Chunhui, Geumbok's daughter who has the ability to communicate with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls bees by whistling.
Christian House called the novel a "distinctly Korean take on Great Expectations" in a review for the Financial Times.
[3] House further identified the "sins of mothers" and Geumbok's unwillingness to live a mundane life as themes of the "[Korean] contemporary classic".
[3] The judges for the International Booker Prize said "Whale is a rollercoaster adventure through Korean history and culture, a magical and grotesque epic about life and death, liberty and self-fulfilment [sic], dried fish and bricks.