Human Decency

The narrator is tortured by her abandonment of political purity and she brings that angst to her assignments. In this Manichean construction she meets Gwon Ogyu a “noble” rebel and also Yi Minja, who has spent an international life. The narrator both loathes and loves (but mainly loathes) Yi, and in this struggle seems to argue that anything modern is, in fact a way, to spurn Korean history and society.

The narrator also goes into paroxysms of some sort when she works on foreign subjects, sliding into the false dualism that sometimes characterizes the Korean view of the “outside” world:

I wondered how the people in those countries could have such bright faces, faces devoid of guilt and apology. How could the drink beer every day with salad and fruit slices? How could they go around so proudly in such expensive clothes?

In other words, how could they not be Korean? That this is the real issue is clear in the question, “How could they drink beer every day with salad and fruit slices?” which is ludicrous in most western countries. But it goes on:

What the hell am I doing here looking at slides of exotic foreign food? My friends, the friends I had so passionately declared my love for, had they even tried such food? Would they ever ride in the family car and practice good housekeeping by eating those foods?

The food Gong calls “exotic” include spaghetti, thousand island dressing, and lettuce wrapped sausage. This is Korean exceptionalism of the silliest kind.

It continues, when the reporter has to find some shady place to hide, it is a traditional Korean hostess bar, but of course it is marked as evil by its sign, “Western Liquor – beer.”

When the present comes, of course, all the “true” rebels are dead or sold out – a convenient Manicheism that is often used in literature; kill a few rebels so they can never be seen turning into businessmen or spaghetti salespeople.

Gong’s argument is a “one true path” one. While Yi Minja is a Korean version of a hippie archetype I personally loathe, Gong’s relentless contrast of Yi to Gwon is both one-sided and excludes any other options.

And of course, the symbolism has to be facile in parallel, with the journalist who prides herself on naming her articles instantly naming the one and struggling with the other. The article on Gwon, of course, will be the one named “Human Decency.”

The second story here, Dreams, is similar, with a single female journalist as narrator. The title is ironic, as the dreams turn out to be nightmares from the past, and visions of the hopelessness of the future. The narrator of Dreams is also a survivor, if that is the correct word, of the political activism of the 80’s and if anything more at a loss than the narrator of the first story. She goes fishing with some old friends, both failures of a sort, and while they are supposed to be on a fishing trip, it ends up being something more like a shared bath in a tub of despair.

This sort of story was handled far better, and with much more subtlety, of course, by Ch’oe Yun, in Grey Snowman.

This makes Yi Mun-yol the first Korean fiction writer to be published in the New Yorker.

The good news is that the New Yorker has also interviewed translator Heinz Insu Fenkl in an article that is open to the public and describes the story as:

is set in an isolated village in the mountains, where the narrator is taking up her first post as a teacher.

Fenkl is a brilliant interview subject, veering between detailed descriptions of the “physiognomy of names,” to larger issues including  “themes of division, estrangement, and the search for connection,” themes common to Yi Mun-yol as well as much other literature from authors of his age.

Throw in a little biographical detail and you have a piece well worth reading.

Fenkl also mentions something I’ve been aware of for a bit, that he is about to publish a new version of Yi’s classic Meeting With My Brother, which had previously been published under the Jimoondang/KLTI imprimatur with the name An Appointment With my Brother and was reviewed on KTLIT here.

Even better, he is hard at work on a translation of Yi’s Hail to The Emperor, which he describes as:

a novel permeated with arcane knowledge like Hermann Hesse’s “Magister Ludi” with the tragic and epiphanic elements of “King Lear” and set in Korea and Manchuria with references to Taoism, Shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism

Here is an interesting video podcast from Arirang  called Globalization of Korean Literature (with a script). The authors it focuses on are  Shin Kyoung-Sook  and Han Gang.

Gang says:

“Literature is an art through language… and language by nature seeks communication. As an author, it is such a pleasure that my literary works are read in other countries.”

I am also interested in the dismissive attitude the videos seems to hold towards Kim Young-ha and Yi Munyol (where’s the respect?) and its silly emphasis on training competent translators. How about paying more for the competent translators that are out there? And then marketing the books right?

Kim Joo-youn the  President of the Literature Translation Institute says:

“Through translation, world readers can share our literary legacies.  We will keep strengthening our translation projects in the future.”

And the good news is that he seems quite serious about this.

In any case, I was ecstatic to get through the whole piece without hearing anyone mention the Nobel Prize for Literature!^^

Check it out.

Shin Kyung-sook

An  article in the Korea Times in which Shin Kyoung-sook says that foreign readers are inspiring her to write more:

“I didn’t think of foreign readers until my book was printed in English. But now after meeting my fans in other countries, I feel foreign readers have given me a strong energy for my next works,” Shin said at a press conference on Monday.

This is a bit of a change from things she has previously said, in which she kind of minimized the role of foreign readers, or said that she wanted to write essentially “Korean” things. This may have to do with her smashing success, in two ways. First, after the tour she may actually be energized enough to simple mean it!^^  Second, she might now have become enough of a domestic hero to admit an overseas focus – where some previous authors have received domestic criticism for being too “international.”

If she is at all concerned about the latter problem, she does a brilliant job of inoculating herself against the possible charge:

The author realized that Korean literature seems to be fresh to other countries and its status is bigger than we think. “They seem to be looking for an alternative in humanity and community spirit which is richly expressed in Korean literature,” she said.

“I’ve heard the power of literature has dwindled in Korea over the last 10 years. But when I was outside, I felt the power of Korean literature is very dynamic and powerful. Many are interested in it.”

Either way, or neither way if I am speculating well out of my league, it’s good news, because another hit is needed to begin to cement her position as a canonical author, and that’s what Korea needs to get it’s foot in the door of international literature.

And, if you happen to be in Brisbane next week:

Shin will participate in the Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF) from Sept. 7 to 11 in Australia as the only Korean author invited.
BWF is introducing her as “Korea’s national living treasure” and “one of South Korea’s most widely read and acclaimed novelists.”

So, if you’re in Brisbane, drop by and check her out – there is more information at the BWF website.

With a bit of this and that, it is now this lovely page:

As far as I can tell, Park has had nothing translated into English, but if someone was willing to put the page up?

I’m willing to make it wiki-quality.^^

Park Min-gyu, 삑민규

Park Min-gyu, who The Translator and I have begun to work on, was not on the Wikipedia. He kind of is now…
WHAT I STILL NEED TO KNOW IS:
Exact birthdate of Park Min-gyu
Complete info on the Yi Sang Literary Awards — this would make cross-linking in the Wikipedia so much easier!

Park Min-gyu (born 1968) (Hangul: 박) is a South Korean writer.

Life

Park Min-gyu was born in Ulsan, a city in the very southeast of South Korea in 1968. ^[1] He graduated from Chungang University. He published his first novels. Legend of the world’s superheroes (Chigu yongung chonsol) and The Sammi Superstars’ Last Fan Club (Sammi syuposuta oe majimak paenkullob), in 2003 and these works earned him the Munhak Dongne New Author Award and the Hankyoreh Literary Prize for the same year^[2]. His short story Raccoon World (Komawo, kwayon neoguri-ya) was included in the 2005 Yi Sang Literary Award Collection. ^[3]

Park’s most clearly evident characteristic is his keen, often absurdist sense of humor, which always works in the service of his stories, and never overwhelms them. The world Park describes is the global capitalist one, in which human lives and souls have little impact other than as commercially available entities. His characters are often financially attenuated and have little or no prospects.^[4]

Park is famous as a writer and a character, as he affects very long hair and often wears unusual sunglasses that border on goggles.^[5] Park’s most recent novel, Ping Pong, was published in 2006.

Work

Works in English

Works in Korean (Partial)

Legend of the world’s superheroes
The Sammi Superstars’ Last Fan Club
Ping Pong
Raccoon World
Chattering Dragons
Sponge Cake

References

Yun Dae-nyeong

Yun Dae-nyeong’s Between Heaven and Earth is a story of such tenuous plotting that it threatens to disintegrate as it is read. It begins with a disjointed introduction in which the narrator, using semi-rhetorical questions, directly addresses the reader as though the reader were questioning the narrator. In the course of doing so, the narrator answers one of the questions, “I don’t know why I followed her. I just followed her blindly, even though I didn’t know where she was heading.” Unfortunately, that could be a metaphor for the plot here, which doesn’t even bother to be driven by coincidence, instead random things, impulsively chosen, just happen. The narrator is completely unmoored, and the introduction ends with a paragraph that tries to bring it back, a matter-of-fact accounting of the place the narrator stands.

In the next chapter, we are flipped back to the start of the story. The narrator is on the way to pay respects to a dead aunt and bumps into (his shoulder into her stomach, somehow?) a woman who he quickly identifies as marked with death, although it later turns out to be that she is marked by betrayal. On this premise, he follows her from Gwangju to Wando, and then walks behind her for an hour and a half to an inn. By this time a reader is completely aware of Yun’s clunky obsession with the color ‘milky’ white, which stands for (contrary to the commentary on the back of the book) death. The narrator has elliptical conversations with the innkeeper, full of ellipses, hops and vague portents that never seem to add up to much or come to conclusion. It is in one of these conversations that the innkeeper gives the book its name when he asks the non-sequitur question, “Is there any trace left when a man goes in between heaven and earth?” It is all intended to be very mysterious, but instead comes across as silly and insubstantial.

Both the narrator and innkeeper are convinced the woman is suicidal, and throughout the narrator keeps claiming the woman had intentionally drawn him with her. When, finally, a suicide does come, it is random and unrelated to the story. Then the woman crawls in his bed. Then she reveals she has been betrayed in love. Then they have sex. Then she leaves after telling him she had been planning to commit suicide because she was 4 months pregnant by a man that left her. She says this sex will erase her past life and give her reason to live. Then she leaves. Then he leaves. There are a few more plot twists explained by the innkeeper. Then the man leaves.

It is all so random that it became a chore to read, as it was clear that there would be no destination, and the journey wasn’t worth reporting on. I should note two possibilities that might explain this without putting any blame on the author or story:

1) It is quite possible this is a book that is impossible to translate accurately and so delicacy in Hangul is replaced by obscuration and attenuation in English
2) This is a genre for which there is no equivalent in English writing (Like the “seasonal bucolic” and “pundan munhak,” both of which seem quite popular in Korean, but don’t have a place to land in English.

There are slight translation problems, sentences that contain multiple thoughts (though, to be fair, this can be a feature of Korean writing) and odd word choices and structures:

My mother had gone to pay our respects. This would have been considered acceptable, even though I myself did not go but when I thought of my aunt I felt it was not really true.

I’m guessing the narrator is saying here that it is not true that his absence would be “considered acceptable?” That doesn’t entirely make sense, since he says it would have been acceptable. He also goes immediately on to say that he goes to the funeral because of past consideration of the In any case, the construction of the sentence is quite awkward and it obscures meaning.

Or

“I stopped opening the rear door of the taxi, and as if someone grabbed me by my collar, I retreated hesitantly.”

Which seem to be from two entirely different physical encounters. It is always possible, of course, that this is a “faithful” translation. If so, this is one of those books for which a small bit of betrayal might have been a tonic.

With its gossamer story, intentional lacunae, and plotless-ness, Between Heaven and Earth is not redeemed by its often labored use of color as a symbol, or its occasional well-turned phrase. This is one of the few Jimoondang non-pundan munhak publications that I really can’t recommend.

It used to look like this (complete with “stub” warning):

Stubbed!

Now is this strapping page (reproduced in “small-o-vision” to fit the page here):