The next stop on my cruise through the history of Korean literature is the latest book from my recent visit to the local university library. It's a book which comes highly recommended (e.g. by Charles over at Korean Literature in Translation), and having read it, I can see why. A great collection of stories, this is definitely a book more people should be aware of :)
*****
Wayfarer - New Fiction by Korean Women is a 1997 anthology from Women in Translation Press, edited and translated by (of course) Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. It introduces eight female writers from South Korea, each represented by one story. Originally released between 1974 and 1994, the stories are a representation of the influence female writers are having on Modern Korean Literature.
The title comes from a story from O Chong-hui (and an excellent one it is too) about a woman trying to rejoin society after a traumatic incident. However, I won't say too much about it here as it was one of the stories I featured in my post on the Modern Korean Fiction anthology earlier this year, and one that piqued my interest in female writers from the country.
Even if we overlook O's story, though, there are several other great pieces, with a few common themes. One of those is the struggle women have with gender roles, with So Yong-un's excellent 'Dear Distant Love' being a prime example. It features a woman obsessed with a no-good lover, a man who walks all over her (and took her daughter away soon after the birth). Yet somehow she still feels a need to treat him as a (Korean) husband should be treated:
"Before Han-su could knock on the door, Mun-ja recognized the sound of his steps and went out to welcome him. She helped him off with his coat, she removed his socks, she brought a basin of hot water and washed his feet, and each of these objects turned the color of gold."
'Dear Distant Love', p.125 (Women in Translation Press, 1997)
It's a twisted tale, and poor Mun-ja is a martyr to her no-good lover, a woman who believes that no sacrifice is too great for the man she has decided to devote her life to...
A shorter story is Kim Chi-won's 'Almaden', which describes the life of a Korean woman at a bottle shop in New York. The story alternates between the dull description of her work routine and her fantasies of the rugged man who comes in every day for a bottle of cheap wine. Almaden (her name for the man, but actually the brand of wine he drinks) comes to be a symbol of escape from everyday life, representative of the life she'd like to lead if only she dared.
A more subtle approach is provided by a writer I've encountered a couple of times before, namely Ch'oe Yun. In 'The Last of Hanak'o', a man on a business trip to Italy attempts to pluck up the courage to meet up with a female friend from his younger years. As the story evolves, events of the past are revealed, slowly emerging from the mist:
"It is forbidden to venture near the canal railing on stormy days. Take precautions in the fog, particularly the winter fog... Then enter the labyrinth. And bear in mind, the more frightened you are, the more lost you will be."
'The Last of Hanak'o', p.11
These words start the story, taken from a sign near the Grand Canal, but they could just as easily refer to the man's struggles to come to grips with the past. This one is a wonderful tale of men struggling to deal with women for who they are, a story with a nice (if fairly obvious) twist in the tail.
Not all the stories are as good, though. Two later pieces which look at the role of housewives are the weakest of the eight (perhaps I'm not the right reader for this kind of story). Kong Son-ok's 'The Flowering of Our Lives' looks at a woman struggling to come to terms with her relationships with her mother and daughter, preferring drinking to looking after her daughter. Meanwhile, Park Wan-suh's 'Identical Apartments' provides another typical tale of a housewife dying of boredom, never satisfied, whether living with the in-laws or moving into a new apartment. Once again, as I've discovered several times before, Park's privileged whinging proves not to be to my taste...
However, the remaining stories are much better, and the final two summarised here have a more political edge. Kong Chi-yong's 'Human Decency' portrays a magazine journalist working on two different stories: one is on a former artist, a beauty who has written a book on meditation; the other deals with a recently released political prisoner. This second assignment brings back memories of the journalist's own time as a protester in the 1980s:
"How single-minded we children of the 1980s were to believe that right would triumph whatever the circumstances; how firmly we grew up believing that justice would win out in the end."
'Human Decency', p.75
The question here is which story she should prioritise in a country that would prefer to forget the past...
There are more politics on show in Kim Min-suk's 'Scarlet Fingernails'. In this one, a woman gets to meet her father for the first time after he has spent decades in prison for being a suspected spy from the North. It's an excellent story looking at the problem of guilt by association, an issue which was only recently resolved. Many of the family members resent the prisoner, not because of the years he's spent away from them, but for the shadow he has nevertheless cast over their dreams and ambitions.
Even if not all of the stories were to my taste, Wayfarer is a great collection, one I'd definitely recommend. Some similarities in style are evident across the stories, one being the gradual reveal, switching between the present-day setting and pivotal moments of the past to colour in the whole picture (perhaps the influence of O Chong-hui on later writers). There's also sterling work, as always, by the Fultons, including an introduction giving a background of female writing throughout Korean history. While I would have enjoyed more stories (eight is a fairly small selection), the overall quality is unquestionable - Wayfarer is well worth a read and a great first step into the area of female-written Korean fiction :)
With 2014 seemingly becoming the year of Korean literature here at Tony's Reading List, I'm continuing my look at Dalkey Archive's Library of Korean Literature. Today's choice is from a very well-known and popular writer, and after a few novels, this time we're looking at a collection of short stories. What's it all about? Well, many things, but mostly it looks at growing old in a changing society - and the problems this entails...
*****
Park Wan-suh's Lonesome You (translated by Elizabeth Haejin Yoon, review copy courtesy of the publisher) contains nine longish stories focusing primarily on issues the elderly face in modern-day Korea. From love in life's twilight years to dealing with the in-laws, Park examines the way changing traditions have left the older generations adrift, at the mercy of relatives who no longer feel quite as much veneration for the elderly as was previously the case.
Several of the stories look at the realities of striking up new relationships at an advanced age. The opening story, 'Withered Flower', sees a widow meet a handsome widower on a coach journey back to Seoul, gradually developing a close friendship with him. However, there are a couple of obstacles in the way. One is the determination of overbearing family members to push the two into marriage; the other is slightly more personal:
"I strutted out of the bathroom into the adjoining bedroom naked - moments like this undoubtedly being one of the perks of living alone . I threw a small towel under my feet to catch the water dripping from my body and reached for the phone. Then I froze in mid-action. Who was that hideous old woman? I almost screamed out loud at the reflection in the mirror."
'Withered Flower', p.26 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2013)
It's an unwelcome reality check for a woman who prides herself on her appearance...
The title story, 'Lonesome You', takes a slightly different look at the topic as it explores the life of a couple who have virtually separated. Meeting at their son's graduation, the two escape from the son's girlfriend's interfering parents, ending up alone together for the first time in a while. Initially the wife is repelled by the man she is tied to by law, but she gradually starts to realise why he has turned out as he has and the extent of his sacrifices for the family. While his actions may have angered her at times, she comes to realise that he was always thinking of what was best for his wife and their children.
Unlike the protagonists of these stories though, some of the elderly characters are dependent on their families, and the responsibility of caring for parents is a common theme running through the collection. In 'Psychedelic Butterfly', an old woman frequently shuttled between her children's houses runs away, and the children feel guilty about their inability to decide what to do:
"This world was too, too small, and allowed all kinds of associations. One could always find a link, however remote, among relatives, school friends, and hometown acquaintances. Even a bottom feeder and a top dog were connected in some way, if one searched hard enough."
'An Unbearable Secret' (p.97)
It's this societal pressure which makes things so difficult. Everyone expects the eldest son to take on the responsibility of caring for a widowed mother, and when this doesn't happen, people start to talk...
This guilt is also prominent in 'Long Boring Movie', a story in which a woman recalls her mother's last days while planning her father's move to an apartment close to hers. In this story, her brother is constantly making biting remarks, tacitly accusing his sister of having an eye on his inheritance - despite the fact that he has no intention of looking after his father himself. This eldest son's pressure is actually mirrored in the father's behaviour as the daughter starts to think that his wandering eye may have stemmed from the pressure he felt as the head of the family.
A slightly different theme which appears in Lonesome You is the connection between Korea and the United States, with several of the stories featuring tales of emigrants in, or coming back from, America. 'Thorn inside Petals', a story of two elderly sisters, first looks at the bizarre behaviour of an elderly ex-pat before showing us how she made her way in the US. This sombre tale is nicely balanced by 'J-1 Visa', the light-hearted story of a Korean writer desperately trying to get a visa to attend a seminar in the US, one which turns into an amusing rant about colonialism...
There's a lot to interest the reader here, particularly in its view of a male-dominated, patriarchal society, but Lonesome You is certainly not my favourite of the series so far. For one thing, the stories tend to be overly long, unfocused and rambling. The nine stories are spread over 250 pages, and to be honest, you get the feeling that they would have been much better if they'd only run to 150. There were a couple of times when I was simply skim-reading to get back into the flow of the story, not something I usually do.
I'd also say that I wasn't overly convinced by the writing, whether that's the fault of the original or the translation. There were too many odd vocabulary choices, and at times it all felt rather stilted. As a whole, it didn't really flow, and there were a couple of stories (including 'A Ball-playing Woman') which I just didn't rate at all...
An interesting comparison to make here is with the undisputed Korean hit-in-translation of recent years, Shin Kyung-sook's Please Look After Mother. Lonesome You explores many of the same themes, and if you liked Shin's book, you may well enjoy this. Of course, as my regular readers will know, I hated it with a passion, so it's unsurprising that I didn't enjoy Lonesome You as much as some others might;)
Park may be a big name back in Korea, but I'm afraid her work isn't really to my taste. There's a lot more K-Lit coming this way over the next few months, but I think I'll continue my K-Lit odyssey with someone else's books...
