After my introduction to Yi Mun-yol a while back via some free online works, I was keen to move on to some more of his well-known books. Luckily, I stumbled across one in the university library, a short book, but one which had been recommended by several people. It's a story which looks back to the narrator's school days, but the reader always has the sense that there's a lot more to it than that...
*****
Yi Mun-yol's Our Twisted Hero (translated by Kevin O'Rourke, published by Hyperion East) is a short work, but one which is extremely powerful. It begins with Han Pyongt'ae, an intelligent twelve-year-old from Seoul, moving to the provinces after his father is transferred at work:
"It's been nearly thirty years already, but whenever I look back on that lonely, difficult fight, which continued from spring of that year through the fall, I become as desolate as I was at the time."
p.5 (Hyperion East, 2001)
The cause for this depression is not so much the move as his experiences at his new school. Where Pyongt'ae is used to a hierarchical structure based on academic excellence, things are very different outside the big city. The teacher introduces him with a few mumbled words, leaving the new boy bewildered and struggling to find his feet.
Before long, though, he realises that the teacher is of minor importance in his new environment. The true centre of power is the class monitor, Om Sokdae, an older student who holds the sixty students of the class in the palm of his hand. Pyongt'ae, horrified at the despotic nature of Sokdae's control, decides that he will stand up to the older boy, hoping to attract others to his side. However, he soon discovers that power has a way of making others dance to its tune...
The strength of Our Twisted Hero is Sokdae, an imposing figure who towers above his younger classmates. He is cunning and powerful and has used his talents to impose himself, creating his own unchallenged fiefdom within the walls of the classroom. However, when Pyongt'ae attempts to stand up to him, he is careful to avoid using his fists to beat down the small newcomer - but why should he? With five-dozen followers to take care of the dirty work, Sokdae doesn't need to lift a finger...
You would expect that the teacher might be the one to stand up to the class monitor, but the reality is that he is content to use Sokdae to make his own life easier. Interestingly enough, even Pyongt'ae realises that he may be onto something with this:
"The more I examined Sokdae the more clearly I saw that the teacher's reasons for having to trust him were verified time after time. Our class under Sokdae was a model for the whole school. His fists were more effective than the perfunctory disciplinary control of any on-duty teacher or sixth grade prefect in keeping the boys from eating sweets or breaking any other petty school regulation." (p.30)
When Pyongt'ae does try to alert him to what's going on, the teacher is no match for the code of silence Sokdae has ingrained in his loyal followers, and it's the outsider who comes off worst once again.
Of course, the main issue here is that while Sokdae's rule is highly effective and productive, that doesn't necessarily make it right. The students are suffering under a mass delusion, believing that as long as they kowtow to the monitor their lives will be easier, whether or not that's morally acceptable. It's a perfect example of 'groupthink', with the boys happy to bow to the status quo. What they fail to realise is that every dictatorship, even Sokdae's, has its expiry date...
While Our Twisted Hero is primarily the story of a brutal schoolyard, there is also an obvious allegorical use to the story. The novella is discussing the world of violence and brutal political regimes in general, while also attempting a (slightly) hidden attack on the strict right-wing government of the South Korea of the time. With a hostile Communist neighbour just over the border, South Korea experienced decades of autocratic rule, and it is this might-is-right tendency that Yi Mun-yol is criticising in his book.
The story is also rather Kafkaesque in the way it focuses on an outsider thrust into an unreasonable situation. As much as Pyongt'ae struggles, he does it mainly within the status quo, accepting the existing structure by the very nature of his struggle. Moreover, all too soon he is tempted to embrace the enemy:
"Although the end of
the fight had been all too hollow and my submission all too simple,
nonetheless the fruit of submission was sweet." (p.70)
Here we move from Kafka to Orwell, with definite shades of 1984 in the temptation of enjoying the peace and the rewards of giving in.
Our Twisted Hero is an excellent book, a clever story, almost a single-sitting read yet thought-provoking and intriguing. By the end, we find ourselves wondering just who is meant by the title - the enigmatic Sokdae or the rebellious Pyongt'ae (you could really make a case for either of them). The reader, in their comfortable armchair, might find themself thinking that they would have acted differently, but the truth is that this is the way things nearly always go. Even when they don't, as Pyongt'ae and his classmates find out, matters don't necessarily change for the better. In reality, revolutions are often just a matter of exchanging one yoke for another...
As I mentioned in my recent post on Kim Young-ha, there's a lot of free (short) Korean fiction out there, and it's a good way to get a taste of a writer's work. I'm taking that route again today, with five short pieces by an excellent contemporary writer, Yi Mun-yol, but first there are a couple of people to thank. The first is Charles Montgomery, the host of the indispensable blog Korean Literature in Translation (always your first stop for sourcing some free stories). The second? Well, that's Brother Anthony of Taizé (An Sonjae) - translator extraordinaire, and the man responsible (as far as I'm aware) for bringing all of today's works into English :)
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The first story, 'An Appointment with his Brother', would probably be my recommendation as a first step into the writer's fiction. It's a short novella which follows a South Korean professor on a trip to an autonomous Korean region in China, right on the North Korean border. His father moved to the North when he was a child, and a new acquaintance offers to arrange a secret meeting on the Chinese side of the border. Sadly, by the time the arrangements have been made, the father has passed away, and the man Professor Lee eventually meets is none other than his younger half-brother...
Naturally, the two initially struggle to find common ground, despite their uncanny physical resemblance, but they eventually manage to let their guard down a little. Eventually, they are able to make a trip to a nearby mountain, where they are able to bid farewell to their father properly, together. It's a touching scene, a brief moment snatched from the realities of the Korean divide.
One of the fascinations of the story is the cultural divide that has sprung up between the North and the South, and it's not quite as an ignorant westerner would expect it to be. Lee comes across as brash at times, looking down on his half-brother for having neglected certain customs, while the Northener is quick to take offence. When he sees the alcohol and chestnuts the Southener has brought for the funeral rites, he is quick to point out that they have those things in the North too.
The writer (whose own father left for the North) also uses the story to talk about possible reunification. In a conversation at the hotel, he addresses the practicalities of the idea:
"Well, what do you think of in connection with 'unification'?"
"The first thing I think of is how we can feed the twenty million hungry people, and how we can make North Korea even superficially resemble the South."
It's refreshing to see a discussion of the subject that doesn't revolve around war and nuclear bombs...
*****
Moving on, I next read a few shorter pieces. 'Winter that Year' is a brief story where a man looks back at a time spent working at a country inn, a tale that looks at local government corruption and the lot of the Gisaeng (Korean Geisha). 'The Old Hatter', on the other hand, looks at the passing of traditional customs in the country, focusing on a hatmaker unable to adjust to modernisation. It's a story with a sad ending, an allegory for what was lost in the great push towards modernity.
The third short piece is actually an extract from a novel. In the first chapter of 'Son of Man', we are thrown into a murder mystery, where a local detective is investigating the murder of an unknown traveller. I've heard good things about the novel, but this first chapter is rather prosaic and wouldn't really entice me into reading the whole thing. If anyone out there has read the book, please let me know what the truth of the matter is ;)
*****
My favourite piece, though, was another novella, called 'Garuda' (AKA 'The Golden Phoenix). It's the story of a master calligrapher on his death bed, a man looking back at his life in an attempt to weigh up its worth. Much of the story is an attempt to come to terms with the fraught relationship he had with his own master, whose differing views on art led to conflict:
"Was their meeting truly doomed by evil fate, as Master Sokdam had said? Even after accepting him as a pupil, their strange relationship had continued unchanged."
Despite our friend Kojuk's unique talent, Master Sokdam never truly accepts him as a real artist. As Kojuk nears the end of his life, he begins to wonder if his mentor was right...
In addition to being an excellent story about a clash of strong wills, 'Garuda' also looks at the nature of artists and the way in which art demands sacrifice. Kojuk is shown as a selfish, thoughtless man, abandoning his wife and children to roam the country displaying his talents - and abandoning himself to pleasure:
"What held him firmly captive in that time of profligacy and dissipation was the strange vicious circle between that awareness and the sense of futility. Base pleasures stimulated his sense of futility, and the futility called forth further pleasure."
While he enjoys himself, reaping the rewards of years of painstaking practice, others (including his master) suffer the consequences of his neglect.
It's a beautifully-written story, and one which reminds me more than the others I've read of Japanese literature, possibly because of its focus on traditional arts and customs and the lack of any political edge. 'Garuda' (which is the name of a mythical golden-winged bird) shows us the impossibility of achieving perfection in art and the sacrifices which have to made in seeking it - a story well worth reading :)
*****
Overall, then, I've greatly enjoyed my first taste of Yi Mun-yol's work, and I already have my next one lined up. At some point, I hope to try his highly-regarded novel The Poet to see if his longer work is as good as his shorter pieces. Yes, the year of K-Lit will continue very soon ;)
