While reading the book, I suppressed the emotions rising up and looked into the distance.

[arte] Jaehyun Lee’s Coveted Book

Jeong Ji-don Literature and Intelligence, 2016
“Do you believe literature can save the world?”

I remember one day in 2015. I was on leave from the military, and I had bought a book of works that had just been published winning a literary award and was sitting on the bus reading it. I must have been passing by Seoul Station, and under the dark sky, tall buildings were emitting yellow light, completing a quiet and secluded night view.

The reason I remember that scene is probably because I suppressed the emotions rising up while reading the book and raised my head to look into the distance. At that time, this sentence was repeated in my mind: Yes, I was waiting for something like this. The book in my hand that day was <2015 6th Young Writer Award Collection of Winning Works>, and the novel I was reading was .

In the 1960s, unlike now, the flower of art was architecture, and students who were bright and full of emotion at each high school chose architecture and went to college. It was a time when various architecture magazines were created and architects who studied abroad were appearing, so there were also forgotten architects. He must have known Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, but we talked about why their ambitions and dreams remained so old and shabby, and Cho Gyu-yeop talked about what it would be like to include fictional sketches and photos in the fictional biography I wrote as a designer. .

This novel, which deals with the last imperial son of the Joseon Dynasty, Lee Gu, covers Lee Gu’s biography in fragments, crossing borders and traversing various proper nouns and events of the time in an unpredictable manner. However, what was important to me was not the proportion of fact and fiction mixed in the novel, but the fact that the novel was asking something.

Lee Gu, who was appeased by the military regime and returned to his homeland with the feeling of entering a tiger’s den, was unable to do anything and completely shut down his poor Korean. A modern novelist-narrator who delves into why the past generation’s grand dreams and plans for world change have collapsed, as if it is impossible to attach any affection to the modern era or the space called Seoul. looked coldly at the fact that art could no longer change the world, while asking whether that was really the case and whether it had no choice but to do so. I was pierced by that question and looked forward to Jeong Ji-don’s first book, and the following year, came.

“Do you believe literature can save the world?”

Jean believed that stupid questions were the only questions worth asking. This is because foolish questions, he said, have no answers or only wrong answers, thereby making the question a will rather than a question. For the same reason, I thought that such questions had ruined the world (and therefore the will disguised as questions should disappear), but Jang said that was why only such questions could have the power to save the world.

The impact of novels on the world is not achieved in a piecemeal manner. There is literature that harshly exposes the absurd reality, and there is literature that changes sensibility based on unfamiliarity by sharpening the aesthetic device of the artistic genre of the novel.

The former’s influence is broad and specific, but the format is simplified to do so. On the other hand, the latter is filled with skepticism and is confused, but is also free. However, the two directions were historically intertwined and interacted with each other. So what is important is that the present, the 21st century, is an era in which we have realized all the achievements of literature and, above all, its limitations.

focuses on anachronistic characters who believe in the power of literature or revolution in the 21st century, but the logic and ‘sense of reality’ of today that doubt and ridicule them is also clear. Even the novelist narrator, who delves into how those anachronistic characters were able to live like that, either does not believe in those ancestors or just dismisses them as beliefs from the past. But what is self-evident does not need to be said. Especially if it is to repeat criticism that everyone has already agreed upon and is repeating with their mouths.

At some point, the doubts of the novelist narrator, who looks back on the path that someone took with faith but failed, changes into desperation. I desperately search for clues on the vast beach with my fingertips, wondering if there is any way to save the present I am living in.

However, without finding any answer, he picks up the sand, seashells, cigarette butts, and unidentifiable pieces of metal and quietly looks at them. Perhaps the fact that he moved forward based on history rather than a completely fictional way of creating a new possible world was also the result of his own honesty and truth.

At a time when even the question of whether literature can change the world is considered a shameful anachronism, objectifies the self-deprecation that we cannot change the world through literature, rather than a declaration about which literature should be prioritized. We were re-posing the questions we had lost, transforming them to suit the present.

My favorite novel in this collection is “Pale Horse.” The revolutionaries of the 20th century, “Jang,” who were only thinking about “the time when everything seemed possible, about a world where infinite possibilities were open,” and living off those around them without a decent job, carrying out failed anachronistic sabotage. He travels to Russia where his girlfriend ‘Miju’ is located and finds traces of those he was pursuing, but gets caught up in various troubles and controversies. Russia and Korea, the mutual misunderstanding between those living in the 21st century and those who have left for the 20th century, the discord between each person’s tastes and dreams, the subtle tension exchanged with the men around his girlfriend, the gnawing self-loathing and anger toward the times, And the responsibility of art facing modern times. If a good novel leaves questions, I felt like I had taken on Jean’s legacy in the face of this novel’s powerful ending. I felt like I had to do something, something, and that the novel never ended.

Jang wrote that he intends to write a novel when he returns to Korea. The diary was littered with words such as Savinkov, Serge, revolution, snow, reaction, detention center, and Gepheu. At the end of his diary, Jang wrote: “The sentences burned brightly like fireworks caught in a field of pure white snow.”

Lee Jae-hyeon, domestic literature editor at Munhakdongne