A lot has happened in Korea during the past 100 years. From the Japanese occupation to the Korean War, to rapid industrialization to the attainment of democracy, the pace of change has been such that few have taken pause to reflect upon the hiccups and missteps that occurred along the way. Indeed, whole chapters of history have remained unanalyzed for the simple reason that they coincided with more momentous events. In situations such as these, a nation must rely (more heavily than usual) on the conscience of a master chronicler such as Yi Mun-Yol.

On the surface of things, Yi’s highly acclaimed novella, Our Twisted Hero, is about a young boy’s struggle to cope with the changes brought on by his family’s relocation to a remote country village. But, as with much of Yi’s writing, nothing is exactly as it seems.

Despite his tender age, the protagonist of Our Twisted Hero, Han Pyong-Tae, regards himself as a pure Seoulite: sophisticated, shrewd, urbane. In short, everything his country classmates are not. As such, he has fixed notions about where he ought to fit in his new social milieu. Though acutely aware of being a big fish in a small pond, Pyong-Tae is determined to take his rightful place at the head of the class. However, his intentions are thwarted by Om Sok-Dae, an adolescent nemesis of uncommon wit and cunning.

Om Sok-Dae runs the classroom like a mini fiefdom in which vassals must swear their uncompromising fealty in order to secure his good graces. This strikes Pyong-Tae as more than a little absurd, and he resolves to defy the status quo and find his own way. Little does he realize what a lonely a road his will be. In the months that follow, he goes from being a neglected outsider to a victim of unrelenting persecution. However, when Pyong-Tae begins to attribute what are obviously accidents to the long arm of Om Sok-Dae, we begin to question if these are not the imaginings of a paranoid mind.

Although he holds out for the better part of a term, in the end Pyong-Tae is forced to submit to the existing power structure that runs the school. It seems that Om Sok-Dae’s sovereignty will endure forever. However, when a new teacher takes charge of the class, the tenuousness of his grip on power becomes all too apparent. Revolution sweeps the classroom, and the era of absolute rule comes to an end only to be replaced by a council committee, section and subsection heads, a chairman, a vice-chairman, a monitor, a vice-monitor, a treasurer, and numerous other positions that bring confusion to the class.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Yi Mun-Yol has resisted the temptation to gloss over the failures the nascent democracy. In Our Twisted Hero he has given us an honest appraisal of nation’s struggles to effectively wield its newly-acquired political freedom. While it may be hard build consensus around any one interpretation of the story, all would agree that the repeated injunction to ‘never bend to unjust power’ makes this a uniquely Korean cautionary tale.

                Elton LaClare