In 1926 Hyon collected these and other stories in his Choson ui olgul (Faces of Korea). These slices of life in colonial Korea are peopled almost uniformly by individuals oppressed by forces beyond their control. This volume established Hyon as one of the fathers of Korean realist fiction, along with Kim Tong-in and Yom Sang-sop.  

"A Society That Drives You to Drink" (Sul kwonhanun sahoe), first appeared in Kaebyok in 1921. It is a passionate, if somewhat overstated, account of enlightened minds trying to overcome factionalism and other vestiges of traditional Korean society. It also reveals the plight of the great majority of Korean women who went unschooled and thus could not benefit intellectually from their country's modernization.  

 “A Society That Dries You to Drink” seems to have a focus on a domestic matter. However, Hyon-jin-gun tries to tell us his consciousness as an author by implying that the problem actually is derived from the society, and penetrating the relationships between the individual and the society. 

From the languages chosen (English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese) it is clear that the publishers intended to cast a very wide net. However, with the exception of the odd polyglot, only a small portion of the book will be accessible to any given reader. Although it seems an odd strategy from a marketing perspective, it is a clear affirmation of the high regard in which the story is held.

‘When Buckwheat Flowers Bloom’ follows the travails of an ageing market vendor by the name of Heo Saengwon as he struggles to scratch out a living as a member of a ragtag coterie of itinerant hucksters. The story opens with the misery of a failed market day in a nameless village. Neither Heo nor his two companions (Jo Seondal and Dong-i) have fared well, but rather than strike out for the next village, they elect to drown their sorrows at the local watering hole. It is here that a row erupts over a young(ish) barmaid who has taken the fancy of the luckless Heo Saengwon. Old and pock-marked, it is clear to all (including Heo) that he has little chance of winning the girl. As the spirits flow, the weight of this intelligence causes him to become belligerent to those around him, especially toward the much younger Dong-i who appears to be making some headway with the barmaid in question.

Tempers eventually cool, and the three men set out in caravan for the next village where they hope to have better luck. En route Heo relates the story of his one and only romance, which took place some 25 years before. In strikingly poetic terms, he describes how he came upon a lonely young woman sheltering in a watermill and how they took comfort in one another’s bodies among the profusion of blossoming buckwheat flowers.

It is these passages that likely inspired the publishers to choose this particular story from the more than seventy written by Lee Hyo-Seok during his lifetime. Although the techniques seem a little dated and the outcome entirely predictable, there is still pleasure to be derived from the quality of the sentences, which – according to the foreword – are sure to leave ‘deep and indelible impressions in the mind of the reader.’

Image taken from www.koreatimes.co.kr

Pak’s precocious intellect surfaced early in life and flourished throughout her school days. Upon graduating, she was granted a place in the Korean literature department of Seoul National University, a rare accomplishment for a woman of the time.  Sadly, she was forced to withdraw from the school at the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. In addition to putting an end to her studies, the War took a huge personal toll on Pak, claiming (in one way or another) nearly all of closest family members. One of her brothers died, and she became separated from her mother and other sibling, both of whom were captured and taken to the North.

The War and its aftermath feature prominently in her work to the extent that her writing is often referred to as being representative of pundhan munhak, which roughly translates as ‘the literature of national division’.  However, as one would expect of a writing career that spanned almost four decades, her choice of subject matter evolved over time. Pak’s more recent works honed in on the institution of the family, and – more specifically – women’s roles within it. Her writing demonstrates a fierce opposition to patriarchy and the other forces that conspire to hold women back from achieving their full potential.  Perhaps her most impassioned portrayal of the plight of women came in her 1993 novel The Dreaming Incubator, in which a woman is forced to endure multiple abortions in the hope that she will someday give birth to a male heir. Her final book was a collection of essays, entitled Roads Not Taken Are More Beautiful.

Perhaps to a greater extent than that of her contemporaries, Pak’s work permits readers an unobstructed view of what it means to be Korean. History, while never the main focus, is always there, informing the text and shedding light on the actions of the characters. The voice that delivered these insights was utterly unique and never predictable. Her shadow will loom over Korean literature for many years to come.

To read a review of Pak Wanseo’s Three Days in That Autumn, click here.

In Tower of Ants Choi In-Ho offers up a strangely detached central character – a man with seemingly no connection to society aside from his dead-end job as an advertising copywriter. Despite the fact that he is endlessly surrounded by his fellow drones, the story rarely reveals him in conversation with anyone other than the nameless women he drags home for meaningless sexual congress. The rabbit warren of apartments in which he resides serves only to emphasize the paradox of being alone among a crowd.

Encroaching on his isolation, however, is a colony of ants seemingly bent upon taking possession of the meager space he’s managed to carve out for himself. Although the man employs a variety of stratagems to rid himself of the pesky intruders, all are to no avail. Indeed, the ants seem to proliferate under his persecution, and it isn’t long before he is forced to entertain other options.

Like a number of the author’s other stories, Tower of Ants hones in on the theme of submission. Struggle is often regarded as an assertion of one’s humanity. Not so for the characters who populate the fictional world of Choi In-Ho. For these unlucky creatures, the cost of freedom is nothing short of absolute surrender.

Tower of Ants is the type of story that not only invites reflection on the meaning of existence, it insists upon it. The allegorical dimension is clear from the outset, and because of this it’s highly unlikely that any reader would to take the character’s struggle against the ants at face value. That said, however, there is room for differences of opinion as to what the outcome of that struggle is intended to tell us.

            Elton LaClare