[Han Ki-wook] Fiction and Film in Popular Culture (2)
The Works of Kim Yong-ha * , Ha Song-nan, and Hong Sang-soo *
Translated by KIm Yoo-sok
2.
The characteristics of Kim's novels are already present in "Kour-e Taehan Myongsang" [Meditation on Mirrors; 거울에 對한 冥想], [8] his maiden work. In this short story, we encounter a married man and Ka-h?i, his unmarried mistress, looking for a suitable place for sex by the Han River one night. For a lark, they go inside the trunk of a discarded car. Whether intentionally or not, the woman locks them in. In other words, the couple now is trapped, with nothing to do but to await death. The author thus describes the situation: "We two were comic and tragic, the closest and the most distant, and could not get out of the hole though we had filled it." Indeed, this is the basic setting of Kim's fiction, for the trunk here is but a miniature of that vast yet closed space called metropolis. On the basis of such a situation, the author goes on to display an elaborate world of fiction through his witty style and speedy reversals.
Even as the couple awaits death, the woman attempts to make love to her paramour. While "sexual acts, repeated in pitch darkness," create a "grotesque atmosphere" and the man's "fear" toward the woman "gradually becomes sadistic," her words conversely turn into weapons that mangle his innermost thoughts. In the middle of coitus, the mistress suddenly says, "It's dangerous for me [to have sex] today. I'm ovulating." When he taunts her with the words "You still have strength left to make jokes?" she, bantering as ever, replies, "Why, it's fun. To get pregnant just before dying. Isn't that something? I wish it'd really happen. That would be killing you twice over, you and your kid." Kim's cynical language, which realistically captures the lingo of the new generation, is most effective in tragicomic situations like this one. It is as if the author were commanding us not to ask whether such words or acts are truly possible in extreme situations and simply to enjoy the outrageous circumstance and the piquant language instead.
In fact, without this originality, Kim's works would lose much of their charm. But this is not to say that they are constructed solely for such "original" effects, for the author does have serious messages in store for the reader. His ingenuity may be a bait intended to get these messages across effectively. In order to reach these messages, however, we must wander through a considerably tortuous labyrinth down the strata of human psychology. Another joy of reading Kim's fiction lies in watching him progress through those complex steps in a precise and adroit fashion, as if he were clearing successive stages in a computer game. In the short story here, the man has relationships with two women: Song-hyon, his chaste wife, and Ka-hui, his extramarital sex partner. Conveniently simplifying his two relationships―"If my wife was the waterworks, she [my mistress] was the sewer"―he believes that "[his] wife does not know of the existence of this sewer." But Ka-hui's language soon and ruthlessly reveals the utter fictitiousness of his psychology.
Through a reinterpretation of the tale of Snow White, she presents the menage-a-trois in an altogether different light. In other words, the man is the wicked stepmother who looks into her mirror, his wife Song-hyon is the talking mirror, and Ka-hui herself is Snow White. By thus defining the triangular relationship anew, this "story-within-a-story"―which is reminiscent of feminism―implies the downfall of the wicked stepmother, the adulterer. But this is not all. When the man, inflamed by rage, tries to strangle Ka-hui to death, she reveals that she and his wife have been lovers ever since they were raped, as high school freshmen, by thugs: "OK, go right ahead and kill me. But there's one last thing I have to tell you. Your mirror's shattered."
It is only then that the man realizes the truth. His wife is no "chaste, undamaged white field" but a femme fatale who, involved in a lesbian relationship with Ka-hui, has been cleverly hoodwinking him all along. In the conclusion, he thus soliloquizes: "All mirrors are falsehood, refraction, and distortion. No, they're transparent. They reflect nothing. Yes, that's it. Mirrors don't exist." This seems to be the author's final message, for the distortion or absence of mirrors signifies the demise of the male protagonist's narcissistic principle of life in this short story. Admittedly, such an insight is no rarity in the history of modern fiction. Because the peculiarity of life in the modern era started from the premise that one cannot ascertain the self-image in the mirror as one's own, fascination with and resistance to one's self-image has been a main theme of modern fiction. Nevertheless, this is important in understanding Kim's works, for the myth of narcissism is central to his view of art. In addition, for him, this myth is not only linked with the question of aesthetics but also significant in terms of literary history. In this respect, one of the comments that he made during an interview is noteworthy:
In a situation where categories such as "history" and "nation" can no longer exercise
any power over man in the 1990's, it would be anachronistic to determine such
categories as frames for the life of contemporary man. Instead, I thought that what
was important was the ways in which people live in the vacuum created by the
departure of "history" and "nation," which dominated the 1980's. This is why I chose
as my starting point the negation of the "epilogue fiction" or realist novels. Because
the reference group that predominated the 1980's have been dissolved, no one has an
objective mirror that can reflect his or her self-image in the 1990's. The people here
and now are each looking into their faces without any objective mirror and, in many
cases, project themselves onto the material or reified values. Phenomena such as the
unquenchable desire to upgrade one's computer or car and the so-called beeper
syndrome are media that allow us to grasp the life of modern man far more
effectively than any other previous conceptual frame. [9]
I myself do not agree with Kim's periodization, which separates the 1980's and the 1990's in an extremely clear-cut manner. Likewise, his understanding of "history" and "nation" are problematic. But, at any rate, according to him, the "objective mirror" that the realist literature of the 1980's had so eulogized was shattered or absent in the 1990's. As such, the author's maiden work, which presents the falsehood or absence of mirrors as its ultimate message, is none but a declaration of a break from and a denial of realist fiction and monolithic discourses, whose frame of reference were categories such as "history" and "nation." We must then examine here what exactly replaces this mirror. To the subject who has destroyed the objective mirror, shattered ../../image/common projected onto "the material or reified values" or, in other words, ../../image/common captured by the eye and the camera lens (which, after all, is a small mirror) would seem to have filled the world. That is, the world is now overwhelmed by ../../image/common and the reified relationships they recall. As a result, this is an age in which "everything in the world is surrounded by ../../image/common and each and every one of our actions becomes but a reproduction of a certain image or entity we have seen elsewhere" ("Kour-e Taehan Myongsang") and the eye becomes "a screen rather than a window to the heart" ("Son" [Hands; 손]). It is at this point of entering a world of simulacres that Kim's works take on an affinity with the visual and cinematic media.
Seen thus, many of the works included in Hoch'ul [ Summons ; 呼出], [10] the first collection of the author's short stories including "Kour-e Taehan Myogsang," are highly original tales and his "serious" theoretics on art at the same time. In other words, they are statements of the reasons for his abandonment of specular representation and transition to a world of visual ../../image/common and purely fictive art. In fact, the majority of Kim's works also read as parodies of the realist fiction of the 1980's and of the "epilogue fiction" of the early 1990's. However, we have yet to prove the exactness of his postmodern awareness of the present era. To quote the author's very words, the final verdict on his < em>will then depend on just how much he shows the lives of the "people here and now" and just how deeply he delves into the distressing problems they encounter.
I, for one, would first like to give Kim's fiction credit for its painstaking efforts to look squarely at the lives of metropolitan youths, who have formed a cultural group since the early 1990's. I also wish to view the utter absence of children and the elderly, the relationship between man and nature, and any affinity for the community in his works not as defects but as indicators of the nature of his art. In other words, I would like to justify the absence of these categories as an inevitable deficiency brought about by the author's decision to focus on the pathology of the younger generation with respect to popular culture. His original ideas, postmodern techniques (the use, in particular, of metafiction, intertextuality, and parody), comparatively sound structure, fast-paced development, and light, piquant language certainly seem to succeed in tracing the immediate perception and the mercurial lifestyles of the visual generation. Moreover, the elaborate "meditation on sex and death" in "Na-nun Arumdapta" [I am Beautiful; 나는 아름답다] and Na-nun Na-rul P'agoehal Kwolli-ga Itta and the "meditation on the body" in "Son" and "Pe-rul Karuda" [Rending a Piece of Hemp; 베를 가르다] are not only entertaining but also provide us with food for thought. Kim's unhindered, psychoanalytic imagination, which appears in his "Tomaebaem" [The Lizard; 도마뱀] and "Na-nun Arumdapta," candidly deals with issues related to sexuality, a theme skirted by other writers. In particular, his meticulous inquiry into the relationship between the gaze (the camera lens) and sexuality is noteworthy.
Even as they depict the cultural pathology of the younger generation through a variety of techniques and serious themes―at times, even ruthlessly exposing the dazzling yet ultimately empty lifestyles of this generation―however, the author's works lack the necessary depth and sense of reality. Herein lies his dilemma. The moment Kim departs from the limitations posed by realism, he is granted freedom to go back and forth between reality and fantasy at will and to use all manner of postmodern techniques. But, at the same time, the world created by his language seems to have been deprived of the authority to touch the actual space of life. For instance, notwithstanding the serious dialogue between the protagonists, a situation where a man and his mistress, faced with death, have sex and talk to each other is reminiscent of purely-for-entertainment movies or cartoons. The author seems to have mixed reality and fantasy and designed his characters and language precisely for the reader's amusement and certain effects. In other words, then, the space of this short story is neither fantasy nor reality but a third, virtual space manipulated into existence in order to display Kim's original ideas, witty language, and elaborate psychoanalysis.
This does not mean, however, that I am against the author's use of fantastic elements. Rather, I consider it a pity that he should disregard the border between reality and fantasy so easily. In this respect, "Hoch'ul," which may be termed a "meditation on the boundary between fantasy and reality," is worth noting, for this short story reveals Kim's outstanding ability to continue spinning "stories-within-stories" by deftly using the border between reality and fantasy―and the limitations caused by an excessive use of such talents. Had he dealt with the boundary more carefully, this work would have been a masterpiece portraying the empty human relationships of an age of popular culture.
A tale about a small imaginative adventure initiated by a young man to chase away boredom, "Hoch'ul" is divided into three section. At the beginning of "The Summoner," the first section, this young man―who also happens to be the narrator―hesitates about whether or not to page a certain woman. After having been jilted by his lover 3 months ago, the young man was leading a life of ennui. A day before the temporal setting of the story, however, he was infatuated with a woman he met in a subway station. He therefore shoved a pager into her hands right before getting off the subway. Before actually going out to meet her again, however, the narrator says, "The boundary I enjoy the most is the boundary between reality and fantasy. At times, I think of reality as fantasy and fantasy as reality. But such confusion has never caused any serious problem. As with seeing a movie, I explore that fantasy world of my own making within limited time." In other words, this short story, to quote the narrator, is an "exploration of fantasy world within limited time."
"The Summoned," the second section, shows the harsh daily life of an understudy. At the sign of menstruation, she even wonders, "Should I have my womb removed?" Such is the everyday life of this woman, whose home is a dark, cramped apartment. Like the young man who pages her, the woman leads a life of isolation and desolation. Moreover, she is subjected to no little hardship while shooting a love scene in place of the leading actress. Seen thus, the second section of the short story is an independent drama vividly showing the life of an understudy, which normally lies hidden behind the dazzling facade of the movie industry. It is linked to the life of the young man from the first section by a pager. Indeed, this woman's attention is directed solely at the pager that he thrust into her hands on the subway, for, even as she feels like a prostitute―as long as she carries the pager, he can summon her any time, anywhere―she cannot bring herself to throw away the little machine. She feels that, "if [she] throw[s] away this beeper, all [her] ties with everyone else in the world will be severed."
In the third section, "There Are No Summons," we are once more allowed a glimpse of the narrator's life. He finally decides to page the understudy and presses the number. At that moment, however, there is a loud noise nearby, signalling that a message has been sent to a pager. Momentarily distraught, the young man soon discovers the pager in the pocket of his jumper. The truth is that he, "as usual, once again turned around at the last moment." The short story comes to a temporary stop here: the youth in fact did not give the pager to the woman, even though he thought that he did. Nonplussed and disappointed, he concludes, "It's only myself and nobody else that I summon when I page through a beeper." With this incident as the material, he decides to write a short story that begins, "There were signs of menstruation. . . ." The second section, which starts with this very sentence, therefore turns out to be none other than the story that is to be penned by the young man. "Hoch'ul" does not end here, however. Its conclusion goes on to imply strongly that even the narrator's encounter with the woman in a subway station may actually be fictive: "I get up from the chair and, tearing off the September page from the calendar [on the wall], gaze at the picture of a half-naked woman lying on a rock by the sea. Yes, that woman is somehow familiar. Where did I see her . . . ?"
The relationship between fantasy and reality in this short story can be restated thus. Kim, the author, writes a short story titled "Hoch'ul." Because the short story is a fictive form, a fantasy world is created on the first level. Even within this world, however, the border between reality and fantasy exists. In that reality-within-fantasy, a man―who also happens to be a writer―encounters a woman and gives her a pager. She in turn awaits his summons. This is Act 1 of "Hoch'ul." In Act 2, the man's perception that he did indeed give a pager to the woman is shown to be nothing but fantasy; one reversal here. Consequently, the second section of the short story, which presents a drama of the everyday life of the understudy, is readjusted as a coda to the short story that the man, also a writer, pens on the basis of an actual episode in his life. Therefore the woman belongs to the reality-within-fantasy we have seen before, while the entire second section, which depicts her life, now belongs to the story-within-story (fiction). Act 3 then implies that even this woman, whom the narrator thinks he encountered in real life, is but a creature concocted by his imagination upon seeing the photograph of a woman on the calendar. Like the second section of "Hoch'ul," the understudy is thus delegated to fantasy-within-fantasy; yet another reversal. Fascinating and seductive as it is, however, this technique of reversal is fatal to the reality that was vividly portrayed in the fantasy world on the first level. In the end, there only exist fantasy and fantasy-within-fantasy in the first-level fantasy world (Kim's short story itself); reality exists only as an after-image.
The ways in which the boundary between reality and fantasy are dealt with in "Hoch'ul" are reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges' metafictive techniques and the fantastic techniques of cult movies such as the Cohen brothers' Barton Fink . But because the reality in Kim's short story is based on the concrete lives of the "people here and now," it is removed from avant-garde, experimental works that focus on reversing modes of representation. Had the author not been so bent on showing fiction as a fictive mode―which, after all, no longer is so avant-garde in any sense―somewhere in Act 2, he could have avoided inflicting such a fatal damage on the vividness created by the taut tension between fantasy and reality.
Nor are the problems of "Hoch'ul" quite resolved in Ellibeit'o-e Kkin Ku Namja-nin Otok'e Toeonna [,em>What Happened to That Man Who Was Caught Between Elevator Doors,/em>; 엘리베이터에 낀 그 男子는 어떻게 되었나], [11] Kim's second collection of short stories. For example, "Koapson" [High-Tension Wire; 高壓線] oddly juxtaposes the real life of a bank clerk faced with unemployment in an age of corporate layoffs and the fantasy that the more one loves, the more one becomes an "invisible man." In the end, however, neither fantasy nor reality manage to achieve vividness; they are only locked in insoluble contention. Nevertheless, the works included in this second collection are toned down in the originality or elaborateness of ideas and allow more consideration, however weak, for life in our times and the "people here and now." In "Tangsin-ui Namu" [Your Tree; 當身의 나무], the man and the woman who never met each other again in "Hoch'ul" are reconfigured in a relationship where they support and destroy one another at the same time. On the other hand, Kim's characteristic bravado and charm are somewhat lessened in his second collection of short stories. Even as it depicts the desperate life of a hooligan vividly and realistically, "Pisanggu" [The Emergency Exit; 非常口], for instance, is not free from a charge of imitating film noir . Moreover, that any inquiry into the boundary between fantasy and reality is categorically absent prevents us from endorsing this short story wholeheartedly. Judging from the fact that the author's recent works have been thus caught mid-air, as it were, we may presume that he is going through a transitional period in terms of his art. Perhaps, after devoting himself wholly to a demonstration of the fact that fiction is not a mode of representation―which would have been prompted by his obsession with an inverted image of the "objective mirror"―Kim is now in a dead-end street. If this is true, my only wish is that he would shatter even that "inverted mirror" and free himself from the bounds of anti-realism.
* All Korean words and names have been romanized in accordance with the McCune-Reischauer system except, of course, established spellings such as "Seoul" and personally preferred renditions such as "Paik Nak-chung." In addition, the names of all Korean figures, fictive or historical, appear with the last name preceding the first. [Translator's note]
* Depending on the source, the hyphen is sometimes omitted. The same holds true for the names of all of the characters from his movies. This article was originally published in no. 111 (spring 2001) of Quarterly Changjak-kwa-Bipyong [ Creation & Criticism ; 創作과 批評]. [Translator's note]
* Literary critic and professor of English literature at Inje University. Works include "Chiguhwa Sidae-?i Segye Munhak" [World Literature in the Age of Globalization; 地球化 時代의 世界 文學]. His e-mail address is englhkwn@ijnc.inje.ac.kr.
[8] Originally published in Ribyu, [ Review ; 리뷰] (spring 1995).
[9] Ryu Po-son, "Chugum, Ku Arumdapkodo Pulgilhan Yuhok" [Death, That Beautiful Yet Ominous Temptation; 죽음, 그 아름답고도 不吉한 誘惑], Kim, Na-nun Na-rul P'agoehal Kwolli-ga Itta [ I Have a Right to Destroy Myself, ; 나는 나를 破壞할 權利가 있다] (Seoul: Munhak Tongnae [文學 동네], 1996) 170-171.
[10] Published by Munhak Tongnae in 1997.
[11] Published in 1999 by Munhak-kwa Chisong-sa [文學과 知性社] (Seoul).