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Lost Souls
| Article
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17843 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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3 / 1990 |
3,427 Words |
| Author
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Bruce Fulton
Bruce Fulton is a translator of Korean literature and a former
Peace Corps volunteer in Korea. |
Whenever I am asked to explain the works of Hwang Sun-wŏn, my initial reaction as a translator is to quote a professor under whom I studied classical Chinese in Graduate school: " I can tell you what it says, but I can't tell you what it means." Not that Hwang's fiction is so cryptic as to defy analysis; rather, Hwang is not a didactic writer, and his remarkable diversity of theme and technique forbids facile interpretation of his works. Indeed, I have a hunch that Hwang's approach to writing fiction may be similar to the approach Faulkner professed to have used - running after his characters, pencil in hand, trying to jot down what they say and do (this actually happens in the story "The Curtain Fell, but Then…" to be discussed latter).
This seemingly waggish description of the creative process may have a germ of truth as far as Hwang is concerned. For, as I hope to show, many of Hwang's stories and novels portray people who are on the fringe of society, either by choice or by necessity. We might say these individuals are out of touch - sometimes with themselves; often with their families, friends, and lovers; and usually with society in general. What is fascinating about their predicament is the unusually broad scope it gives them to shape their future, for better or for worse, in the tightly structured society of Korea.
Alone in the crowd
There is, in the room of one of the central characters of Hwang's novel The Moving Castle (1972), a reproduction of the Giacometti sculpture City Square. In this composition, five figures with elongated limb sand trunks walk toward the middle but "seen to brush past each other, even while
... (1989 of 19814 Characters)
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