Magnolia Park

Modern Korean Literature #22

by Lee Seung-U

Bi-lingual Edition Modern Korean Literature (set 2). "Magnolia Park" by Lee Seung-u. ASIA Publishers present some of the very best modern Korean literature to readers worldwide through its new Korean literature series . We are proud and happy to offer it in the most authoritative translation by renowned translators of Korea literature. We hope that this series helps to build solid bridges between citizens of the world and Koreans through rich in-depth understanding of Korea. “Yeah, sometimes I go for walks in the cemetery,” she admitted. “It’s just around to the left side from here. When I walk around and read the epitaphs written on the gravestones, it almost feels like I’m walking through a crowd of people gathered in a park. Just like living people you see walking around are all unique, the graves of the dead are all unique, too. Some gravestones are engraved with nothing but a large, imposing name, and others are covered with lines and lines of text written in cramped, tiny letters. And I wonder to What could those people have to say that they had to write so much? And so I just have to stop and take a look. Sometimes the sound of the dead talking is so deafening I have to cover my ears.”

145 pages, Paperback

About the author

소설가 이승우

1959년 전남 장흥에서 태어나 서울신학대학교를 졸업하였고, 연세대학교 연합신학대학원에서 공부하였다. 1981년 '한국문학' 신인상에 '에리직톤의 초상'이 당선되어 등단하였으며, 소설집 '구평목 씨의 바퀴벌레', '일식에 대하여', '미궁에 대한 추측', '목련공원', '사람들은 자기 집에 무엇이 있는지도 모른다', '나는 아주 오래 살 것이다', '심인 광고'와 장편소설 '에리직톤의 초상', '가시나무 그늘', '생의 이면', '내 안에 또 누가 있나', '사랑의 전설', '태초에 유혹이 있었다', '식물들의 사생활', '그곳이 어디든', '한낮의 시선', '지상의 노래' 등이 있다. 1993년 '생의 이면'으로 제 1회 대산문학상, 2002년 '나는 아주 오래 살 것이다'로 제 15회 동서문학상, 2007년 '전기수 이야기'로 제 52회 현대문학상, 2010년 '칼'로 제 10회 황순원문학상 수상.

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

목련공원 / "Magnolia Park" by 이승우 (Lee Seung-u) is Volume 22 in the Asia Publishers bilingual series of Modern Korean short stories.

For my general comments on the series see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...?.

This story has been translated by Eugene Larsen-Hallock, and the literary critic's afterword comes from 정은경 (Jeong Eun-gyeong - my Romanization, the book actually uses a different one than it uses in Volume 44 where she also provides the afterword.)

Lee Seung-u is an author I have read and enjoyed before, in particular The Private Life of Plants (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and The Reverse Side of Life (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).

However, this story didn't live up to the earlier works.

The story is narrated by a man in a taxi, late for a funeral at the eponymous park. The funeral is that of his estranged wife's brother, who died of cancer, only discovered at a late stage, in his mid 40s.

By coincidence the narrator's ex-lover's wedding is being held in the park on the same day. She ran a cafe in the park and the narrator's torrid affair with her caused the split with his wife, although the lover then dumped him in turn soon after.

The brief character sketch of the late brother-in-law is poignantly effective. His cancer diagnosis came days after he and his wife had finally, after 15 years of scrimping, saving and hard work ("it was as if buying a home was their sole reason for living) managed to save enough to buy their first apartment. But this is a minor aspect of the story, dealt with in a few pages.

The greater focus is on the ex-lover. She keeps a praying mantis as a pet, taking delight in feeding it grasshoppers and even a mouse, and he likens her to a female praying mantis in the way she devours him with her passion:

"I thought of the female praying mantis who, in her passion, would devour the male every time she mated ... [But] who was the more passionate one? The female devouring her lover or the devoured male? While she does nothing more than eat, he allows himself to be eaten."

But this aspect didn't really work for me: the lover didn't convince as a character and the overall story wasn't particularly interesting. Nor was the link between her story and that of his brother-in-law (he is "devoured" by his cancer) very effective, and the framing device, whereby his thoughts on his story are prompted by the conversation with the taxi-driver, seemed unconvincing.

[Andegret · Rating 2 out of 5]

Protagonist be like: I got dumped by BOTH my wife and my mistress. I'm so miserable, lonely and depressed.

[fara · Rating 4 out of 5]

i wouldn’t have been able to read this in korean without the english translation because i’m not at that level yet, but it was still an amazing experience reading this book in this way - in fact, it felt like i was reading two books at the same time, the translation is really good and it kind of has a distinct style of its own. i’d even go as far as to say that sometimes it became too unnecessarily different from the original in order to stay in the chosen style - but a super cool one, so it’s alright.
as for the story, i enjoyed it quite a bit, and it says a lot, as with my views on the world i could have easily hated it for being such a classic male sob story about how he is such a poor unfortunate soul deserving of sympathy after getting dumped by a mysterious and unknowable femme fatale that he got in an affair with because his ordinary wife, maybe a little restrained and kinda cold - traditional, isn’t it how we like it though? - wasn’t exciting enough for him… but i’m an inTeLleCtuAl and i can appreciate a piece of writing for many many different reasons, and while i cannot seriously look at the situation from his point of view, i can definitely relate to feeling lost and confused, out of place, and lonely - not in the ‘i destroyed my own marriage for a woman who eventually found herself someone more exciting poor me’ way but in a universal, human way. the idea of chasing something that you consider ideal and worth it however hard you work and however much you give up to achieve it, putting everything at stake but failing and realizing that you lost all you had and never appreciated along the way - it’s quite simple, but here it’s expressed in a really compelling manner, and it resonated with me greatly.
also most of what literary critics say at the end of the book is basically what i like about it too. mr lee is a good writer, this is a cool philosophical psychological introspective story, and i like those.