ISBN 0 720612594
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The Reverse Side of LifeLee Seung-UTranslated from the Korean by Yoo-Jung Kong Bak Bugil's father is a genius. Everyone expects him to pass the civil service examination and become a judge – except that he hasn't been seen since he left to study in Seoul. Bak lives with his mother and his father's relatives. At the end of a path at the back of the house is a persimmon tree and a ramshackle hut. Children are forbidden to go near the tree, but Bak makes repeated incursions to collect its fruit until a chance encounter with the hut's inhabitant changes his life for ever . . . Years later a journalist is asked write about Bak, now one of South Korea's most original writers, and decides to reconstruct the author's childhood through an examination of his stories, novels and interviews. Yet when he meets Bak it becomes clear that the author finds such recollections traumatic. At the stratum of his earliest memories, firmly lodged like a fossil, is a face lonely and dark. The journalist knows that if he is to penetrate Bak's psyche he must first confront that face. In this partially autobiographical novel Lee Seung-U explores
his roots. A theology graduate, he mixes together the notion
of original sin rooted in the subconscious and its accompanying
sense of insecurity, as well as the idea of a distant God
who only occasionally extends a helping hand, to reveal how
the conflict of the secular and the divine manifests itself
in the real world. This extraordinary novel - first translated
into German, the first modern Korean novel to be translated
into French and one of only a handful available in English – cemented
its author's reputation as one of the stars of South Korea's
literary scene. '...a challenging novel presented as a critical biography. But The Reverse Side of Life has another layer...at times he seems to be considering his own life at two removes.' - Metro 'Few contemporary Korean writers match him in his
treatment of solemn subjects such as personal instability,
longing
and isolation. He is also unequaled in conveying the idea
of original sin that lies beneath all human actions and
of a God who stands
by like an adult observing a child at play, perhaps lending
a hand from time to time.' - Korea Times 'In the manner of Borges, the narrator studies
an imaginary writer, Bugil, who feels the ground giving way
beneath him. He burns the grave of his father as well as
his schoolbooks and refuses to integrate into the social
world. He immerses himself in reading and writing and thus
begins to discover himself.
Later he will ask himself if the reality of his novels is
faithful to the reality actually lived.
Lee Seung-U warns that there is no solution other than to
accommodate our existence with all its diversity, its disappointments,
its inconsequentialities, its humiliations.' – Le Figaro ‘One of the best contemporary
Korean authors. Lee Seung-U follows in his very dark
fashion in the history of vocational
writing where you will find A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu or Tonio Kroger by
Thomas Mann. A true sense of tragedy.’ – Valeurs Actuelles |
