Hong Gildong
Publisher: Jimoondang
Pub. Date: Mar. 2007
Softcover: 78 pages
Dimensions (in inches): 7.48 x 4.64 x 0.27
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| >>>This book is written in English. |
About This Book
In "Hong Gildong," Seo draws loosely from an early Korean literary
source, Tale of Hong Gildong, attributed to Heo Gyun(1569-1618), to tell
the story of a forty-five-year-old man wading through depression and a
midlife crisis. Dr. Kang, his psychiatrist, recommends the man to stop
seeing a woman behind his wife's back and listens to one of the man's
disturbing childhood memories. The man seeks release from his existence
and wishes that a straw man (an element from the earlier work) would
come to take his place.
"The Woodcutter and the Nymph" is a modern retelling of the well-known
Korean folktale "Namukkun-gwa Seonnyeo." In the folktale, a nymph's
wing-clothes are taken away to prevent her from returning to her
heavenly home. Seo's story features a young woman who cannot return to
her childhood home and finds herself trapped in a conventional life of
marriage and childbirth. The alienation of the young woman is portrayed
in a broken chronology of short incidents and flashbacks to depict a
life whose reality has faded. Through this story that has the surreal
quality of a dream, Seo comments on the vagueness of purpose in a life
that only holds the usual expectations.
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