[Opinion] Novel, the Reverberation That Made My Heart Leap

People taught me that the epic of the civil society is novel. They covertly whispered that the novel keeps pace with the human history. In other words, novel is the product of modernity, while it is in company with the modernity. What was the modernity in this case? Modernity meant the establishment of the nation-state, a road to the capitalist production, and the inseparable relationship between the two.

It was said that there was a clear justification in the premise behind the two. The justification is that human can change the world in a desirable way through the power of reason.

Is absolute trust in reason scientific, or just vainness? Dostoevskii, great writer who saw through the deep down in human soul, said through the narration of a character in `Evil Spirit` that although this was the most absurd fantasy, every nation cannot even die without this, not to mention living.

Human history! Was there anything that makes the heart beat more than this? If novel is a mode of arts that is in company with the human history, is there any other mode that makes the heart leap more than novel? Once there was a generation who was exposed to the historical and sociological imagination.

The generation refers to those who were born before the 20th century, were saturated in the Japanese and the U.S. style education, and went through the Korean War. The generation moved forward to the study of the Korean modern literature during the time when even carrying a Russian dictionary was prohibited under the national policy of anti-communism.

What did the modern literature of the nation look like for those who belonged to that generation? It was destiny of the Korean nation, who was mercilessly exploited by the nation-state and the capitalistic production mode, and the greatness that broke the destiny at the same time. Representation that fits the human dignity, that is, `human is not a worm`, was covertly formed between languages. National partition literature and labor literature were magnificently unfolded in its extended line.

Did this phenomenon rise based on the proposition that reason can change the world into a desirable direction, or was the phenomenon a way of reacting against the evil element embedded in the proposition itself?

Time in which we cannot avoid such a question came by. It was the appearance of distrust in the historical and sociological imagination, represented as the breakdown of the Eastern Europe and the former Russia, or the exposure of evil element. It was as if stars in the sky, to which we could reach and which indicated the way we should go, disappeared. We were possessed by the consciousness of `the end of history`.

How can we get away from such an obsession? To make more efforts to read novel is the way. What is a novel? It is an organization of habitual language formed in three layers. (A) writer`s intentional layer (B) writer`s unconscious layer (C) collective unconsciousness of historical and social context to which the writer belongs. Interpretation of (A) is an easy task. Interpretation of (B) requires concentration. Interpretation of (C) is the most difficult task because it is sensed by a certain sign. This sign is important because it is the sign that indicates the direction we should turn toward after the end of history.

A certain sign was sensed in `Sweetfish Fishing Communication` (1994. Yoon Dae-Nyung). `Human being is sweetfish, grasshopper, and migratory bird`. This is the proposition that `human is worm`. Isn`t this the turnover to the biological (in fact zoological) imagination?

When human being is redefined as a living creature, horizon of imagination regarding life thought, ecology, environmental issue, and the DNA research is sensed. How long will the effectiveness of this imagination last? Such a question remains to us because the living creature itself is completely exposed to the threat. The place where animal is extinguished from the category of life… `Seed of Dandelion` (Kim Ji-Ha) appeared as such a sign. That is, the turnover from the image of animal to the image of plant. Another consciousness of the end was overlapped. Isn`t the novel as printed type in face of the infinite cyber space similar to the image of mushroom that multiplicates as spores? So far, it was my way of reading novel.

There is a saying `backward within forward` (R. Barth). Because it is forward, it knows what is dying. It is backward because it loves them: the dandelion seeds and spores of mushroom that can no longer die.

Kim Yoon-Shik (Professor of Myongji University. Literature critic)