Controversial

“What novel in the world doesn’t reflect the author’s political and social perspective? It would be problematic if the perspective didn’t match the current administration or the current zeitgeist.”

Author Lee Moon-yeol (58) recently finished the serial publication of the novel ‘Homo Executans’ (human as an executor) that was published in the winter edition of ‘World Literature.’ Having started the series in the spring edition, the piece was sensational in that it sharply criticized current policies since the beginning. In the final section published this volume, the piece is creating a sensation in its criticism of the 386 generation politicians and the current administration, as well as the Sunshine Policy.

Lee, who currently lives in the U.S., stated in a phone interview on December 7, “The author’s political perspective can be found in any novel, but it seems everyone has fit the piece to his own perspective, thus exaggerating and defying it.” As he was eating with acquaintances during the interview, Lee stepped out of the restaurant and continued the interview for an hour to explain his work.

He explained, “In novels such as ‘Taebaek Mountains’ or ‘Toji’, you can observe the author’s social and political stance,” and added, “the issues in the novel has been decades old, but it’s all the same.”

The point to focus on the novel is the ‘winter night meeting’, which was driven by a sense of urgency comparing the current times to a cold night. The scene, which is described in two chapters, strongly criticizes certain intellectuals calling for an ‘inherent approach,’ and the Sunshine Policy, and involves security officials of North Korea, public security officials from the prosecution, high-level police officials, the three heads of the security field, and the Nakseong section, composed of former military generals.

He said, “‘The Winter Night Meeting’ is an extreme rightist faction, and the characters are not normal people,” and added, “they are people that were once used and now discarded in a past era, and people think that I’ve reflected my thoughts in this extreme situation, but this is not true.” He showed his disappointment by saying, “In the 2,800 pages, this part is not even 100 pages, but the readers see this as the entire and core piece of my work.”

Lee said, “our society seems to have given up rightist solutions and selected leftist ways of approach, but this does not seem the way to go,” and emphasized, “in the end, my work seems to support the rightist faction, but I didn’t write this to support one faction, and I pondered on how to work on the artistic sense of the novel.” He also added, “I don’t think the rightists are the solution, and in the current situation, when the rightists try to resolve the situation, it might bring on the situation where the tiger is driven out by the fox,” and said, “We should all ponder together on the possible solutions.”

On certain concerns that the author announced his novel with the upcoming presidential elections, Lee said, “When was our country not an election period?” and raised his voice when denying the criticisms, saying that, “the charges that I attempted to meddle with politics is an insult to me.” Stating that he was disappointed that his novel was only interpreted in political terms, he said, “This novel was not written merely as a form of entertainment, but is based on artistic and philosophical implications.” He added, “much of the political perspectives in the novel may be mine, but it is foremost a novel,” and requested that, “it’s up to the readers to agree or disagree on the perspectives, but please see this novel as a novel.”

Lee has been staying for a year at the University of California at Berkeley as a resident writer and will come to Korea at the end of the year and return early next year. He is pondering on how longer he will stay in the U.S. He said, “I’ll turn 60 soon, and I have the feeling that I can’t do much anymore, so I don’t feel like staying too long,” but also said, “after pondering on whether there is anything left to get the rest of my life going, I will decide whether to stay for about six months or more.”

kimjy@donga.com