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English(English) Article

Stranger than Fiction: The Impossible Fairytale by Han Yujoo | LIST

About the Article

Article
http://list.or.kr/content/stranger-fiction-impossible-fairytale-han-yujoo
Journal
list_Books from Korea
Issued Date
-
Page
-
Language
English(English)
Country
SOUTH KOREA
City
Seoul
Book
The Impossible Fairy Tale
Writer
Han Yujoo
Translator
Janet Hong

About the Author

  • Han Yujoo
  • Birth : 1982 ~ -
  • Occupation : Novelist
  • First Name : Yujoo
  • Family Name : Han
  • Korean Name : 한유주
  • ISNI : 0000000073346927
  • Works : 11
Descriptions - 1 Languages
  • English(English)

Stranger than Fiction: The Impossible Fairytale by Han Yujoo Author's Profile By Yang Yun-eui on Oct 27 2014 01:51:11 Vol.21 Autumn 2013   The Impossible Fairytale Han Yujoo Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013 303pp. ISBN 9788932024097     The Impossible Fairytale is told in two parts. The first part largely deals with an abused child’s diary. The second part is presented as the diary of the writer of this book. In the first part, Choi Mi-ah is killed by a classmate (in Korean, “mi-ah” means “lost child”). In the second part, the child who is presumed to be Mi-ah’s killer comes to the writer and asks, “Who am I?” The only answer the writer gives is, “The child killed Mi-ah. Mi-ah’s death was planned—that is, it was there in my notes from the beginning. An unnamable sense of guilt haunted me while I was writing the scene where Mi-ah is murdered.” This guilt is an expression of impossibility, as guilt is the ultimate, invisible burden that can never be shaken off. The novel operates on three levels of impossibility. First, it is impossible to have a fairytale where the exchange of violence is mutual. This is an expression of the author’s guilt about the violence of the outside world. Secondly, the border of fiction and reality is breached in the second part of the novel, which demonstrates the limitations of the genre itself. The child’s questioning of the novelist, the creator of this character, is as unlikely an encounter as that of man and God. Thirdly, the novelist’s involvement in the novel is so meta that a descent into the abstract is inevitable, regardless of the writer’s intentions. All that is left is a sentence like: “Nothing is precise. Or imprecise, for that matter.” Share. Twitter Facebook Google Email .

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