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Sometimes You Have to Laugh: The Lighter Side of Korean Fiction | LIST

About the Article

Article: http://list.or.kr/content/sometimes-you-have-laugh-lighter-side-korean-fiction
Journal: list_Books from Korea
Issued Date: -
Page: -
Language: English(English)
Country: SOUTH KOREA
City: Seoul
Book: -
Writer: Kim Yujung , Chae Man-Sik , Kim Young-ha

About the Author

Kim Yujung
Birth : 1908 ~ 1937
Occupation : Novelist
First Name : Yujung
Family Name : Kim
Korean Name : 김유정
ISNI : 0000000080701819
Works : 37

Ch`ae Man-Sik
Birth : 1902 ~ 1950
Occupation : Novelist
First Name : Man-Sik
Family Name : Chae
Korean Name : 채만식
ISNI : 0000000108825128
Works : 29

Kim Young-ha
Birth : 1968 ~ -
Occupation : Novelist
First Name : Young-ha
Family Name : Kim
Korean Name : 김영하
ISNI : 000000012148951X
Works : 96

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Descriptions - 1 Languages

English(English)

Sometimes You Have to Laugh: The Lighter Side of Korean Fiction By Charles Montgomery on Nov 09 2014 04:18:29 Vol.12 Summer 2011 Korean fiction has a reputation as being quite serious and there are also sometimes problems involved in translating humor. Consequently you might guess that there is no lightness in the Korean fiction that has been translated. The good news is that this is simply not true. There is quite a bit of character-based humor in Korean literature. Often, that humor helps readers understand Korean cultural elements in the stories they read. There is a saying in English that, “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down,” and it applies to these kinds of stories. Choe Chong-hui’s Chom-nye explores the difficulties of post-war peasants, and features a clever and rapacious shaman who uses the death of a bride to swindle the mourning family out of all the dead women’s goods and the families’ sole remaining chicken. There is also Chon Kwangyong’s brilliant Kapitan Ri, an excellent summary of the first 50 years of the 20th century in Korea, the main character of which is a highly amusing bad guy. When humor is fused into these meaningful stories, Korean literature becomes more easily accessible. There are also some stories that are just plain funny. Three of these great stories are from the KLTI/Jimoondang Publishing series, “The Portable Library of Korean Fiction.” The Camellias, by Kim Yujung, is a “first love” story in which a country bumpkin comes face to face with Jeomsun, a girl from a higher class who loves him. The tone is rough and humorous as Jeomsun is only capable of showing her interest through an aggression that she feels is justified by the boy’s inability to understand that they are actually in love. The young love is complicated by the fact that Jeomsun is the narrator’s social superior, and this causes the narrator to see Jeomsun’s peculiar mix of affection and aggression as a form of class warfare. Of course it is, as Jeomsun pulls stunts that would get a social equal smacked on the head, but Kim plays this for broad comedy and the unnamed narrator’s denseness justifies the lengths that Jeomsun feels she has to go to in order to demonstrate her love. In the end, after various amusing bumps and bruises, love is realized.

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