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arirang's review
2.0
"He knew that the world still turned on pedigree and family connection, but he was certain that the day was not far off when all this would kneel before his wealth."
김 남천 (Kim Namcheon)'s novel 대하 was brought to us in English in 2014 as part of the wonderful Dalkey Archive The Library of Korean Literature, published in collaboration with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. The English translation is by Charles La Shure who also provides an instructive introduction.
The original Korean title 대하 means, in the Chinese characters used (大 河) Great River, although (cue my usual pet peeve - why do translators take such liberties with titles?!) La Shure has chosen a more elaborate title in English inspired by a short story, unfortunately not included in this volume, that Kim Namcheon later wrote depicting events after the novel's end.
The novel is set close to 평양 (Pyeongyang), the present day capital of North Korea, but shouldn't be seen as a "North Korean" novel since it was written prior to the division of the country. Instead, the novel is set just after the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910, although this barely features in the narrative even implicitly, perhaps unsurprisingly given that the book was written while Korea was still under Japanese occupation and hence subject to potential censorship.
Rather, 김 남천's concern is the changing culture of Korea at the time, in particular the collapsing feudal and Confucian system post the fall of the Joseon Dynasty, and the increasing influence of the ideas of the West, particularly the importance of money over status (see the opening quote) and the rise of Christianity, even the arrival socks. Indeed a young Methodist Priest tells his students to "offer detailed comparisons with the excellent lives of enlightened foreigners so that you may enlighten people".
The story is flagged from page 1 as being told via the contrasting fortunes of two from the same clan (i.e. very distant relatives), 박 리균 (Bak Ri-gyun) /i>"whose family had called this village home for five generations...even though they had not even a patch of land to their names, they went around calling themselves yangban aristocrats", and the successful moneylender 박 성권 (Bak Seonngwon) "no one knew whether one of his ancestors had been anything more than a petty official. Seeing that his family had no monuments to a filial son or a virtuous woman, he certainly didn't seem to have anything to boast of, not like Bak Rigyun's family did."
Although in practice the contrast between the poor scholarly family and rich moneylender is underdeveloped as a theme and instead the focus is more on the dynamics within 박 성권's family and the personal issues faced by 형걸 (Hyeonggeol), his son via his concubine rather than his wife, particularly his romantic relationships.
The novel provides fascinating insights into Korean culture of the time, for example when 박 성권 decides to give his sons names - 19 years after the eldest was born - previously having simply called them by nicknames such as "Big Boy" for the eldest, and just Third for the 3rd ("샛째" in Korean, which is indeed what we called our 3rd daughter before she was born and indeed after until she was named, albeit it took a few days in our case, not 19 years).
"The character for "Sun" (순) in his father's name [Bak Sunil 박 순일] contained the character for water in Sun, and the character for "Gwon" (권) in his own name contained the character for wood, so all he needed to do was think of a character with fire in it, After all, water bears wood and wood bears fire. After spending an entire day flipping through this book and that, he decided upon "Hyeong" (형), which means "bright' and thus contains the character for fire. He himself shared the second character of his name with his brothers so, according to custom, his sons would have to share the first characters of their names. The names he thus created were as follows:
Hyeongjun, Hyeongseon, Hyeonggeol and Hyeongsik."
The main scholarly criticism of the novel has been that the author, who was active in the proletarian literary movement, rather ignores key social issues such as the plight of the lower classes and also, as mentioned, the impact of the Japanese occupation. This seems to me to rather miss the point, as novels aren't required to be comprehensive social commentaries, and if anything the author's insights are more powerful for being focused on one class and on personal issues. The relevance of the novel's original title becomes clear at the end of the novel, as 형걸 reflects on how his personal relationships are swept away in the flow of history:
"He thought that it might even be like the waters of the great Biryu River. The waters swirled in eddies for a long time, but eventually they would be swept away in the rapids. If there was a small rock in the water, the waters would smash into it, shedding bright beads as they were torn and parted, but once beyond the rock they would flow in their course to the Daedong River and on to the Yellow Sea."
However the historical insights from the novel don't. for this reader, compensate for the lack of any literary merit. The prose is rather flat, the analogies are overly flagged, the narrative style overly simple, and the story has too episodic a feel even though it was published not, as was common, as a serial in newspapers, but rather as a complete novel.
김 남천 (Kim Namcheon)'s novel 대하 was brought to us in English in 2014 as part of the wonderful Dalkey Archive The Library of Korean Literature, published in collaboration with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. The English translation is by Charles La Shure who also provides an instructive introduction.
The original Korean title 대하 means, in the Chinese characters used (大 河) Great River, although (cue my usual pet peeve - why do translators take such liberties with titles?!) La Shure has chosen a more elaborate title in English inspired by a short story, unfortunately not included in this volume, that Kim Namcheon later wrote depicting events after the novel's end.
The novel is set close to 평양 (Pyeongyang), the present day capital of North Korea, but shouldn't be seen as a "North Korean" novel since it was written prior to the division of the country. Instead, the novel is set just after the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910, although this barely features in the narrative even implicitly, perhaps unsurprisingly given that the book was written while Korea was still under Japanese occupation and hence subject to potential censorship.
Rather, 김 남천's concern is the changing culture of Korea at the time, in particular the collapsing feudal and Confucian system post the fall of the Joseon Dynasty, and the increasing influence of the ideas of the West, particularly the importance of money over status (see the opening quote) and the rise of Christianity, even the arrival socks. Indeed a young Methodist Priest tells his students to "offer detailed comparisons with the excellent lives of enlightened foreigners so that you may enlighten people".
The story is flagged from page 1 as being told via the contrasting fortunes of two from the same clan (i.e. very distant relatives), 박 리균 (Bak Ri-gyun) /i>"whose family had called this village home for five generations...even though they had not even a patch of land to their names, they went around calling themselves yangban aristocrats", and the successful moneylender 박 성권 (Bak Seonngwon) "no one knew whether one of his ancestors had been anything more than a petty official. Seeing that his family had no monuments to a filial son or a virtuous woman, he certainly didn't seem to have anything to boast of, not like Bak Rigyun's family did."
Although in practice the contrast between the poor scholarly family and rich moneylender is underdeveloped as a theme and instead the focus is more on the dynamics within 박 성권's family and the personal issues faced by 형걸 (Hyeonggeol), his son via his concubine rather than his wife, particularly his romantic relationships.
The novel provides fascinating insights into Korean culture of the time, for example when 박 성권 decides to give his sons names - 19 years after the eldest was born - previously having simply called them by nicknames such as "Big Boy" for the eldest, and just Third for the 3rd ("샛째" in Korean, which is indeed what we called our 3rd daughter before she was born and indeed after until she was named, albeit it took a few days in our case, not 19 years).
"The character for "Sun" (순) in his father's name [Bak Sunil 박 순일] contained the character for water in Sun, and the character for "Gwon" (권) in his own name contained the character for wood, so all he needed to do was think of a character with fire in it, After all, water bears wood and wood bears fire. After spending an entire day flipping through this book and that, he decided upon "Hyeong" (형), which means "bright' and thus contains the character for fire. He himself shared the second character of his name with his brothers so, according to custom, his sons would have to share the first characters of their names. The names he thus created were as follows:
Hyeongjun, Hyeongseon, Hyeonggeol and Hyeongsik."
The main scholarly criticism of the novel has been that the author, who was active in the proletarian literary movement, rather ignores key social issues such as the plight of the lower classes and also, as mentioned, the impact of the Japanese occupation. This seems to me to rather miss the point, as novels aren't required to be comprehensive social commentaries, and if anything the author's insights are more powerful for being focused on one class and on personal issues. The relevance of the novel's original title becomes clear at the end of the novel, as 형걸 reflects on how his personal relationships are swept away in the flow of history:
"He thought that it might even be like the waters of the great Biryu River. The waters swirled in eddies for a long time, but eventually they would be swept away in the rapids. If there was a small rock in the water, the waters would smash into it, shedding bright beads as they were torn and parted, but once beyond the rock they would flow in their course to the Daedong River and on to the Yellow Sea."
However the historical insights from the novel don't. for this reader, compensate for the lack of any literary merit. The prose is rather flat, the analogies are overly flagged, the narrative style overly simple, and the story has too episodic a feel even though it was published not, as was common, as a serial in newspapers, but rather as a complete novel.
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