Translator's note:
◐ Related events, place names, and people's names are referenced by the content that can be found on the Korean website, so the noun "Han" will appear. Some books have been launched on the Taiwanese version, simple language version. Please use it as the standard; other books involving books, and people's names are reflected in "temporary transliteration" and "temporary self-translation"
◐ The views only represent the author himself or the institution to which he belongs. When I started publishing novels within my ability, I only compiled
. At that time, the mainstream of Korean literature was the so-called "new generation of literature" armed with kitsch (self-conception) and capitalism urban sensibility. But Quan Chengtai went against the trend of "globalization" and went to the dialect and rural world. His behavior does seem "rebellious". Many people can always read his novels, and they can always read the colonial period Jin Yu-jin, Cai Wanzhi, and the 1970s Li Wenqiu's genes are not without reason
However, with the collapse of the Eastern and Western Cold War system, the world is becoming a single capitalist market. The rural areas of Quanchengtai are no longer the same as those in the colonial or industrialized era. Even in Li Wenqiu's era, rural areas were still a shelter from industrial and social society, and were an unexpirable source of people's vitality. But in Quan Chengtai's novel, the "physical nature" in the countryside seems particularly short. It is the deep nostalgia for the disappearing rural community culture that fills the physical gap
For example, the short story of the same name in the first collection of novels, "Buried Incense" (1997), the protagonist is an old lady who guards the inn in the mine village. What made her tell her story of her bumpy life was the elegy of "The Old Man of Yu Ruili's Family". It vividly shows nostalgia for this work. Despite this, the short stories included in the novel collection "The Incense of Burying" did not completely fall into sentimental degeneration or romantic retro . Because the nostalgia and even a somewhat contradictory retreat appearing in the novel collection is a way to move forward
The second novel collection "Things Crossing the Border" (temporary transliteration), and then to the third novel collection "Wolf" in 2009. Why reading Quan Chengtai's novels are always attracted by macro contexts such as "geographic" and " capitalist world system " and so on. The main stage of the work is already Mongolia after reform and opening up . In fact, Korean literature should have officially entered Mongolia for the first time with the use of "Wolf". The "author's words" later also briefly explains its reasons, "Mongolia gave me special pain and inspiration. On the vast land of the original landscape, the loneliness felt like the onlookers outside the world has a unique charm. What's more interesting is that the Mongolian society, which transitioned from socialism to market economy, always strangely became a mirror that reflected our society." What does this mirror in Mongolia look like in our society? During the transition from the 190s to the 2000s, we experienced two major events. If the IMF foreign exchange crisis is one of them, then the other is the June 15th North-South Joint Declaration. The former allowed Korean capitalism to be forcibly included in the "global standard" and was dragged by unlimited openness and unlimited competition. The latter has strongly shaken the separatist system of the Korean Peninsula, which is the last level of the Cold War (post-Cold War), and the consciousness of separatism that occupy a position in the hearts of South Korean people. All boundaries are gradually disappearing, whether out of good vision or bad intentions. Just like the "refracting our social mirror" local Xianxi (temporary transliteration) in Vietnam, Liu Zai-hyun's Cambodia . Mongolia, which is full of Chengtai, has also left deep traces and afterward effects of these two events. The first work included in the novel collection, "Mulan Restaurant", is his representative work
"Inexplicably the impression that enterprises are becoming a system of concepts that dominate the country; the concept of global business is no longer a vague slogan, but reflects the confident neoliberal "some kind of religious atmosphere" of breaking the old structure with capital will." The protagonist is engaged in Mongolian training guidance work. The Mulan restaurant he often went to with his uncle from the painter is a Korean restaurant run by North Koreans. Although there was a slogan "30 years of experience and meritorious cold noodle restaurant, finally landed in Mongolia" posted there, all kinds of people from the south gathered.But in fact, for some reason, the polite "login" failed. The riot caused by the hidden facts was revealed and became its outline, even if there was no other situation, considering the tension between the north and the south, it was even in the situation where "a part of the overseas Chinese society proposed to prohibit the use of the Korean canteen." The missionary pastor who asked "Will you hand over the US dollar we paid to your general?" confronted the expatriate boss who answered "The restaurant is a restaurant, and cannot be influenced by politics." Through the story of "The current situation is chaotic and even harder to eat a bowl of cold noodles", the author really wants to portray everyone's embarrassing expressions and vividness. Now
Although we are all immersed in the fantasy of transcending boundaries, we are actually facing an extremely solid boundary itself. In this sense, "Wolf" is not a story that crosses boundaries. It can be said to be a collection of novels that vividly describe the riots and conflicts caused by the still tenacious boundary. This sometimes looks like the class and gender boundaries appear in the representative work "Wolf"; sometimes it looks like the true and false in "Imitation", the psychological antagonism of empire and colonization
Once an art teacher, and now the "Southern Plants" that runs a hotel in Mongolia also appears in the Mulan Restaurant. There is also the misunderstanding of North Korean defection caused by the letter from Minghua, a North Korean woman who works. For the protagonist who is deeply trapped in a sense of failure, whether it is a Korean restaurant waitress or a Mongolian young man who wants to find a job in South Korea, they are just strangers who are discomforts he wants to avoid. In addition, the protagonist of the novelist works with a Mongolian woman to find a "Second Waltz" in which a North Korean woman lives and dies. The triangular pattern between Mongolia, Korean Peninsula and the north and south has also become one of the important highlights of the novel collection "Wolf",
The problem awareness revealed in this novel collection is still our social issue. Perhaps this is also the proof that the novel collection has been published 10 years ago, and the novel collection can still become a proof of the vivid story today. The novel collection "Wolf" still asks sharp questions and finds answers to where we are and what we cannot overcome. In this sense, it is also the most 21st century novel collection
Jiang Jingxi - Literary critic
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