Nobel Prize in Literature: Kim Aeran's Korean Literature

This year's Nobel Prize in Literature has once again focused people's attention on Korean literature. I would like to take this opportunity to recommend Kim Ae-ran to everyone. Reading her works, you will feel the common pain of East Asians - Dad is always cowardly, useless and awkward, Mom is always hardworking, capable and obedient, and my sister and I are always taking exams and never have a good life. One story after another is slowly unfolded in Kim Ae-ran's pen, written calmly and delicately, and you will feel a long, dull pain after reading it.

For example, in the book "Run, Dad", the author writes about a father from the perspective of a daughter, but it is not about a "real" father, but about a "missing, imaginary" father. The book says: "Looking at the bulging belly of the mother, the father's face gradually turned pale. He finally left home the day before he became a father and never came back." So in my imagination, the father is always running. This kind of imagination is actually very sad. What does it mean? It means that the memory of the father is not related to "daily life" at all. Because we have never lived together, we have no way of knowing what kind of person the father is. We can only imagine in a somewhat surreal way that he is always running.

Such imagination is very tortuous. The book says: "I suddenly wondered, am I imagining constantly because I cannot forgive my father? Why do I always let my father run non-stop? Am I worried that I would rush forward and kill my father the moment he stops running? Suddenly, grievances surged in my heart. I wanted to fall asleep quickly before the grievances deceived me."

Jin Ailan wrote about the daughter's longing, complaints, grievances and kindness for her missing father. Her final speculation about her father was, "Even though Dad is the most inconspicuous and most embarrassed person in the world - such a person will also feel the pain of others and love what others love." She still left a gentle touch to her father, without blame or hatred. This is the tolerance of a daughter.

I prefer the part about mother. For example, in the article "Knife Scar", it starts with: "The tip of my mother's knife reveals the carelessness of feeding others for a lifetime. To me, my mother is not a crying woman, not a woman wearing makeup, nor a submissive woman, but a woman holding a knife." In just a few sentences, a tough, strong, hardworking and capable image is outlined. My mother runs a noodle shop, and knife-cut noodles are her signature dish, so she is "the woman holding the knife."

When it comes to the mother-daughter relationship, we East Asians easily associate it with the mother's forbearance, sacrifice, and dedication, and the daughter's guilt, self-blame, and emotion. This is a very complex and profound emotion. "Tao Tao Life" wrote: "My sister said that every time she swallowed a dumpling, she felt like she was swallowing her mother. ... A thought popped into my mind: my sister in her twenties and I, are our bodies made of the thousands of dumplings my mother has sold?"

I particularly like these two passages. The mother, like a mother animal, uses her flesh and blood to support a family and raise her children little by little. Jin Aeran did not give too much narration to describe the mother's suffering and difficulties, but after reading these two passages, you can feel the powerful vitality of the mother.

Kim Aeran also often writes about her sister. In "Thirty Years Old", she writes a letter to her sister as a junior. What is the content about? It is about the days when my sister and I studied for exams in "Noryang Island". What is Noryang Island? It is also translated as "Noryangjin". It is located in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. There are many "examination colleges" here, such as civil service exams, lawyer exams, and teacher recruitment exams. Almost everyone here is in a hurry, holding books. You can imagine how depressed they are. In the words of the book, "Many women living there are doing their best to reach ordinary standards even if they don't expect to be excellent. They don't know what is considered ordinary, but just want to work hard in a place named so by people, even if it's just gilding the edge." In the story, this sister and I are both diligent, gentle, and kind people, but "our" endings are similar. It's nothing more than failing the exam, taking many years to pass the exam, and not being appointed after eight years of passing the exam. "Just thinking of my sister's youth in a narrow and dark compartment, burying her head in wrong questions and growing old alone, my heart hurts so much."

I think all East Asians understand this kind of pain.

Most of the characters in Jin Ailan's works are ordinary people who live neither affluent nor extravagant lives, but live a tight life and barely make ends meet. One of the reasons why I like Jin Ailan is that she writes these stories not with a condescending and compassionate touch, but with empathy, and writes a kind of helplessness, as if saying "this reality is so bad, but I don't have time to think too much, because I have to survive."

#Their reading club# #Their daily concerns# #South Korean writer Han Jiang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature#

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