Kim Moonsoo (1939-2012) was a Korean novelist. In his early works, he delves into an ordinary life of an individual being destroyed by the tragedy of the Korean War and the introduction of industrialism. In his later works, he deals with the conflicts between materialism and traditional ethics during the expansion of industrialization.
1. Life
Kim Moonsoo was born in Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea in 1939. He attended Dongguk University for his undergraduate and Kookmin University for his graduate degree. When Kim was a freshmen, he won Jayu Shinmun New Writer’s Contest for his first short novel Oeroun Saram (외로운 사람 Lonely People) in 1959, and later won Chosun Ilbo New Writer’s Contest for Idanbuheung (이단부흥 A Revival of Heresy). Since 1967, he has worked as a writer and a worker in the editorial department at a publishing house.1) Moreover, he served as a professor at Hanyang Women’s University and later at Dongguk University, and worked in an active member at the Korean Writers’ Association and the Korea P.E.N.2) As a vigorous writer for 40 years, he had brought out 10 novels, 90 novellas and short novels until he passed away due to his chronical disease in 2012. 3)
2. Writing
The protagonists in his early works are mostly pensive and defensive, rather than active in problem solving. Kim Moon-soo adopts to weave each event together with psychological association, and in the conclusion of the story, he utilizes irony to give a twist.4) His characters are mainly ordinary people, so he used to be dubbed as “a writer for ordinary people.”5)
1) Early Works
His early works deal with ordinary lives of ordinary people who are eventually ruined by the tragedy of the Korean War and the wave of industrial revolution. 6) The protagonists keep suffering inside after being traumatized when they are just kids. Over time, they migrate to big cities like Seoul to get a job, but they end up as bottom dwellers. One of the major works during Kim’s early days is Jeungmyo (증묘, Sacrificing Cats 1971), a novella, which shed a light on the corruption of human virtue in the aftermath of the Korean War. The term “Jeungmyo” represents a superstitious action of human beings to avoid bad luck by sacrificing cats, and the story incorporates ethical conflicts of society at the time into the issue of female sexuality. 7)
2) Later Works
Kim’s later works majorly illustrate the clash between materialism and traditional morals as modernization steadily expands in Korean society. The protagonists in his later novels go through constant failures and defeats due to materialism and egotism—the dominant values in the industrial era—but still try to preserve their virtues in traditional ethics. A winner of the Dongin Literary Award, Manchwidanggi (만취당기, The Chronicle of Manchwidang, 1989), is one of the notable works during Kim’s late career.
This novel examines the conflict between morality and the corrupted world where traditional familism coexists with the desire to be successful in modern society. 8) After successfully getting a job as a civil servant, the protagonist enjoys success in life. However, he is threatened to be fired because of his disobedience to inappropriate orders from above, eventually leading him to move back to his family house, Manchwidang. His father is a conservative person who is obsessed with a familial prophecy that three ministers of states will come out from his family. To make his son the third one, the father forces his son to succumb to his superiors in work, by giving them a bribe. The protagonist’s struggle to protect his belief against his father’s obsessive quest resonates in the readers’ heart. In addition to The Chronicle of Manchwidang, his other remarkable novels are: Pamuneul Kiun Moraeal (파문을 키운 모래알, A Grain of Sand That Makes a Ripple, 1997), which navigates different aspects of human beings who live to fool each other in this contemporary world, with a backdrop of the collapse of Seongsu Bridge, and Gaji Aneun Gil (가지 않은 길, The Road not Taken, 1999) is a novel that illustrates the life of an agonized intellectual who refuses to compromise and tries to sustain life as a moral being.
Reference
1) “Kim Moon-soo.” Naver Encyclopedia, A Dictionary of Korean Literature.
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=688772&cid=60533&categoryId=60533
2) “Kim Moon-soo.” Naver Encyclopedia, A Dictionary of Korean Literature
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=333227&cid=41708&categoryId=41737
3) “Kim Moon-soo: A writer who wrote The Chronicle of Manchwidang,” Joongang Ilbo, November 6. 2012.
https://news.joins.com/article/9799188
4) Im, Hyeong-mo, “The Literary World of Kim Moon-soo with Association and Irony,” Hangsung Korean Language and Literature, Hansung University Language and literature Association, 2013.
5) “Kim Moon-soo.” Doopedia.
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=1221122&cid=40942&categoryId=37154
6) Lee, Hoo-gyu. “The Newness of Scars from War and the Shadow of Urbanization - Focusing on of Moonsu Kim`s Short Stories of 1970s,” Humanities Studies, Chosun University Institute of Humanities, 2016.
7) “Jeungmyo.” Naver Encyclopedia. A Dictionary of Korean Literature
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=688772&cid=60533&categoryId=60533&anchorTarget=TABLE_OF_CONTENT1#TABLE_OF_CONTENT1
8) “Plot of The Chronicle of Manchwidang.” Cyber Literary Square, Arts Council Korea. Munjang.or.kr.
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=334614&cid=41708&categoryId=41737&expCategoryId=47319
