Description 작품 소개
Subjenctive Mood is the third full-length novel by Oh Han-ki, a writer other writers pay close attention to and a leader in post-literature literature. Having expanded the denotation of literature and demonstrated that fabrication is itself the most cutthroat reality that exists, Oh now casts doubt upon the possibility of becoming the Other.
The narrator of Subjunctive Mood realizes one day that they possess the power to become anything they desire, 'becoming at one point an orange whose rind was peeled off, at another a madman's heart that beat without stopping'. Through this fascinating and problematic imagination, readers come face to face with the phenomena of an age that complicates even the barest existence as a human being, witnessing alongside the narrator the lonely, bitter history of violence being recorded on the spot. A literary variation on the Modernist theme, 'I become what I wish to be', this novel poses the weighty questions of whether we are indeed able to become who we wish to be, or the Other, or moreover our very own selves.
Oh Han-ki was the first to arrive at and the farthest ahead on the front lines of 'Analrealism', which in itself could rightly be called the vanguard of young literature. But just as the label of 'Analrealism' was about to overtake him, Oh was already beginning a new literary struggle at a different literary front line. aking a step forward from his previous work, which centered around the writing-ego, in Subjunctive Mood the writing-ego becomes simultaneously the written-ego. Oh's meta traversal blurs the boundaries between writer and written, reality and fiction, and ultimately even writer and reader.
The novel is rewritten according to the reader's understanding. Thus Subjunctive Mood bears within it the next generation of novels like a prophecy. What makes this possible is the writer's vast range of knowledge, trenchant narrative devices, and above all his understanding of the world. As writer Kim Bong-gon says, "Much like the 'Mirror of Erised' from Harry Potter, Subjunctive Mood reveals before readers' eyes the story" they crave and guides them into a new world. To read Oh Han-ki today is to gauge where Korean literature may yet go, and to contemplate how far we as readers might be able to follow.
There are no expectations.