LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
At What Cost?: Into the World of Passi by Hwang Jung-eun scrap
by Jeong Young-hoon
October 26, 2014
Author Bio 작가 소개
Hwang Jungeun
Hwang Jung-eun directs readers attention to the empty spaces between objects that exist but remain unnoticed, instead of the objects that occupy the space itself. In her first novel, Hwang used fantasy to make this possible, then in her new novel she actually writes about that which is not visible. For example, there is the vindictive spirit of Danny DeVito who even after he is dead, cannot forget his beloved and hovers around her.
The novel tells the story from the point of view of the protagonist-spirit, but the truth is that the woman is derived from a hallucination of the melancholy man unable to get over her. The author has the spirit provide the narrative rather than having the character tell a story about his impotent and lonely life. The spirit serves as an objective correlative that reveals his emotional state. The core point of Hwang’s current anthology of short stories is to represent what the eye cannot see in the form of a concrete entity.
Two seemingly different short stories can be read in the same way; that is, a clay vessel dug up in an unsightly manner from the earth in the “Story of an Earthen Vessel,” and a cat that repeatedly loses its life as a result of people’s cruelty in “Life of a Cat.” Both of them represent things people have had to sacrifice in order to live a more comfortable life, such as devastated nature, destroyed buildings, people who have been uprooted in the course of redevelopment projects, and the countless stories that are enmeshed in these phenomena; if readers feel somber after reading the stories, it is because they strike a chord about our own lives. It is also because it is clearly undeniable that the material happiness we have gained was in exchange for a loss of something else. Hwang’s novel makes concrete the discarded and forgotten world. It is aesthetically outstanding as well as effective in posing important questions. Among the questions she asks is, What is a good life? If a good life comes at a cost of someone else’s happiness then can that still be considered good?
Writer 필자 소개
Jeong Young-hoon
Did you enjoy this article? 별점
Did you enjoy this article? Please rate your experience
