He is a writer who strikes us as a tough warrior rather than as a frail scholar. He insists on writing longhand using only pencils, and shuns automobiles in favor of tooling around on a bike. But most of all, he is the writer of an entirely new kind of historical novels in Korea. Park Hae-hyun, a reporter for the Chosun Ilbo, met with novelist Kim Hoon for this interview.

Kim Hoon writes in longhand, using pencils. He worked as a journalist for over 20 years before he started publishing novels, but strangely enough, he has never touched the keyboard of a typewriter or a computer. In this digital day and age, he insists on writing the analog way. Kim has always said, “When I write with pencils, I feel that my body is propelling the writing forward. I am incapable of writing a single line without this feeling.” To him, a pencil is not merely a tool for writing, but the embodiment of the writer himself. Kim Hoon uses his entire body to show the moment in which the body and the words of the writer become one to reveal that a writer’s style is, literally, none other than the writer himself.

Kim Hoon calls himself a bicycle racer. He does not have a driver’s license. He journeyed to the southern part of the Korean peninsula riding his bike, which he named Pungryun, meaning “wheels of the wind,” and wrote a series of travel essays. He is a writer who rejects computers and writes with a pencil, a writer who shuns automobiles and troubles himself by stepping on the pedals of his bicycle. People now consider him an evangelist promoting bike riding as part of the green lifestyle that is being emphasized in Korea today.

Kim Hoon, however, brushes this off, saying, “Pencils and bicycles are not exactly my source of pride or my idiosyncrasies.” He goes on to confess, “It’s not that I reject machinery out of free will; it’s simply that machines tend to break down at my touch. In other words, I’m disabled, a handicapped person, who has fallen behind the progress of the machine-oriented civilization.” But Kim has succeeded in turning his weaknesses into strengths. There has always been a tendency in Korean society to equate writers with frail and bookish, scholars. Kim, with his pencils and bikes, however, has come to be recognized as a writer who writes with his body, a writer who strikes us as a tough warrior rather than as an effeminate scholar. It is no coincidence that his most widely read work is Song of the Sword, his novel about Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who is considered as almost sacred in Korean history.

Song of the Sword not only sold over a million copies in Korea but also garnered its author the prestigious Dongin Literary Award, a rare case of a single book accomplishing both critical and commercial success. Song of the Sword is a historical novel set against the backdrop of 16th century warfare between Korea and Japan. It has been translated into several languages in many different countries, including France where it was published as part of Gallimard’s Du Monde Entier series.

The first-person narrator of Song of the Sword is Admiral Yi himself, who, with a small fleet, defended the kingdom of Joseon against the invading Japanese navy. Yi Sun-sin is revered as a national hero among the Korean people, and countless novels and films have been made about him. His heroic tale may have become too clichéd even for Koreans. What, then, is the reason behind the success of Kim Hoon’s novel in 21st century Korea?

First, in writing Song of the Sword, Kim Hoon took the form of the historical novel, but adopted a style and construction completely different from those of other Korean historical novels that had come before it. Kim categorized the historical novels of preceding generations into two types – romantic historical novels set in the royal court, and populist historical novels that center around common people – and aimed at overcoming both. He rejected both the romantic historical novel that fostered escapism in readers through the romance of historical heroes, and the populist historical novels that shed light on the life of the common people through the perspective of 20th century left-wing ideology. Instead of letting himself, the author, tell the story about people from the past, Kim chose the first-person narrative through which a historical figure reveals his interior feelings and thoughts.

The Admiral Yi Sun-sin in Song of the Sword is not an extraordinary superhuman or a mythical hero, but an individual caught up in existential agony in the midst of war. The strength that keeps him fighting in battle is not rooted in his loyalty to the state or the king, or his love for the people. He fights on with all his might because he has been thrown into this situation called war. His life becomes one with his sword, and his voice becomes the song of the sword. Because he keeps fighting despite a premonition that he will not make it out alive, his spirit cannot free itself from a sense of nihilism. In reality, Yi Sun-sin died in combat during the war’s final battle.

The nihilism in Song of the Sword stirred up a heated controversy among critics. One pointed out that the novel lacked the historicity required for it to be regarded as a historical novel in the true sense of the word, that it was closer to an essay than a novel, and that it projected the author’s nihilistic views on history and the world. In contrast, another critic took a positive view of Kim’s nihilism, stressing that all writers are bound to assume a nihilistic standpoint in order to distance themselves from the events they depict, and that real choices can be made only in a nihilistic situation. Kim Hoon, he stated, opened a new path for the Korean novel by boldly making use of nihilism.

Such controversy, in fact, was what Kim had intended. It is true that Kim wanted to write a modern novel that delved deep into the interiors of an individual, freeing himself from the fixed form of the historical novel. He had also on many occasions openly expressed his aesthetics based on tragic nihilism. His insistence on writing with pencils and riding bicycles is a form of nihilistic criticism on the civilization of the 21st century, which emphasizes convenience, speed, and efficiency. Kim’s sense of nihilism, in this aspect, is not a pessimistic attitude but an existential one, revealing a spirit of defiance against today’s reality, and this is what resonates with many readers.

Kim Hoon published two other historical novels since Song of the Sword, one of which is titled Fortress on Mt. Namhan. This book was also a huge success, yet again accompanied by controversy from critics. In this novel as well, Kim Hoon captures the detailed psychological depths of individual minds with his distinctive, taut, and precise prose.

Fortress on Mt. Namhan is set during the war that was waged between the Korean kingdom of Joseon and Qing China in the 17th century. At the time, Joseon was no match for the Manchu dynasty that had conquered China. Nevertheless, Qing invaded Joseon because it had continued to pay respects to the fallen Ming dynasty, with which it had previously maintained tributary relations, and chose to ignore the authority of Qing, the new supreme power. Joseon’s royal family and court officials fled the powerful Qing forces to the Namhansanseong (mountain fortress), where they were held up for 47 days within the fortress’s locked gates, but in the end, the Joseon king surrendered, bowing down before the Qing emperor.

This novel touched on the historical wounds of the Korean people. In a cool, tightly-knit prose style, it depicts how the king and his subjects, soldiers, and the common people persisted, fought, and lost, in complete isolation inside the Namhansanseong, surrounded by the enemy. The two powers that maintain conflict throughout the novel are the advocates of peace and the proponents of war. The former maintained that they should preserve the kingdom through reconciliation with the Qing dynasty, and the latter argued that they should fight the Manchus down to the last man. The novel sides with neither, and instead, vividly recreates the fortress as a symbolic space in history, leaving room for the readers of today to interpret the story from a contemporary point of view. A historian noted that Kim’s novel reflected the spiritual injury suffered by the isolated Korean people following the financial crisis in the late 1990s. Another interpretation saw the relationship between Joseon, Ming China, and the Qing dynasty, the new superpower, as a reflection of Korea’s geopolitical reality in the Northeast Asia of the 21st century.

Upon publication of Fortress on Mt. Namhan, Kim Hoon, wary of politically- inclined readings of his work, commented, “Human reality cannot be made up solely of self-respect and glory. I believe it is inevitable that shame and submission be a part of life and history as well.” Then he cautiously added, “I am unsure if my contemporaries will sympathize with the idea that even those inevitably disgraced for the sake of survival were just as beautiful as any other. I am neither on the side of the advocates of peace or the advocates of war, but on the side of those in pain. I hope the readers read this novel simply as a novel.”

One thing is clear: Kim Hoon’s historical novels, as they are being read, have the power to amplify controversies as they are reflected in the mirror of reality. On the other hand, many critics agree that his prose brilliantly captures the tragic and sublime beauty of humanity within the realm of mundane realities, elevating the aesthetic style of the novel to the height of poetry.

In addition to Song of the Sword and Fortress on Mt. Namhan, Kim Hoon has written another historical novel, Song of Strings. He has also published Rivers and Mountains Without End, a collection of short stories, and several books of non-fiction. Nowadays, he rides his bicycle around the suburbs of Ilsan in Gyeonggi-do (province), where he is writing a new novel, with a pencil.

Fortress on Mt. Namhan(left)

Kim Hoon, Hakgojae, 2007, 383pp.

ISBN 978-89-5625-059-5 03810

Song of Strings(right)

Kim Hoon, Thinking Tree Publishing Co., 2008, 357pp.

ISBN 978-89-8498-726-5 03810