The buzz word in the Korean publishing industry of 2008 was self-healing. To find a way to heal their wounds, readers opted for coming-of-age novels rather than trendy self-help or personal finance titles. This reflects the sad reality that survival, not success, is what matters most for the public amid the protracted economic slowdown. The neo-liberalism that emerged in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s no longer offers a message of hope, at least for most Koreans. Local readers have begun to think about what has been sacrificed in the name of seeking success. The popularity of coming-ofage stories in Korea, therefore, illustrates the pent-up desire for a book that can assuage the innermost wounds of the public – something that cannot be satisfied by the much-hyped expectations about success. Testifying to the comingof- age novel boom are Hwang Sokyong’s Hesperus, Gong Ji-Young’s My Happy House, Kim Ryeo-ryeong’s Wandeuki, and Kim Hyoung-kyoung’s The Flowering Whale.

Hwang Sok-yong’s Hesperus is a fresh experiment aimed at testing the potential of old-school writers in the era of the Internet. Hwang, age 65, stirred up the Korean literary circles by adopting a revolutionary way to introduce his new novel to the public: serialization through his personal blog on the web. His bold – and successful – attempt to toy with the new digital media underscored the importance of a willingness to adopt a new medium to meet with readers. Hwang’s serialization was a smashing hit. He spent plenty of time responding to readers’ comments on his blog, a reflection of an explosive reaction from young readers familiar with Internet-based communications.

Hesperus centers upon the life of Yu-jun in the turbulent years between 1959 and 1966 – from his high school days to his dispatch to the Vietnam War. Yu-jun grew up in a wealthy family. His life seems perfect in every way, but there is one big problem: his friends belong to the working class, working for factories or railroad companies. Yu-jun, at one point, realizes that everything surrounding his life – polite manners, clean dress shirts, white handkerchiefs – seem “unbearable.” Adults want Yu-jun to become a medical doctor, a judge, a scholar, or a successful businessman. Each month, students take a standardized test, the results of which include the rankings of individual students that are publicly announced. Schools enforce a strict dress code. All of this comes off as a system of suppression for a boy in his fragile adolescence.

Yu-jun describes why he has decided to quit school in a formal letter, which lays bare the toxic problems of the Korean education system: “I believe that I’m not the only victim of the monthly academic test. Whenever students’ scores and rankings are posted in the school hall, I don’t feel it’s humiliating or embarrassing because I feel it’s simply a total waste of time and energy. The test is designed to train students endlessly so that they can adapt to whatever society demands. How obediently you follow the demands decides your future career, and which school you attend decides your social status. … The current school education produces not creative minds but obedient students who just follow the existing rules without any question in a way that reinforces the current social system.” (Hesperus, p. 89)

As richly illustrated in Yu-jun’s argument, the novel focuses on the importance of thinking outside the box instead of adaptation, depicting a process in which the main character explores and develops his own perspective rather than accepting conventional views.

Gong Ji-Young’s My Happy House concerns a Korean mother with three children. In the story, the mother has divorced three times, an unusual condition that leaves her children with three different fathers. One of her children is a girl named Ui-nyeong, who observers her mother, a famous writer. Her mother is upbeat and lively, but a conservative Korean society hostile to divorcees does not accept her as she is. This novel reveals how rapidly the concept of maternal love has changed in Korea in recent years. In a traditional Korean family, mothers represent unconditional sacrifice for their husbands and children. Ui-nyeong’s mother, however, is not a mother who is willing to sacrifice herself unconditionally. In contrast, she is like a friend to her children because she strives to live together with them while making mistakes and feeling the same pain. Uinyeong loves her mother chiefly because her mother recognizes her children as they are without trying to shape them into preset images.

The mother’s message to her daughter is telling: “It finally dawned on her that the Blessed Mary is admired not because she’s the mother of a savior but because she let her precious son die. The ultimate consummation of maternal love is letting go of children, she realized while lying on the floor in the living room with the moonlight scattering around. The painful moment of parting with one’s own children is the moment of true blessing. “My sweetheart, you should go your own way. Mother will stay here. Your 20-year-old life should be different from my 20-year-old life. Pain is your teacher. Live out the numerous layers of time ahead. I’ll give you a golden key of love, and you will open up a new world with it. A world just for you.” (My Happy House, p. 336-337)

Kim Ryeo-ryeong’s Wandeuki is also a coming-of-age novel about a child raised by his midget father and Vietnamese mother. Wandeuki, a high schooler, does not speak unless he’s spoken to. He develops a sense of hatred toward the world because he believes his father, even though he practiced hard to become a dancer, has been unfairly turned into a laughing stock due to society’s injustice. Wandeuki expresses his hatred by being indifferent to what is happening in society:

People return home after working really hard all day long, only to eat the same food and take up the same work the next day, and then return home again, and when the time comes, they die. Humans are bound to die, and that’s it. There’s nothing left when people die. All the things they have achieved will simply go away. Only those alive can claim their achievements. There’s no difference between a street bum and a President when both are dead. No dead people can interfere with the life of people who are alive. The dead cannot return from the netherworld to otherwise protest. Therefore, the best thing one can do is to live without bothering other people and then die peacefully. (Wandeuki, p. 174-175)

Wandeuki, age 17, has a poor family background and his academic performance is below average, but he never loses a fight. His life begins to change after meeting an understanding teacher nicknamed Ddong-ju. With the help of his teacher, Wandeuki learns how to express his anger through kickboxing. He also regains a sense of love when he reunites with his long-lost mother.

Another moving coming-of-age story, Kim Hyoung-kyoung’s The Flowering Whale is a moving tale about 17-year-old Ni-eun who loses her parents to a car accident. Ni-eun’s parents believed in fantasy. Her mother thought she was a descendant of an Indian princess; her father acted as if his original family came from an Arab merchant. They told Ni-eun about their hometown, Cheoyongpo and whaling, which is now banned. Ni-eun did not take her parents’ penchant for fantasy seriously. Only until she loses both of them through the tragic accident does she realize their love, the realization of which turns her world upside down. For Ni-eun, life has suddenly turned into a living hell filled with bottomless sadness and despair: “Whatever she touches generated electric sparks, and electric particles floating in the air often found a resting place in her body.” (The Flowering Whale, p. 200)

Fortunately, there are various characters who take care of Ni-eun, such as mysterious old man known as Changposu who waits for the ban on whaling to be lifted some day, while guarding small forest in the village and an old lady, who runs the Big Whale Shop, keeps taking Korean language lessons at the age of 70.
Ni-eun realizes that she remains trapped in sadness due to her failure to express her sorrow to the full. When she comes across the dead body of a whale, she finally identifies the cause of her sadness. She “held the whale with my arms and put my face to its body, and then began to cry. All the waves circulating through my body began to flow out. While crying, I thought I should grow up. The lady at the Big Whale Shop got married when she was 15. Changposu jumped into the whaling boat when he was just 16. I’m already 17. I may still be underage, but I guess age doesn’t necessarily determine whether I’m an adult or not.” (The Flowering Whale, p. 75)

In recent months, coming-of-age novels favored by Korean readers are mostly concerned about characters that bravely undergo a transformative growth. They almost always confront challenging situations, but their hearts are filled with sympathy for their neighbors in need. These characters embrace their lives despite hardships, offering whole new world of internal growth for local readers who are now tired of cookie-cutter self-help lectures obsessed with material success.

1 The Flowering Whale
Kim Hyoung-kyoung, Changbi Publishers Inc., 2008, 270pp.
ISBN 978-89-364-3365-9 03810
2 Hesperus
Hwang Sok-yong, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp., 2008,
ISBN 978-89-546-0641-7 03810
3 My Happy House
Gong Ji-Young, Prunsoop Publishing Co. Ltd., 2008, 347pp.
ISBN 978-89-7184-755-8 03810
4 Wandeuki
Kim Ryeo-ryeong, Changbi Publishers Inc., 2008, 239pp.
ISBN 978-89-364-3363-5-03810