Lost Souls

Stories

Sunwon Hwang, Bruce Fulton, Ju-Chan Fulton

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780231520508
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Asian Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

These captivating short stories portray three major periods in modern Korean history: the forces of colonial modernity during the late 1930s; the postcolonial struggle to rebuild society after four decades of oppression, emasculation, and cultural exile (1945 to 1950); and the attempt to reconstruct a shattered land and a traumatized nation after the Korean War.

Lost Souls echoes the exceptional work of China's Shen Congwen and Japan's Kawabata Yasunari. Modernist narratives set in the metropolises of Tokyo and Pyongyang alternate with starkly realistic portraits of rural life. Surrealist tales suggest the unsettling sensation of colonial domination, while stories of the outcast embody the thrill and terror of independence and survival in a land dominated by tradition and devastated by war.

Written during the chaos of 1945, "Booze" recounts a fight between Koreans for control of a former Japanese-owned distillery. "Toad" relates the suffering created by hundreds of thousands of returning refugees, and stories from the 1950s confront the catastrophes of the Korean War and the problematic desire for autonomy. Visceral and versatile, Lost Souls is a classic work on the possibilities of transition that showcases the innovation and craftsmanship of a consummate—and widely celebrated—storyteller.

The Pond

THE POND

It all began, this tutoring job of T’aesŏp’s, when the wife of his college instructor friend introduced him to the girl’s family. After the introductions were made and the friend’s wife had departed, the first thing the girl’s mother asked T’aesŏp was how long he had known the wife and how he had gotten to know her so well. When T’aesŏp responded that she was the wife of a friend, the girl’s mother asked him what he thought of a woman with three children who wore her hair short and frizzy and went around in a jade-green jacket. T’aesŏp had always felt that the wife’s short hair complemented her face, and he said as much, adding, though, that the jade green of the jacket didn’t go well with her unnaturally dark complexion. As he said this he became aware of the filmy gaze of the girl’s mother. He tried to make eye contact, but the girl’s mother promptly lowered her eyes. Her face with its impassive expression looked a bit puffy. And her labored breathing gave him the impression that she had a weak heart.

In her breathless tone the girl’s mother said that she and the wife had the same ancestral home and that their families were familiar with each other’s circumstances, including the fact that the wife’s family had voiced many complaints in opposition to her marriage, but ultimately she had shacked up with the man. The girl’s mother blushed slightly when she said “shacked up,” then related that the wife had not been able to return to her family and that all of this had come about because the wife had lost her mother when she was a child and had been raised instead by her stepmother.

T’aesŏp felt uneasy listening to the woman and prepared to leave, saying he would begin tutoring the girl the following day, but the woman said there was no time like the present and asked him to begin that day instead. And then she mumbled to herself that the girl had never been this late coming home from school before, and with a fretful motion she reached inside her skirt and produced a cigarette from the pocket of her bloomers. But no sooner had she taken a couple of puffs than she started. Extinguishing the cigarette, she strained to listen.

From outside the room where they sat came the sound of whistling. When the whistling, and the sound of footsteps that followed, trailed off toward the room across the veranda, the girl’s mother shouted, “Come here, girl!” In a solemn tone she asked the girl to present herself, and then she proceeded to remove herself farther from T’aesŏp even though they were already far apart. The girl slid open the door to the room and entered. She was holding a pair of track shoes and it was evident from her flushed cheeks that she had just finished a workout. Her face was round and the eyes beneath the long, dark lashes were small but sparkling with life.

T’aesŏp flipped through the pages of her textbooks, familiarizing himself with her progress to date. He found himself lighting a cigarette to block out her scentless but overwhelming sweat smell, which hung in the air every time she leaned forward to indicate something in one of the books. The girl’s mother sneaked looks at the two of them in turn and told the girl over and over again to pay attention.

The next day marked the beginning of the tutoring, which took place under the watchful eye of the girl’s mother. The girl proved to be quick at memorizing her language lessons. But when it came to mathematics she was perversely stubborn; she seemed to consider herself innately incapable of solving the problems. T’aesŏp asked the girl if she had always disliked mathematics, and she vigorously nodded. And yet when she solved practice questions she did it without assistance and could explain her answers when asked to do so. And she understood perfectly the problem areas T’aesŏp explained to her—but only when she had made up her mind to. It occurred to T’aesŏp that he should make sure the girl understood the concepts underlying the math that he taught her. As he considered this he turned toward the girl. She was moistening the end of her pencil with the crimson tip of her tongue.

T’aesŏp hastened to find the easiest problem in the girl’s homework and asked her to answer it. The girl looked at the problem, but all she did was continue to moisten the tip of the pencil with her tongue. T’aesŏp hinted at the underlying concept, but still the girl merely kept her tongue to the pencil. T’aesŏp realized he was devoting more attention to the tongue and lips of this healthy girl sitting in front of him than to the math problems, and he snatched the pencil from her. But before writing anything T’aesŏp likewise put the pencil to the tip of his tongue. He was surprised at his own action. His first attempt to solve the problem was incorrect. The girl’s mother, seated on the warmest part of the heated floor, scolded the girl for having a silly smile on her face. T’aesŏp felt as if the girl’s cold, playful smile was fixing itself on his forehead, and again he attempted in vain to solve the problem. Again the girl’s mother scolded her to stop smiling. But now the girl laughed; it was funny having to study when her mother was paying closer attention to the instructor than she was, she told her, and then she laughed more loudly.

Again the next day the girl arrived home whistling and again her mother summoned her. And again the girl’s mother moved as far from T’aesŏp as she could—but the girl didn’t enter. The mother went out. When she returned a short time later, her body language said she had given up; she asked T’aesŏp to do his teaching in the room across the veranda.

In that room sat the girl, quite graceful in traditional clothing, her legs gathered to the side. On the wall behind her was a photograph of a sprinter poised for the start. As he viewed the sprinter—the taut balance of the torso leaning forward and the toes dug into the ground, the eyes focused in an intense gaze—T’aesŏp drew in his mind an image of the girl’s hefty bosom hitting the finish-line tape, leaving the ends to flutter in the air, and instinctively his thin body shuddered. And when his gaze fell next on the girl’s fleshy knees he hurriedly collected himself, picked up the nearest textbook, and began leafing through it.

The girl gathered her legs to the opposite side and abruptly spoke up: there was something in the eyes of others that made her feel there must be an emptiness in this house. T’aesŏp looked up from the textbook and asked what she meant, and the girl responded with a question of her own: did he think it strange that there was no father in this house? T’aesŏp replied that he was aware there was no father; his friend’s wife had told him so. The girl immediately responded that her mother told everyone her father had died, but in fact he was still alive. When she was old enough to know better, the girl continued, she learned that her father had taken a mistress and gone elsewhere to live, at which point he and her mother divided their assets equally and made a break with each other. Her father lived not far away but had lost all his assets and for some time had been laid up with rheumatism, and her mother had developed a case of heartburn that had led to heart disease. Instead of responding to this with comforting words, T’aesŏp opened the algebra book in front of the girl and told her she should study hard and try to make her mother happy, since it seemed her mother’s one wish was for the girl to be a good student. No sooner had he said this than the girl produced a cynical smile and said she was sick of hearing her mother say that. And then she opened the sliding door to the room, as if she had noticed someone eavesdropping outside. The girl’s mother was in the yard preparing ingredients for kimchi; she turned toward them, startled.

On days when T’aesŏp arrived before the girl had returned from school, her mother would carefully slide open the door, enter, and sit, and then ask him how much the girl had learned at school. There wasn’t much T’aesŏp could say except that the girl was quite good at memorization. The girl’s mother would remain silent for a time, then fix T’aesŏp with her filmy gaze and say in a soft voice that studying was all to the good, but the important thing was for T’aesŏp to teach the girl to keep her distance from men; was there any man in this day and age who wouldn’t deceive a woman? T’aesŏp would avoid her gaze but at the same time, and without realizing it, nod in agreement.

On one such day the girl’s mother seemed to realize it was time for the girl to return, and breathing heavily, she left. The girl arrived, and the first thing she did was suggest to T’aesŏp that they go on a picnic the following day, which was Sunday. Without waiting for T’aesŏp to answer, she slid open the inside door and called toward the kitchen that she and Teacher were going on an outing the following day. “Isn’t that right?” she said, turning back to T’aesŏp. T’aesŏp pictured the girl running around the picnic area in her spiked track shoes, and nodded yes.

The following day was cloudy and the wind was blowing. Still, T’aesŏp went to the assigned meeting place—a road that branched off toward the outskirts of town—and waited for the girl. After a time she appeared. T’aesŏp started. Instead of the school uniform he had expected to see, she wore traditional clothing—a white jacket and a long blue skirt embroidered with pairs of mandarin ducks against a blue background. The skirt rippled and flapped in the wind. Skillfully gathering the hem, the girl smiled, looked T’aesŏp straight in the eye, and asked what he thought of her taste in clothing. Setting out on the road, T’aesŏp mumbled something about breaking the rules by not wearing the school uniform on an outing. The girl came up beside him and he discovered not a girl in a uniform with a rucksack and a pair of track shoes but instead a woman. All he could do was lift his gaze to the cloudy skies above.

Without looking skyward as T’aesŏp had, the girl remarked that some bad weather must have come in overnight; they would probably get rained on, she said; maybe they should give up on the idea of a picnic. When T’aesŏp said he was open to suggestions, the girl took a quick look behind her as if they were being followed, then said, “How about a movie?” Here too the girl seemed to have made up her mind in advance, and she set out in front of T’aesŏp, telling him that her mother had been standing in the alley next to the fruit shop behind them to the left, and then suggesting that they follow the road leading out of town for a short distance before turning back toward the theater.

T’aesŏp produced a cigarette and turned away from the wind to light it. Sure enough, there was the girl’s mother, observing them. T’aesŏp lit his cigarette, and as he turned back to the girl there registered in his mind the image of the girl just now, looking behind her as if they were being followed, and also an image of their study session at the girl’s home being interrupted by the sudden opening of the sliding door, as if someone had been eavesdropping outside. This realization sent a chill up his spine. T’aesŏp hastened to catch up to the girl, and remarked that it might be better if they went their separate ways. The girl produced a hearty smile and ...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• The Pond
• The Dog of Crossover Village
• Lost Souls
• Afterword