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spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
『어디로 가고 싶으신가요』 by Kim Aeran (김애란). Translated by Jamie Chang.
arirang's review
3.0
"어디로가고 싶으신가요" / "Where Would You Like To Go" is a volume in the Asia Publishers bi-lingual series of K-fiction from Korean authors.
As with others in the series, the book comes with both the Korean original and the English translation on facing pages. In addition, there is a afterword from the author herself and a detailed critical appraisal. The use of Korean critics to appraise the novels has the advantage of their greater familiarity with the author's overall works, albeit at the slight expense of less clearly placing their work in an international context.
This all makes for a wonderful introduction to Korean literature, particularly for those, like myself, attempting (badly!) to learn the original language.
One downside is that when one considers the already slim volume (120 pages), and then takes away the commentaries and the dual versions of the story, the actual story in English is slim indeed, just a single short story, making the volumes in the series a rather expensive (on a pound per word of English story) purchase.
The original bilingual series from Asia Publishers came under some criticism for unnecessarily commissioning re-translations of works already in print, and for patchy translation quality generally, in part related to the sheer volume of output, although the series served as an excellent introduction to many modern authors not previously published in English, as well as some additional stories from those, such as 2016 MBI winner Han Kang and the 2016 BTBA longlisted Bae Suah, who have already broken through. But in the newer K-fiction series, which focuses on contemporary fiction, more care has been taken with both the selection of works and the translators.
But by far the most significant criticism of the series is that it is so difficult to get hold of outside of Korea, for example many volumes are not sold on Amazon Uk. Indeed, I resorted to going to Korea to get hold of them (at the wonderful Kyobo bookstore in Gangnam). That lack of international availability of a series designed to promote Korean literature, it barely need saying, rather defeats the object.
This particular volume features a story by 김 애란 (Kim Ae-ran), a new author for me, translated by 젬이미 챙 (Jamie Chang), a lecturer at the prestiguous Ewha University, and with a critical commentary from Lee Kyung-jae.
In her commentary, the author writes that "to my understanding, many Korea writers have not been able to write, or have managed with great difficulty since the Spring of 2014 ... poets, novelists and critics of our times set out to find the meaning and use of words at the very place where words had crumbled". What happened in Spring 2014 would be obvious for a Korean reader, but less so for readers of the translation: the Sewol ferry disaster, where 304 people lost their life, mostly high school students, leading to extended national mourning as well as anger against those perceived as responsible.
The story itself is also based around mourning for one who drowned, but at a personal level. The 30-something narrator's husband, a teacher, drowned one day in an accident, trying, unsuccessfully, to rescue a pupil. This happened, a few months before the story, on a day that she, symbolically, made Kimchi for the first time based on her late mother's recipe:
"But I never dared kimchi. It seemed like a big, difficult thing, only mothers could do. But that day, I wanted to try it for some reason. It was a spring day, and I felt like trying something new, perhaps in light of our long discussion and ultimate decision to have a baby"
"... 김치만은 엄두가 안 났다. 그런 건 엄마들만 할 줄 아는 크고 어려운 일처럼 느껴졌다. 그런데 이상하게 그날은 그게 하고 싶었다. 남편과 긴 의는 끝에 아이를 갖기로 결정하고 뭔가 새롭게 시도해보고픈 마음이 든 봄날이라 그랬는지 모른다."
In the story she is invited by her sister to stay at her house in Edinburgh while she travels, for a change of scene from the house the narrator shared with her late husband where now "words floated around the house all day long. Like a bird crashing headfirst into a window-pane and killing itself, the words collided with his absence and fell to the floor every time. Only then would I remember, as if realising it for the first time, Oh, he's not here anymore."
Her first impressions of the UK are:
"The sky of this island reminded me of the sky I once saw in a Japanese animated film. It looked just like the sky a war-worn soldier dreaming of his happy childhood saw in his mind. This radiance felt like a curtain I took down from someone's home and hung in my own. The pretty "present" hanging before me seemed like a happy past or future to come, but whichever it was, it didn't feel like mine."
As she simply lets time flow in Edinburgh, "like pouring rice water down a drain...so that it would not let me sink or sweep me away", she notices a rash appearing on her back, stomach, thighs and buttocs, a skin-condition she eventually self diagnoses as "pityriasis rosea", a condition whose origin is medically unclear but some believe to be enhanced by stress depression.
"Nothing appeared on exposed skin, so that you could seem perfectly fine on the outside ... it wasn't contagious." - the skin condition serving in the story as a metaphor for the grief.
She unsuccessfully tries to share her pain with the AI interface on her phone, Siri, and also fails when she hooks up with an old college friend of her and her husband, now studying in Edinburgh and unaware of her husband's death. But on returning to Korea (the skin condition "latched on to me in Korea, followed me to England, and doggedly flew back home with me") she receives a letter from the sister of the boy her husband died trying to save, enabling her to see how someone else experiences the same absence, and her process of grief moves on:
"Over the spots that had scabbed over, peeled, and emerged again, over the stains that showed no sign of fading, teardrops fell.
I missed you so very badly"
"당신이 사무치게 보고 싶었다."
Overall, a poetic and moving story about the inadequacy and yet necessity of words in the face of overwhelming grief ("the words will never transcend death, but I hope they may pay quiet, abiding respect before the insurmountable" - from the author's note).
The translation generally reads extremely naturally as English literature and is by no means a literal word-for-word rendition. Which makes some obvious errors all the more jarring, suggesting that the book would have benefited from careful editing. E.g. the sentence ""that was also the day you stopped smoking cold turkey", rather missing a "and went" between "smoking" and "cold" (or indeed simply using "quit smoking.", which is closer to the original). Or a reference to the "The intended gone, the uninspired, everyday words I said hung around my lips with nowhere to go..." where the first three words simply make no sense.
As with others in the series, the book comes with both the Korean original and the English translation on facing pages. In addition, there is a afterword from the author herself and a detailed critical appraisal. The use of Korean critics to appraise the novels has the advantage of their greater familiarity with the author's overall works, albeit at the slight expense of less clearly placing their work in an international context.
This all makes for a wonderful introduction to Korean literature, particularly for those, like myself, attempting (badly!) to learn the original language.
One downside is that when one considers the already slim volume (120 pages), and then takes away the commentaries and the dual versions of the story, the actual story in English is slim indeed, just a single short story, making the volumes in the series a rather expensive (on a pound per word of English story) purchase.
The original bilingual series from Asia Publishers came under some criticism for unnecessarily commissioning re-translations of works already in print, and for patchy translation quality generally, in part related to the sheer volume of output, although the series served as an excellent introduction to many modern authors not previously published in English, as well as some additional stories from those, such as 2016 MBI winner Han Kang and the 2016 BTBA longlisted Bae Suah, who have already broken through. But in the newer K-fiction series, which focuses on contemporary fiction, more care has been taken with both the selection of works and the translators.
But by far the most significant criticism of the series is that it is so difficult to get hold of outside of Korea, for example many volumes are not sold on Amazon Uk. Indeed, I resorted to going to Korea to get hold of them (at the wonderful Kyobo bookstore in Gangnam). That lack of international availability of a series designed to promote Korean literature, it barely need saying, rather defeats the object.
This particular volume features a story by 김 애란 (Kim Ae-ran), a new author for me, translated by 젬이미 챙 (Jamie Chang), a lecturer at the prestiguous Ewha University, and with a critical commentary from Lee Kyung-jae.
In her commentary, the author writes that "to my understanding, many Korea writers have not been able to write, or have managed with great difficulty since the Spring of 2014 ... poets, novelists and critics of our times set out to find the meaning and use of words at the very place where words had crumbled". What happened in Spring 2014 would be obvious for a Korean reader, but less so for readers of the translation: the Sewol ferry disaster, where 304 people lost their life, mostly high school students, leading to extended national mourning as well as anger against those perceived as responsible.
The story itself is also based around mourning for one who drowned, but at a personal level. The 30-something narrator's husband, a teacher, drowned one day in an accident, trying, unsuccessfully, to rescue a pupil. This happened, a few months before the story, on a day that she, symbolically, made Kimchi for the first time based on her late mother's recipe:
"But I never dared kimchi. It seemed like a big, difficult thing, only mothers could do. But that day, I wanted to try it for some reason. It was a spring day, and I felt like trying something new, perhaps in light of our long discussion and ultimate decision to have a baby"
"... 김치만은 엄두가 안 났다. 그런 건 엄마들만 할 줄 아는 크고 어려운 일처럼 느껴졌다. 그런데 이상하게 그날은 그게 하고 싶었다. 남편과 긴 의는 끝에 아이를 갖기로 결정하고 뭔가 새롭게 시도해보고픈 마음이 든 봄날이라 그랬는지 모른다."
In the story she is invited by her sister to stay at her house in Edinburgh while she travels, for a change of scene from the house the narrator shared with her late husband where now "words floated around the house all day long. Like a bird crashing headfirst into a window-pane and killing itself, the words collided with his absence and fell to the floor every time. Only then would I remember, as if realising it for the first time, Oh, he's not here anymore."
Her first impressions of the UK are:
"The sky of this island reminded me of the sky I once saw in a Japanese animated film. It looked just like the sky a war-worn soldier dreaming of his happy childhood saw in his mind. This radiance felt like a curtain I took down from someone's home and hung in my own. The pretty "present" hanging before me seemed like a happy past or future to come, but whichever it was, it didn't feel like mine."
As she simply lets time flow in Edinburgh, "like pouring rice water down a drain...so that it would not let me sink or sweep me away", she notices a rash appearing on her back, stomach, thighs and buttocs, a skin-condition she eventually self diagnoses as "pityriasis rosea", a condition whose origin is medically unclear but some believe to be enhanced by stress depression.
"Nothing appeared on exposed skin, so that you could seem perfectly fine on the outside ... it wasn't contagious." - the skin condition serving in the story as a metaphor for the grief.
She unsuccessfully tries to share her pain with the AI interface on her phone, Siri, and also fails when she hooks up with an old college friend of her and her husband, now studying in Edinburgh and unaware of her husband's death. But on returning to Korea (the skin condition "latched on to me in Korea, followed me to England, and doggedly flew back home with me") she receives a letter from the sister of the boy her husband died trying to save, enabling her to see how someone else experiences the same absence, and her process of grief moves on:
"Over the spots that had scabbed over, peeled, and emerged again, over the stains that showed no sign of fading, teardrops fell.
I missed you so very badly"
"당신이 사무치게 보고 싶었다."
Overall, a poetic and moving story about the inadequacy and yet necessity of words in the face of overwhelming grief ("the words will never transcend death, but I hope they may pay quiet, abiding respect before the insurmountable" - from the author's note).
The translation generally reads extremely naturally as English literature and is by no means a literal word-for-word rendition. Which makes some obvious errors all the more jarring, suggesting that the book would have benefited from careful editing. E.g. the sentence ""that was also the day you stopped smoking cold turkey", rather missing a "and went" between "smoking" and "cold" (or indeed simply using "quit smoking.", which is closer to the original). Or a reference to the "The intended gone, the uninspired, everyday words I said hung around my lips with nowhere to go..." where the first three words simply make no sense.
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