I finished reading Hong Gildong by Seo Hajin quite quickly. It was a short little book with two short stories in it. First one was about a man going through mid life crisis and an affair with a younger woman. The second one was about a pregnant woman going through depression because she feels trapped in her life and marriage. Doesn’t sound very uplifting but there was something about the tone of the story that made them nicely melancholic and it was well written.
Hong Gildong by Seo Hajin
The first story is supposed to be drawn from an early Korean literary source Tale of Hong Gildong but I think I missed that part entirely. Would have loved to have someone explain that one to me.
While I really enjoyed reading the book it didn’t really stick with me. Just few days later it is fading away in my mind. I however always enjoy a short love affair with some literary sadness so I will give it a well deserved 3,5 stars out of 5.
Er að velta fyrir mér hvort þetta sé Gerður Jónsdóttir sem fór með Guðjóni Ó. og fleirum úr FB til Belgíu. Erum að leyta að henni og ákvað að spyrja þig hvort þú værir hún.
Kveðja, Þorvarður Sigurbjörnsson
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The reference to the “historical” Hong Gildong is because Hong could reproduce himself with men made of straw (and thus bedevil the government more) The protagonist in the modern version wishes he had this power, but only so he could fade away without the world knowing..
I haven’t reviewed this yet (it’s my next one at my KTLIT blog
Charles Montgomery
That was very interesting to know! Thank you!
I wish I had found your blog before I went to South-Korea. I really struggled to find any translated authors online.