Hwang Sok-yong: The Guest

[Mirabell]

This, read in German translation, is a remarkable novel. It recounts the return of Yosop, a North Korean expat catholic priest who, upon the death of his brother, returns to North Korea.

His brother was part of a christian militia who committed atrocities in the North Korean civil war when the communists took over. His ghost and the ghosts of some of the people he killed visit Yosop and tell him their stories and unveil some of what happened in the civil war.

The writing is a strange mix of bland stiffness and rich metaphors, and hard to tell what's the usual ineptness of translators and what is really Sok-yong's style.

For a story full of ghosts it's disconcertingly straightforward, disconcerting, perhaps, because in many ways it resembles Pedro Paramo, which is a far superior novel.

That is not to say that The Guest is a bad book. It's not. I recommend it heartily. The subject is something that is not written about often, and the different kinds of fanaticism (communist/christian), the depictions of how these rip apart a close-knit community. it's a quick read, a disturbing read, a powerful book.

[fausto]

Amen. Read it last year in French and was really stunned by the power of the book. I actually wonder how come I haven't read anything else by him since then.

[Mirabell]

In the afterword in my edition he muses on the fact that this novel was a bit of a departure for him, as a writer, that he tried something new, a less conventional approach.

[ions]

Added to the list. TY.

[Mirabell]

cool.
let me know how you like it. I wonder how the translation into english worked out. if you finish it, we three, fausto, you and I, will have read this book in three different languages, none of which is the original one.

[Mirabell]

s*: Ghosts of our Youth: On Hwang Song-yong's "The Guest"