Paul Yoon, "The Hive and the Honey"

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Paul Yoon, "The Hive and the Honey: Stories" (2023)

 

Review by Marissa Moss, new york journal of books

 

Laura van den Berg Speaks with the Author

(작가 Laura van den Berg는 Paul Yoon의 아내)

이 인터뷰 기사에서 인용하면:

 

The stories ... span some 500 years, and create this sweeping account of the Korean Diaspora.

 

I sensed a fresh boldness on the page, a kind of harrowing grace. I felt a writer stretching beyond the borders of what had been possible previously. I felt innovation, experimentation, real risk.

 

Paul Yoon: I think in some ways my approach to building a story collection has remained the same since my first one: the project is one canvas, one book—I see a trajectory from the first story to the middle to the last; I want to build a world, and I want, hopefully, the reader to feel a sense of tremendous accumulation. I think what’s changed over the years is my attempt at adding as many layers as I can on to that canvas, whether that involves situations, history, characters.

 

 

작가가 의도한 '실험'의 하나는, 단순히, 최소의 문장으로 최대한의

이야기를 하려는 것처럼 보인다. 위 인터뷰에서 저자가 말한

"make something rich with layers"의 결과이면서 그 방법이기도 하겠다.

Open-endedness도 마찬가지다.

 

이 책 이전에 읽은 소설 "Snow Hunters" (2013),

단편 "Once the Shore" (2005), 단편집 "The Mountain" (2017),

그리고 소설 "Run Me to Earth" (2020)를 포함해서, Paul Yoon 작품의

인상은, 한결같이, 시적인 간결함, 깔끔함이다.

 

 

메모로, 책에 실린 모두 일곱 편인 단편들의 첫 한두 문장을 적어본다.

 

Bosun

 

During his twelve years in New York City, Bosun, who went by Bo, got into some bad business with an import-export company in Queens.

 

Komarov

 

It was a small hill town on the Costa Brava. She arrived in the late afternoon, stopping off the crowed train that had come in from Barcelona, and followed the sign for the taxi stand.

 

At the Post Station

Edo Period, 1608

 

On the Tokaido, on the last day of our journey, we come upon a tree that has flowered early. It stands alone amid the endless row of cedars that line the road, its bright red color so sudden and distracting -- like the appearance of a door among the evergreens -- that we fail to notice at first the corpse not too far away, lying in ditch.

 

Cromer

 

In New Malden, they owned a corner shop together. It was the place where you could get the gossip magazines and newspapers from Seoul.

 

The Hive and the Honey

South Ussuri, Primorsky, Kari, 1881 April Report

 

Dear Uncle,

About the recent tragic and mysterious events here in your outpost, I can now relate this:

 

Thirty four days ago, in the middle of the night, I was woken by a loud noise coming from the Korean settlement.

 

Person of Korea

 

He waits three weeks for his father to respond. During that time, whenever he checks the mail for reply, the dog follows him.

 

Valley of the Moon

 

Two years later he left the settlement.

He took the bus heading north and then hitchhiked on the back of a repurposed US Army truck that was filled with others like him who all said the same thing: they were heading home.