[KS] KSR:2000-05:_My Very Last Possession and Other Stories by Pak

[Stephen Epstein]

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_My Very Last Possession and Other Stories by Pak Wanso_, trans. by Chun
Kyung-Ja et al.  Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.  220 pp. (ISBN
0-7656-0429-9, paper).

Reviewed by Diana Hinds
Seoul National University

	Ten stories by the prolific author Pak Wans™ are skillfully
translated in the recently published My Very Last Possession and Other
Stories by Pak Wans™ (Chun Kyun-ja, ed., 1999).  This anthology samples
stories whose settings reflect a range of periods, from the Korean War and
the subsequent rapid industrialization of the 1960s and '70s to the
destructive riots of the '80s.  Often closely related to her real-life
experiences, Pak's stories unflinchingly mirror the state of the Korean
family in a given era, especially as seen through the eyes of a mother or
daughter.  Realism seems to play an important cathartic role for the Korean
reader.  The plight of a people or the sufferings of individuals trapped in
a system from which there is no escape is a common theme in modern Korean
literature.  However, several of the stories Chun Kyung-ja includes in this
compilation end on a relatively positive note.

	The first story in the collection, "She Knows, I Know, and Heaven
Knows," reveals the pattern of frustration and release that Pak tends to
follow throughout these stories.  The story concerns an old woman who
peddles odds and ends on the street for a living, but she is coaxed from
her lowly job to live in the home of an upper middle-class widower on his
last legs.  The family needs a woman who can give constant care to the old
man, so she becomes his surrogate wife of sorts.  The story opens with the
vicious gossip of neighbor ladies who have come to the old man's funeral;
they deride and mock the old woman as greedy, self-interested, and coarse,
which the omniscient narrator allows the reader to see as unfair judgement.
Through the old woman's inner monologue we learn that her intentions and
actions are honorable, yet she is scorned and wrongly used throughout the
story.  Frustration mounts as the reader experiences with the old woman the
humiliation of being treated poorly and the anger of receiving but a meager
salary and no thanks or kindness for the taxing work of caring for a man
who cannot even feed or clean himself.  In the end she is left to her own
devices, after the widower's daughter breaks her promise to repay the woman
for her pains with a small apartment of her own.  Yet when she is left
alone at the crematorium with no word of farewell or even a ride into town,
she plucks up her spirits and tastes the freedom of being her own person
again as she walks off into the sunset.

	Pak's ending here is bittersweet in its ambiguity as to whether or
not the denouement effects a change for the better.  Another example of
such ambiguity can be found in "A Certain Barbarity." Pak anchors her story
in the satirical motif of rows of outhouses that match corresponding rows
of apartments. The event that breaks the monotony of a lower middle-class
neighborhood is the arrival of a neighbor's rich relative.  Before the
wealthy distant cousin shows up, the neighbor family installs a flush
toilet and becomes instantly aloof.  When he arrives, all who dwell nearby
take delight in him and his "thoroughbred" Japanese dog.  After a time,
however, the cousin suddenly leaves his hosts high and dry, returning the
neighborhood to its pre-frenzy mundane ways, and somehow affording the
protagonist/narrator, who had suffered from constipation, "the most
satisfying discharge [he] had experienced in a long, long time."  The
neighborhood families interact once again on equal terms.  Yet the return
to apparent normalcy is tarnished by the trap of socioeconomic stagnation
in a neighborhood where families are unable to realize their dreams.  The
resultant frustration is made tangible in the neighbor's relentless beating
of the wealthy cousin's abandoned dog, leaving the reader to question the
narrator's positive take on ruptured "delusions of grandeur" and his recent
"liberation from constipation."

	"My Very Last Possession" differs stylistically from the other
stories.  It takes the form of a phone conversation that is presented to
the reader as a monologue, with dialogic interaction implied throughout.
This technique creates a tense atmosphere and a rapid pace as thoughts
spill out of the protagonist's head indiscriminately.  Recollections of the
past enter the flow of her cathartic speech randomly, hinting at moments of
hysteria or senility, while stylistically resembling stream of
consciousness.  The theme of madness in women is touched upon here and in
"Butterfly of Illusion" and "Three Days in that Autumn,"  in which female
characters suffer unbearable pressure from the maternal role expected of
them in Korean society.  In these stories, an old grandmother seeks an
escape from being shuffled between daughter and son; a young woman marries
her career as an abortionist in order to avenge her rape by an American
soldier; and a mother of three neglects her daughters after the murder of
her son in an anti-government riot.  The Confucian-based pressure placed on
women to marry, produce a son, and maintain 'respectable' households,
coupled with the resultant feelings of guilt at not living up to such
expectations, ostracizes these women from mainstream society and seems to
push them over the edge.

	I highly recommend this anthology of translated stories for those
who would like to experience a slice of Korean life during different eras
since the Korean War, and for those who would like to explore the inner
workings of a uniquely Korean world view.  The translations succeed in
reflecting Pak's easy, fluid style, and I experienced only a few instances
of awkwardness, nothing disturbing enough to point out here.  The
fast-paced, raw style of Pak's writing reflects a world that few Westerners
have experienced.  This volume is a wonderful first anthology of Pak
Wanso's short stories in English translation; here's hoping the work will
continue so that readers outside of Korea may enjoy more of her savory
morsels.


Citation:
Hinds, Diana 2000
Review of _My Very Last Possession and Other Stories by Pak Wanso_, trans.
by Chun Kyung-Ja et al.
_Korean Studies Review_ 2000, no. 5
http://www.iic.edu/thelist/review/ksr00-05.htm