One of the best ways to know a culture is to consume its art. Film and literature especially give me glimpses of the cultures key concerns, their values, their fears. In the same way that tourist maps and guidebooks help me understand the physical landscape, art helps me understand the mental and emotional terrain of a foreign country.
Because of this, I've been devouring Korean literature to try and understand the culture better. The problem is that few Korean authors are translated into English, and I feel as though I've been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Han Kang, Young-ha Kim, Bae Suah, Shin Kyung-sook...these contemporary writers are the most prominent in the English world, and while I've found their work interesting (to varying degrees), none of it really resonated with me. I was disappointed.
And then I found this small gem, No One Writes Back by Jang Eun-Jin, and finally, finally, I found one that really moved me.
Quiet, but powerfully resonant, this novel follows a young man named Jihun. He leaves home with nothing but a backpack, an MP3 player, and his dog, Wajo. On their 3 year journey together, Jihun hops from town to town randomly, finding motels to sleep in and meeting strangers along the way. Each stranger is unique and memorable: a gum artist, a man on a bridge about to jump, a girl blackmailing her mother for double eyelid surgery.
Jihun never asks for their names; instead, he assigns each person a number and obtains their address. At the end of each day, he writes a letter to one of them, hoping that someday, he'll get a response.
Jihun has one of those unique voices that immediately grab me: a bit skewed, prone to overthinking, at turns philosophical and lightly comic.
The writing is simple. But the plain sentences and dialogue bring a straightforwardness and honesty to Jihun's emotions and observations, as well as a purity and misguidedness in how he interacts with the world.
This novel is a love letter to snail mail and analogue communication. At the same time, it explores grief, travel, friendship, and the deep relationships we have with our pets.
I loved it, and towards the end I had to consciously make an effort not to cry in the little tea shop I was in.
It reminds me of the novel Naive. Super. by Norwegian author Erlend Loe, so if you read this and like it, check that one out next!
10/10 📕