Gukjajeon
Author's Note

“Anything that goes into the mouth and can be digested is possible.”
The Birth of a Korean-Style Female Hero Who Wins Through Her Hands

'Miji', an elementary school teacher, is on leave from work after being shocked by a bullying incident in her class.
With her reinstatement imminent, she sat down at the table with her mother, Gukja, with a new mindset, determined to achieve independence for the first time.
Strangely enough, whenever the word independence was mentioned, the sight of a ladleful of food melted her will.
But the nature of this declaration of independence is a little different.
At Gukja's confession that he is a civil servant with a functional position and can twist people's hearts with food, Miji's mind goes blank... ... "Have you ever written anything to me?" Miji asks, and Gukja calmly answers that he has, and beyond Miji's astonished expression, Gukja's story finally begins.

Kukja met his first love at the age of nine and became an orphan at the age of ten.
I lost everything in an instant.
Even after so much time had passed, she never forgot that moment.
I couldn't forget it.
So I decided to remember.
If possible, without exception. (Page 22)

The novel's setting, 1980s Korea, is an alternate world where it is widely known that people with supernatural powers exist, but the world's operating logic closely resembles today's reality.
The government promotes the distinction between 'heroes' and 'reactionaries' in order to control the capable.
Those born with superpowers are verified through a 'multi-ability test' and hired by the government. If they receive a high rating, they are called 'heroes' by the public and become objects of envy.
On the other hand, if someone is judged unfit for public office even though he or she has the ability, he or she is branded a 'reactionary' who threatens the country and the people.
Gukja, who lost his entire family in an accident caused by someone with special powers when he was young, aims to live quietly without attracting attention from others for the rest of his life.
However, when it is revealed that she has powers, she unintentionally becomes a functional civil servant.

The older brother she loved was judged unfit and lost control of his powers, leading to the massacre of the villagers. For Gukja, the sole survivor, the future is nothing more than a predetermined punishment.
At the training center entrance ceremony, there are those who linger behind the ladle, who has an indifferent face towards the world.
Gloria, who is dressed in flashy attire and extends her hand, saying that they will become best friends, has the ability to predict the future, and Choi Hoon, who can move faster than anyone and likes to show off like MacGyver, keeps hanging around Gukja.
From Instructor Kang Su-ja, who has telekinetic abilities and skillfully handles trainees, to Lady Kim, a supernatural being with blunt personality who immediately crushes anyone who touches her.
In a literal “world of flying and crawling people,” how will the fate of the ladle unfold?

“Dad, do you know that Mom is a civil servant?”
“I don’t know.
“Because I never said anything.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“That’s the rule.”
“You told me just now.
“Dad is also family, why didn’t you tell me?”
(……)
“Because your father is a reactionary.”
"rebound?"
“Oh, keep this a secret from Dad.” The old man earnestly urged Miji, who was just opening her mouth.
“You understand?” (pp. 134-135)

Kukja, who wants to live freely, free from the shackles of being a tool of the state, conspires with Gloria to deceive the judges and receive the lowest grade.
But somehow, the Agency for National Security Planning places a ladle in a restaurant at Gimpo International Airport, where heroes and reactionaries often come and go.
There, she meets Yoon Su-il, a reactionary who everyone fears like a ghost leading a plague, and as she gradually becomes drawn to him, things take an unexpected turn.

“No, Mr. Gukja, don’t you even watch the news?”
“The dorm only has a television in the lounge.”
“That person is Yoon Su-il.
"Reaction! Just saying that makes people start dying."
The kitchen staff made a gesture of slitting his throat with their hands.
Didn't you just say you were going to split his head open? Gukja shook his head at the sight of Yoon Soo-il even mimicking his hand gestures. (Page 140)

Even though Choi Hoon blew up Yoon Soo-il's table, and even though Yoon Soo-il was seriously injured while demanding that the state treat those deemed unfit as human beings, the relationship between Gukja and Yoon Soo-il remained unshaken.
However, they could not avoid the crisis of the visit of the siblings with powers called “Evil Spirits of the Battlefield” who caused conflict and bloodshed on a national scale wherever they went.
With the global media focusing on the Korean Peninsula and the threat of war looming, the government uses this as an opportunity to root out reactionaries around Gimpo International Airport.
One day, a voice secretly calls Kukja and orders him to withdraw.
After discovering a government plot to plant a bomb at the airport and blame all the victims on reactionary forces, Gukja is forced to choose between his longing for peace and an impossible love.

The date the voice mentioned was two weeks later.
I had to take a day off and get out of the airport that day.
That was all the ladle could tell.
It was all or nothing, just a part of the whole.
The real thing would be so vast and dangerous that it would crush her life, but she wanted to know. (pp. 288-289)

20th century Korea, where people with superpowers are controlled.
People who rejected the dichotomy of 'hero' and 'reactionary'

Hope and despair were a single piece of paper.
The side you read first is the front, and the side you read later is the back.
Reading only the cross-sections and then crumpling them up and throwing them away was a temporary escape.
I couldn't tell which one to read first, Despair or Hope.
I had to read the rest of it someday.
Only after reading it silently and accepting it could I live the rest of my life. (Page 241)

The apartment collapse that struck Gukja and his friends, who had just left the training center, symbolizes the man-made disasters that have occurred in Korea so far.
A country so obsessed with hosting the Olympics that it sends its "heroes" overseas, and adults who use children who don't even know their own abilities as shields.
On the other side, there are civil servants who cannot escape the guilt of losing a friend and who even drive themselves to their deaths; reporters who are worn down by frequent setbacks but still cannot give up their faint hope for the world; and people who possess superpowers but cannot help but be infinitely human in the face of disaster.
As the rescue operation drags on, the nation's failure becomes clearer, and the novel questions the calculation that a new building will be built on the traces of failure, filled only with the desire for success.
“Is success the complete erasure of failure?
“If you erase and erase again, what will be left in the end?” the ladle wondered.

The story of Gukja and Yun Su-il is a moment of honestly facing difficult questions and finding their own path, and it is a scene where they find love in a dead end.
How should we define Yoon Su-il, who took revenge on the unjust death of his maternal uncle, who was judged unfit?
The novel departs from the state-mandated dichotomies of heroes and reactionaries, victims and perpetrators, and faithfully portrays the diverse aspects of human nature and the rich range of emotions they evoke.

It was still full of questions.
For example, how could Yoon Soo-il, who couldn't even think of shaking off his own hand and was having a hard time carefully removing his fingers one by one, explode the lieutenant colonel's brain?
“I don’t know you very well,” the ladle said honestly.
Then he grabbed Yoon Soo-il's hand.
“I have no idea what kind of person he is.
But… … ”(pp. 337-338)

The novel's format, where present and past intersect, is also a dialogue between Gukja, a capable man of the established generation, and the unknown children who are not yet aware of their own abilities.
The similar events and concerns that persist across generations remind us that the most urgent tasks are the ones that remain unresolved.
And the ability to solve unsolvable problems really depends not on 'ability' but on the 'will' to turn the unknown into possibility.
“Now the choice is ours, and we will bear it.” When that happens, the time left for us will not be a continuation of suffering, but the leisure of savoring the table life has prepared for us. That is the true gift that novels can bestow upon humanity.
Readers who sit down with a spoon in their hand at a table filled with humor, tears, sincerity, and love will be absorbed in the story of the ladle without even realizing it, and will not be able to leave.

That day, the ladle continued to talk, unlike usual.
We kept talking while drinking several cups of coffee and eating snacks.
Occasionally, he paused and rolled his eyes here and there, as if trying to guess if he had missed anything.
And then it started again.
The life of a ladle could be seen as an explanatory note to its own answer.
Of course, the commentary wasn't perfect.
There were misjudgments, leaps of faith, and contradictions.
But as far as the ladle knew, it was the best answer. (pp. 388-389)

■ Author's Note

Stories keep someone alive and keep them alive.
Because it proves that you and I existed, whether long or short, and it makes readers realize what kind of world they live in.
You cannot prove your existence by thinking alone.
I think that only when you see, hear, or read a story and experience something that is not your own can you truly realize who you are.
Even if nothing changes because of it, it's something you don't know right away.
The past that has already passed was once the present, and the distant future will soon be right before our eyes.
(……)

As we pass through 2022
Jung Eun-woo uploaded