A person who is harmless to me
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Description
Book Introduction
A gentle hand caressing the small corners of my immature past
A new novel collection by Choi Eun-young, author of "Shoko's Smile"
Included in the 2017 Young Writer's Award winning work "That Summer"
Two years after the publication of her powerful debut novel, “Shoko’s Smile,” which received praise as “an author who writes novels with a deep understanding of humanity” (novelist Kim Yeon-su) and “a collection of novels that announces the birth of a talented writer” (novelist Kim Young-ha), she presents her second collection of novels.
In December 2016, "Shoko's Smile" was selected as the "Novel of the Year" by 50 novelists from both domestic and international novels published that year, and has received enthusiastic support from both the literary world and readers. It has also achieved the remarkable record of selling over 100,000 copies.
The public's interest in a new writer's first novel collection is still ongoing.
This fact must have been a huge burden to the author.
In an interview, he said, “I think it’s a vain hope that novels will develop further, but I want to work harder than I am doing now.
(…) As he declared, “I want to become a long-term writer,” this young novelist responded to the mixed gaze of expectations and concerns directed at him with ‘novels’ by publishing novels consistently for two years without a single season of rest.
The result of meticulously reviewing and revising the seven short stories published in this way from beginning to end is 『A Person Harmless to Me』.
There is a powerful pull to songs that you hear many times during a certain period of time, and just listening to them again brings back memories of that time.
The seven stories included in "A Person Harmless to Me" are like novels that dominated us at one time, like songs that vividly illuminate before us a landscape we had forgotten the moment we pressed the play button.
On one side of the landscape that was called out like that, there are people who have naturally grown apart with the passage of time—friends, lovers, sisters, and relatives who were naturally and naturally attached to each other back then—and on the other side, there are hearts that have not worn away with the passage of time.
No, more precisely, it contains a time when we were driven apart by misunderstandings, delusions, self-righteousness, and ignorance.
Eunyoung Choi illuminates the inner lives of these characters as they reminisce about their immature past, and delicately and honestly describes the intense and subdued emotional turmoil within them.
And through them we will learn that the past is not something that is finished, but is constantly being readjusted and reborn in the present, and that facing memories is not something that comes from foolishness or weakness, but from strong courage.
A new novel collection by Choi Eun-young, author of "Shoko's Smile"
Included in the 2017 Young Writer's Award winning work "That Summer"
Two years after the publication of her powerful debut novel, “Shoko’s Smile,” which received praise as “an author who writes novels with a deep understanding of humanity” (novelist Kim Yeon-su) and “a collection of novels that announces the birth of a talented writer” (novelist Kim Young-ha), she presents her second collection of novels.
In December 2016, "Shoko's Smile" was selected as the "Novel of the Year" by 50 novelists from both domestic and international novels published that year, and has received enthusiastic support from both the literary world and readers. It has also achieved the remarkable record of selling over 100,000 copies.
The public's interest in a new writer's first novel collection is still ongoing.
This fact must have been a huge burden to the author.
In an interview, he said, “I think it’s a vain hope that novels will develop further, but I want to work harder than I am doing now.
(…) As he declared, “I want to become a long-term writer,” this young novelist responded to the mixed gaze of expectations and concerns directed at him with ‘novels’ by publishing novels consistently for two years without a single season of rest.
The result of meticulously reviewing and revising the seven short stories published in this way from beginning to end is 『A Person Harmless to Me』.
There is a powerful pull to songs that you hear many times during a certain period of time, and just listening to them again brings back memories of that time.
The seven stories included in "A Person Harmless to Me" are like novels that dominated us at one time, like songs that vividly illuminate before us a landscape we had forgotten the moment we pressed the play button.
On one side of the landscape that was called out like that, there are people who have naturally grown apart with the passage of time—friends, lovers, sisters, and relatives who were naturally and naturally attached to each other back then—and on the other side, there are hearts that have not worn away with the passage of time.
No, more precisely, it contains a time when we were driven apart by misunderstandings, delusions, self-righteousness, and ignorance.
Eunyoung Choi illuminates the inner lives of these characters as they reminisce about their immature past, and delicately and honestly describes the intense and subdued emotional turmoil within them.
And through them we will learn that the past is not something that is finished, but is constantly being readjusted and reborn in the present, and that facing memories is not something that comes from foolishness or weakness, but from strong courage.
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
Preview
index
A person who is harmless to me
That summer
601, 602
Passing Night
house built of sand
confession
Touch
In Archdi
Commentary│Kang Ji-hee (literary critic)
Author's Note
That summer
601, 602
Passing Night
house built of sand
confession
Touch
In Archdi
Commentary│Kang Ji-hee (literary critic)
Author's Note
Into the book
They kissed for a long time.
I was so lost in the taste of my tongue and lips, the feeling of my teeth occasionally chattering, and the sweet breath coming from my small nose that I couldn't even perceive the passage of time.
The idea of one's own body, the consciousness of 'me', and the distinction between you and me all lost their meaning at that moment.
At that time, our bodies were closer to flower petals and waves.
We are nothing more than the breath we breathe in and out, Lee Kyung thought.
A breath that rises endlessly and falls deeply at the same time.
---From "That Summer"
I can feel your pain, and when I'm hurt, you cry. How can we possibly be different people? That delusion may be what has made us the miserable people we are today.
---From "That Summer"
Yunhee painfully remembered the long wait she had for the chance to see her mother.
Because life after becoming an adult is about waiting and waiting for things that never come no matter how long you wait.
Yunhee, it wasn't because you welcomed and loved me with all your heart, waiting for it with joy.
---From "Passing Night"
I thought loneliness was inevitable.
Because I thought that if you start to be attached to people, your heart will be hurt, broken, and twisted.
I would rather choose to be aloof and lonely than to be a shabby and twisted person.
---From "The House Built of Sand"
Even as an adult, whenever I tried to understand someone, I wondered if such efforts were not a virtue at all, but rather a cowardly act of wanting to be less hurt.
As children, the methods we use to survive somehow become habits and inertia that continue to work.
Words like "deep-minded" or "mature" were not appropriate.
Understanding was a way of trying to survive somehow.
---From "The House Built of Sand"
People are amazing.
Even though we have hands that can caress each other and lips that can kiss, we hit each other with those hands and exchange heartbreaking words with those lips.
I'm not going to be one of those adults who says that if you're human, you can overcome anything.
---From "The House Built of Sand"
People who say that time heals wounds are often right.
But some things hurt more deeply as time passed and the truth became clearer.
---From "Confession"
There was a night like that.
A night when I want to lean on someone.
There were nights when I wanted to open my heart to a creature who might misunderstand me, mock me, criticize me, and use me, and thus discourage and hurt me.
There was a night when I quietly confided to my god that perhaps there was a heart that could only be saved by talking to people.
---From "Confession"
What a miserable life.
People would have thought so.
But no one knew how much strength it took to survive, even if it was pathetic, how difficult it was to finally feel hungry, move, and find the strength to go outside.
---From "Archidi"
Whenever I remember that, I see a man in disarray.
There is a person who speaks to this person in this tone and speaks to that person with that expression.
Someone who is endlessly kind, but then becomes ruthlessly indifferent to others, and who speaks and laughs as if he doesn't mean it, but then turns around and doesn't know how to smile.
If you live like that for a day, you will end up not knowing what your true tone of voice is or how to express yourself.
When I saw people laughing on the street, it seemed like they were laughing at that strange person.
It was often cold.
I was so lost in the taste of my tongue and lips, the feeling of my teeth occasionally chattering, and the sweet breath coming from my small nose that I couldn't even perceive the passage of time.
The idea of one's own body, the consciousness of 'me', and the distinction between you and me all lost their meaning at that moment.
At that time, our bodies were closer to flower petals and waves.
We are nothing more than the breath we breathe in and out, Lee Kyung thought.
A breath that rises endlessly and falls deeply at the same time.
---From "That Summer"
I can feel your pain, and when I'm hurt, you cry. How can we possibly be different people? That delusion may be what has made us the miserable people we are today.
---From "That Summer"
Yunhee painfully remembered the long wait she had for the chance to see her mother.
Because life after becoming an adult is about waiting and waiting for things that never come no matter how long you wait.
Yunhee, it wasn't because you welcomed and loved me with all your heart, waiting for it with joy.
---From "Passing Night"
I thought loneliness was inevitable.
Because I thought that if you start to be attached to people, your heart will be hurt, broken, and twisted.
I would rather choose to be aloof and lonely than to be a shabby and twisted person.
---From "The House Built of Sand"
Even as an adult, whenever I tried to understand someone, I wondered if such efforts were not a virtue at all, but rather a cowardly act of wanting to be less hurt.
As children, the methods we use to survive somehow become habits and inertia that continue to work.
Words like "deep-minded" or "mature" were not appropriate.
Understanding was a way of trying to survive somehow.
---From "The House Built of Sand"
People are amazing.
Even though we have hands that can caress each other and lips that can kiss, we hit each other with those hands and exchange heartbreaking words with those lips.
I'm not going to be one of those adults who says that if you're human, you can overcome anything.
---From "The House Built of Sand"
People who say that time heals wounds are often right.
But some things hurt more deeply as time passed and the truth became clearer.
---From "Confession"
There was a night like that.
A night when I want to lean on someone.
There were nights when I wanted to open my heart to a creature who might misunderstand me, mock me, criticize me, and use me, and thus discourage and hurt me.
There was a night when I quietly confided to my god that perhaps there was a heart that could only be saved by talking to people.
---From "Confession"
What a miserable life.
People would have thought so.
But no one knew how much strength it took to survive, even if it was pathetic, how difficult it was to finally feel hungry, move, and find the strength to go outside.
---From "Archidi"
Whenever I remember that, I see a man in disarray.
There is a person who speaks to this person in this tone and speaks to that person with that expression.
Someone who is endlessly kind, but then becomes ruthlessly indifferent to others, and who speaks and laughs as if he doesn't mean it, but then turns around and doesn't know how to smile.
If you live like that for a day, you will end up not knowing what your true tone of voice is or how to express yourself.
When I saw people laughing on the street, it seemed like they were laughing at that strange person.
It was often cold.
---From "Archidi"
Publisher's Review
A person who is harmless to me
“You don’t want to hurt anyone.
And that might not be possible.
“You are harmless to me.”
It was only after time had passed that I finally came to face that era properly.
The feelings of that time remain without disappearing even as time passes
Revived while groping against that solid wall of time
Our past was clumsy and precarious
The title of this collection of short stories, “A Person Harmless to Me,” means “You try not to hurt anyone.
And that might not be possible.
It comes from the sentence “You are a harmless person to me” (Confession).
Miju and Jinhee met in high school and became close while sharing their intimate feelings within a tight fence.
Miju is relieved that Jinhee is sensitive to other people's feelings and would not hurt anyone, including herself, and that she knows Jinhee well.
But the following sentence reveals how fragile and arrogant this relief and happiness are based on perceptions, and sheds light on the meaning of the title, "A Person Harmless to Me," from a different angle.
“Miju’s happiness was possible because she knew nothing about Jinhee.
“Since Mi-ju didn’t know what kind of pain Jin-hee was going through, she was able to be happy to the extent of that illusion.”
The realization that the reason I was able to be happy during those times was because I turned a blind eye to the suffering of others.
Perhaps this is why the voice of a person reminiscing about the past sounds lonely, but then suddenly acquires a stern attitude as if driving himself.
In other words, the characters in Choi Eun-young's novels recall the past not simply to reminisce about those beautiful times.
It is to properly face some truths that we only realize after time has passed.
This realization, which can be reached by neither romanticizing the past nor forgiving oneself easily, can be encountered throughout this collection of short stories.
"That Summer," which opens the collection of short stories, painfully looks back on the past when, before falling in love, he was so absorbed in the other person that his life felt poor, but eventually broke up with them due to his own greed and hypocrisy. The speaker of "The House Built of Sand" tells the story of people he shared a time in his twenties with but eventually drifted apart from, and confesses that the breakup may not have been natural simply because time had passed, but that the cause of the breakup may lie within himself.
But even in the face of this realization, we ultimately feel warmth and comfort, perhaps because we have all gone through that awkward and precarious time.
Although I have hurt others due to my immaturity, I have also acknowledged that there is comfort that can only be found in people, and that those people were the ones who gave me the reassurance that allowed me to cling to the world.
We will grow together in the future,
Having a novelist of our generation
A love story between a lesbian couple ("That Summer"), the story of two girls growing up in an oppressive patriarchal atmosphere ("601, 602"), and the story of two sisters who spent their childhood fighting fiercely but sometimes understanding each other ("The Passing Night"), "A Person Harmless to Me" focuses on various relationships, especially relationships between women.
Through the various relationships between women, or between women and society, such as the love between women, the love and hate between sisters, and the solidarity between aunts and nieces, we can also see issues of women, class, and the oppressive male-centered culture interspersed between the warm and delicate sentences.
Author Choi Eun-young, with a warmth that is neither too hot nor too cold, just like human body temperature, shakes our hearts that have become insensitive to the pain of others and our own emotions, and ultimately comforts us.
"A Harmless Person to Me" is a valuable example that shows us that a novelist we need has emerged, and that there are young novelists who will continue to breathe with us in the future.
★
The inevitable human heart of loving someone, missing someone, and feeling sad because of someone lay beside me.
I came looking at that heart.
I know it's not my will, but I want to live as a writer until the end of my life.
I now know that this is one of the few ways I love people and my life.
_From the author's note
Eunyoung Choi pays attention not to what people do, but to the emotions that fill their hearts and flow while they do so.
Just as in Proust's novel, the moment one puts a madeleine in one's mouth, one's childhood flows out endlessly, in Choi Eun-young's novel, the moment someone's head falls or a sigh is let out, the world shakes and stops.
(…)
Unlike passion that quickly surges up in a short period of time, overflows upon the other person, and then quickly dissipates, the distance that is imbued with consideration for not easily understanding the other person lasts a long time like a thin, twinkling light.
Without forgetting that dark clouds linger in front of this shining silver lining.
The author's ability to discern the profound sadness behind the small warmth conveyed by others and to not trivialize even the slightest crack in a relationship illuminates this world as a lonely yet transparently shining place.
Even the heart that had become cynical about the hope and salvation that were easily spoken of everywhere, becomes determined again, folding both hands in prayer before this faithful goodness.
Kang Ji-hee (literary critic)
“You don’t want to hurt anyone.
And that might not be possible.
“You are harmless to me.”
It was only after time had passed that I finally came to face that era properly.
The feelings of that time remain without disappearing even as time passes
Revived while groping against that solid wall of time
Our past was clumsy and precarious
The title of this collection of short stories, “A Person Harmless to Me,” means “You try not to hurt anyone.
And that might not be possible.
It comes from the sentence “You are a harmless person to me” (Confession).
Miju and Jinhee met in high school and became close while sharing their intimate feelings within a tight fence.
Miju is relieved that Jinhee is sensitive to other people's feelings and would not hurt anyone, including herself, and that she knows Jinhee well.
But the following sentence reveals how fragile and arrogant this relief and happiness are based on perceptions, and sheds light on the meaning of the title, "A Person Harmless to Me," from a different angle.
“Miju’s happiness was possible because she knew nothing about Jinhee.
“Since Mi-ju didn’t know what kind of pain Jin-hee was going through, she was able to be happy to the extent of that illusion.”
The realization that the reason I was able to be happy during those times was because I turned a blind eye to the suffering of others.
Perhaps this is why the voice of a person reminiscing about the past sounds lonely, but then suddenly acquires a stern attitude as if driving himself.
In other words, the characters in Choi Eun-young's novels recall the past not simply to reminisce about those beautiful times.
It is to properly face some truths that we only realize after time has passed.
This realization, which can be reached by neither romanticizing the past nor forgiving oneself easily, can be encountered throughout this collection of short stories.
"That Summer," which opens the collection of short stories, painfully looks back on the past when, before falling in love, he was so absorbed in the other person that his life felt poor, but eventually broke up with them due to his own greed and hypocrisy. The speaker of "The House Built of Sand" tells the story of people he shared a time in his twenties with but eventually drifted apart from, and confesses that the breakup may not have been natural simply because time had passed, but that the cause of the breakup may lie within himself.
But even in the face of this realization, we ultimately feel warmth and comfort, perhaps because we have all gone through that awkward and precarious time.
Although I have hurt others due to my immaturity, I have also acknowledged that there is comfort that can only be found in people, and that those people were the ones who gave me the reassurance that allowed me to cling to the world.
We will grow together in the future,
Having a novelist of our generation
A love story between a lesbian couple ("That Summer"), the story of two girls growing up in an oppressive patriarchal atmosphere ("601, 602"), and the story of two sisters who spent their childhood fighting fiercely but sometimes understanding each other ("The Passing Night"), "A Person Harmless to Me" focuses on various relationships, especially relationships between women.
Through the various relationships between women, or between women and society, such as the love between women, the love and hate between sisters, and the solidarity between aunts and nieces, we can also see issues of women, class, and the oppressive male-centered culture interspersed between the warm and delicate sentences.
Author Choi Eun-young, with a warmth that is neither too hot nor too cold, just like human body temperature, shakes our hearts that have become insensitive to the pain of others and our own emotions, and ultimately comforts us.
"A Harmless Person to Me" is a valuable example that shows us that a novelist we need has emerged, and that there are young novelists who will continue to breathe with us in the future.
★
The inevitable human heart of loving someone, missing someone, and feeling sad because of someone lay beside me.
I came looking at that heart.
I know it's not my will, but I want to live as a writer until the end of my life.
I now know that this is one of the few ways I love people and my life.
_From the author's note
Eunyoung Choi pays attention not to what people do, but to the emotions that fill their hearts and flow while they do so.
Just as in Proust's novel, the moment one puts a madeleine in one's mouth, one's childhood flows out endlessly, in Choi Eun-young's novel, the moment someone's head falls or a sigh is let out, the world shakes and stops.
(…)
Unlike passion that quickly surges up in a short period of time, overflows upon the other person, and then quickly dissipates, the distance that is imbued with consideration for not easily understanding the other person lasts a long time like a thin, twinkling light.
Without forgetting that dark clouds linger in front of this shining silver lining.
The author's ability to discern the profound sadness behind the small warmth conveyed by others and to not trivialize even the slightest crack in a relationship illuminates this world as a lonely yet transparently shining place.
Even the heart that had become cynical about the hope and salvation that were easily spoken of everywhere, becomes determined again, folding both hands in prayer before this faithful goodness.
Kang Ji-hee (literary critic)
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: June 30, 2018
- Page count, weight, size: 328 pages | 458g | 145*210*30mm
- ISBN13: 9788954651820
- ISBN10: 8954651828
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