Suskind's masterpiece that resonates across time and generations

"The Story of Mr. Sommer," which depicts the strange life of his neighbor, Mr. Sommer, through the eyes of a boy, in a calm yet delicate manner, is a novel like a fairy tale.
The protagonist, "Uncle Sommer" to the boy and "just Mr. Sommer" to the townspeople, is a middle-aged man who walks endlessly along the street carrying an empty backpack and holding a long, strange walnut cane.
He meets the boy by chance at crucial moments in his life, and is deeply imprinted in his heart.
Even on a summer day with pouring rain and hail, on the way home in despair and misery because the girl he liked couldn't keep her promise, even at the moment when he pressed the wrong key because his teacher's booger fell on the piano keys and he was scolded harshly and was about to jump from a tree to commit suicide...


The boy encounters the strange appearance of Mr. Sommer.
And finally, as usual, we see Mr. Sommer walking into the lake.
Mr. Sommer, who constantly tried to run away from something······.
Is it from death, or from the confines of "rationality," "reason," and "convention"—the spaces we humans have created—or from the "sealed" and "isolated" spaces within them? In "The Story of Mr. Sommer," the boy represents our childhood, and his unadorned thoughts are our childhood memories.
Also, Mr. Sommer could be the image of an old man in our neighborhood, or even the inner world of all of us humans.
Mr. Sommer's anonymity and the boy's anonymity may be what makes this book worth rereading.
"The Story of Mr. Sommer," which was also very popular in Korea, was selected as one of the "50 Best Sellers Since Liberation."

There lived a man who people called [Mr. Sommer] less than two kilometers from our house.
No one in the village knew Mr. Sommer's name.

--- p.17

From early morning until late at night, Mr. Sommer walked around the neighborhood.
There wasn't a single day in the year that went by without me walking.
Whether it snowed, sleeted, raged, rained heavily, the sun was scorching, or a typhoon raged, Mr. Sommer kept walking.
--- p.18

There were two things that Mr. Sommer always carried with him, regardless of whether it was summer or winter.
No one has ever seen him without them.
One of them was a cane, and the other was a backpack.

--- p.22

The old man switched the walnut cane he was holding in his right hand to his left, looked at us, and with a gesture of utter stubbornness and despair, he struck the cane repeatedly on the ground, saying in a loud and clear voice, "So please, just leave me alone!"
--- p.36

I couldn't even remember how I had come up with such a stupid idea.
Suicide over a mere booger! Just a few minutes ago, I, who had such a ridiculous thought, saw someone trying to escape death for their entire life!
--- p.97

I don't know how I was able to remain so silent for so long and so thoroughly...
But it wasn't out of fear, guilt, or remorse.
It was the memory of the groan I'd heard from the tree, the trembling lips as I walked through the rain, and the man's seemingly pleading words: "So please, just leave me alone!"

--- p.118