Ghosts
new husband
Left-handed people remember their dreams better
west wind
Gyulrak or Gyulsil
Dot and Frank
beer eggs
Barefoot Classroom

Commentary | One More Chance
So Yoo-jeong (literary critic)

Author's Note

* "Ghosts"

“You know, all a traveling ghost needs is courage.”
One day, a woman wakes up dead in a coffin.
She realizes that she has become a ghost.
As she was adjusting to life as a ghost(?), clinging to her daughter's shadow as promised in her childhood, she meets another ghost, 'Maji', who is in the same situation as her, at the library.
After spending three years in the library, unconsciously discussing books with Marge, she realizes that she can no longer return home and must now venture out into the world outside the library.
And then, in the outside world, he meets unexpected beings.

* "New Husband"

“Will I be able to start a new life if I meet a new husband?”
Women who are smart but unhappy simply because they married the wrong husband.
As a counselor, I am in charge of projects for them.
The identity of the project, named 'New Husband', is an AI husband implemented as a hologram.
'I', who was also having problems with her husband, gives her heart to the 'new husband' she had experimentally, and heads to Vietnam, where they illegally create bodies for AIs, in order to give a 'real body' to the hologram AI husband who resembles her husband but is affectionate and considerate.

* "Left-handed people remember their dreams better."

“……You just have to take it off a little bit.
“I am taking this happy dream outside.”
Woo-kyung has a secret that others don't know.
It was after she heard her mother say, "Left-handed people remember their dreams better," that she was able to freely draw her dreams.
In reality, she lives a difficult life, but in her dreams, she is a free traveler who travels the world. One day, she meets a man of unknown identity in her dream.
After accepting his offer to take some of her happy dreams outside, Woo-kyung's life improves, but as her life improves, the dreams that were once so happy gradually turn into nightmares.

* "West Wind"

“Our leading actor has always been fire, a burning fire.”
Choi Jeong-min, who has lived a difficult life and whose only hobby is visiting highway rest areas, one day meets a man there who asks him to call him 'Jeffrey', which means west wind.
However, it turns out that he is a criminal and serial arsonist, and Choi Jeong-min, who is threatened by him and becomes his driver, follows him around the country to help him set fires.
The daily routine of moving from place to place, talking about books with Jeffrey, and lighting fires brings a strange vitality to Choi Jeong-min's life, and he begins to gradually become assimilated into Jeffrey.


* "Gyulrak or Gyulsil"

“It seems like we are spending that time at the threshold.”
Three men who met by chance at a cafe in Sokcho.
The three men, who have no names and are referred to as 'never', 'but', and 'always', often get together to talk and realize that they are all 'hourglass men'.
A human being who cannot stay in one place and must periodically turn his mind upside down.
Realizing that they are standing on the edge of a cliff, they gather on Christmas Eve and start a competition to see who can peel the tangerine peel or tangerine peel as quickly as possible.


* "Dot and Frank"

“The waves appeared as two faint pink lines within the thin plastic rod.”
Corner stool at the hostel where surfers gather.
Dot and Frank, who met in a place where every day was as fun as a Halloween party, were drawn to each other and developed into lovers. They also formed a band with their common love of music.
After releasing several albums and appearing on local TV shows, it seemed like they had a wonderful wave to ride, but one day their lives were turned upside down by a child who appeared with two faint pink lines.
To Dot, who is gripped by fear for her future life, Frank arrives one day driving a green van he has converted into a camper van and tells her that from now on, this is their home.
Now a trio, can they navigate the rough seas of the world in a precarious van?

* "Beer Egg"

“It was Friday night when I met them.”
I, a failed novelist, walk through the red-light district every night, repeating to myself, "I want to be encouraged."
But one day, as he was walking with his eyes on the ground, two lines appeared in front of him, as if beckoning him to follow.
At the end of that line he meets a strange group of people who call themselves 'Situationists'.
Their work, which includes people of all ages and occupations, involves sharing stories about the small moments they encounter while wandering aimlessly.
'I' fell into that gathering as if I had been waiting for it.
Then, news of the death of one of the members is heard, and 'I' feel that 'the situation' is flowing differently than before.


* "Barefoot Classroom"

“I think about it sometimes.
“What is so wrong with my love of public order that this has happened?”
I, who walk around the lake park barefoot twice a day, feel angry at people who collect acorns, the food of the squirrels, and shout to myself, "If you like acorns so much, why don't you turn into a squirrel?"
But then, surprisingly, right after that, everyone in the park turns into a squirrel.
And in a situation where he cannot go out of the lake park as if a transparent dome had been created, he, the only 'human', wanders around looking for people and meets two old women named 'Bible' and 'Loss'.
The three people live by the lake, just like in Walden, but one day a mysterious figure appears before them and tells them an amazing story.

A fantasy world as a mirror image of the real world
The charming marginalians created by Kim Seong-jung

The characters in 'Left-handed people remember their dreams' seem completely different, yet somehow they are somewhat similar.
They have one unique thing in common: most of the characters in the various stories are 'Marginalians'.
The term 'marginalian' is mentioned in 'Ghosts' and comes from 'marginalia', the act of making notes in the margins of a book.
This could mean that they are avid readers who constantly list the names of authors and quote literary works, but it could also mean that they are people who annotate their own lives in their own way.
Characters who describe themselves from a distance, even while intensely desiring something.
And there are people who look at themselves with pity, sometimes with disgust.


And they come to understand themselves as they experience 'strange' things in different ways.
As critic So Yoo-jeong said in the commentary, “Looking into the fragments of desire that are divided into multiple ‘me’s’ makes us look back on the present time we stand on” (in the commentary), Kim Seong-jung simply drops the characters into the middle of a ‘situation’ and makes them look into their own desires.
The story unfolds like this, and the characters and readers grow together as they come to understand themselves through desire.


So, all we have to do is read along with Kim Seong-jung's novels, which are sometimes creepy, often fantastic, and always witty.
Then, before you know it, you will find yourself staring at your own desires.
“Countless ‘me’s’ are there, struggling to squeeze through even the smallest of gaps” (from the ‘Commentary’), so what is reflected in the fragments of that story becomes our true self.
The moment when I find my reflection in the scattered mirror pieces and feel a moment of fear, or perhaps relief, or ultimately comfort.
That is the “magic of putting broken things back together” (Lee Ok-seop) that Kim Seong-jung uses.