끝나지 않는 전쟁의 산하, 끝낼 수 없는 겹쳐 읽기－식민지에서 분단까지, 이병주의 독서편력과 글쓰기

Abstract

In this article, I discuss how Yi Pyŏng-ju’s wanderings through the world of books affected his understandings of political turbulence of the divided country and his political decision, focusing on his novel Kwanbu yŏllaksŏn (1968-1970; Busan- Shimonoseki Ferry). First, I listed the books Yi read during his studies in Tokyo which was the capital of the Imperial Japan, and focused on how these books influenced the narrative of his novels. He acquired Shōwa culturalism and conquered it by reading those books. Like many other culturalists, Yi Pyŏng-ju tried to comprehend all events and experiences by comparing and contrasting those with the case of books he read. And in that sense, Yi would be referred to as an archetypal reader who thought in the range of “the possibility of reading the world” what Hans Blumenberg called Die Lesbarkeit der Welt. Nevertheless, many events Yi had to write about, such as the liberation, the war and the division, revolution and anti- revolution, the transformation from being a radical person to imprisoner, and exile as a journalist to a novelist, were not easily captured in the world of books. As a result, his readings and citations were expanded to map those experiences. I designated his attitude as “never-ended over reading”, explaining that continuous contrasting incidents with books was Yi's original methodology of writing. To be specific, Yi read Miki Kiyoshi and Kobayasi Hideo very carefully during his youth. These authors’ books led him to his future practice and the convert. He also read Dostoevskii who consoled him, as Yi could relate to his student soldier experiences and his servile consciousness. He also depended on Lu Xun during the time ranging from liberation to the Korean War, as he was experiencing an ideological pilgrimage and life as a journalist. Finally, Yi read Simaqian who inspired him to become a novelist, during his imprisonment right after the 5.16 military coup and his exile from journalism. Those names were the “medium” that allowed him to find “the (im)possibility of transmission” of the experiences as well as “the possibility of reading the world”. In short, I can assume that Yi followed the third pattern of readers, the “over reading man”, who thinks in the range of “world-book”, considering the world as a text, and at the same time, wanders in “book-world” due to the difficulty of actual incidents that cannot be fully understood through books. Yi, Pyŏng-ju’s novels evolved into a form of “the annals saga” because Korean modern history could be written only by piling it over the previous books. Still, it is not be enough to be fully read as an over-written one, so other books should be added again. Over- reading and over writing were the ways in which Yi chose to show the possibilities of delivering of experiences that were impossible to deliver.