불가능한 명랑, 그 슬픔의 기원 -1960년대 안수길론-

Abstract

Many literary men who lived in the 1960s gladly take their ‘humblecourage’ on exploring ‘impossibility of cheerfulness’ by making anappearance of contemplative self in to their own works. These explorationsneeded a courage because the impossibility of being cheerful had to facing‘the disagreement with the epoch’. Hence, this courage was revealed oftenin some distant place of historical reality. It is reliable to regard escapismwas appeared by ‘cowardice’ in some sense, as the writer himself hadconfessed, but it is also important to evaluate these dispositions as the best‘methodological position’ to open political space that he could choose in thereality in which he was situated. How should we read the writers who chose to take a distant position fromreality or who were evaluated to be so and their works? The basic criticalviewpoint of this article is condensed in this question. In this article, Iattempted to give shape to the aforesaid critical view through examining AhnSoo-gil, who was constantly aware of his literal identity as a realist who wasfacing reality and his literary works. I was becoming interested in Ahn Soo-gil because a shabby, faint-hearted, and uncomfortable character of his novel andthe confession of ‘never becoming cheerful’ left afterimage especially for long. In his novel, ‘the impossibility of cheerfulness’ includes not only ‘inability tobecome cheerful’ but also ‘difficulty of performing cheerfulness.’ Thisimpossibility meant revealing inherent political rebellion of his own. Furthermore, this certain disagreement applied the inevitable confrontationto his own time so that the dissent of the writer could link to thepremonition that he was not able to plan his cheerful life as ordinary people. Ahn Soo-gil was a writer who actively expressed his premonition aboutthe ruling techniques of political power in the 1960s. His novel, in LeeCheol-beom’s words, was a product of ‘acute political sense.’ It also meantto give shape to the ‘sense toward rebellious things’ which the writer himselffelt who experienced the power of censorship at a close range and was notfree from the magnetic field. If it is able to describe that the impossibility ofcheerfulness was triggered when the other self looked at himself who wasdisciplined by regulation mechanism, Ahn soo-gil’s tendency not to disguise‘impossible cheerfulness’ with artificial power and tendency to preserve themild fever of the works, could be revaluate as the most faithful ‘citizenmoral’ for the writer, who was situated in the position that could be seeneither as ‘bystander’ or as ‘inspector’.