이청준 소설 「선고유예」의 탈근대성

Abstract

This paper is a study on the problems presented in Cheongjun LEE's novel, “Probation(1969, The New Title; A Autobiography that isn't written)” Leejun takes holiday for ten days from the first day when he tenders his resignation to a journal. The New Women Co., untill the tenth day when the company receives it. These ten days are the period that he should give his final statement to [an Interrogator, an agent of His Excellency] behind the strong flash, because he has been received a sentence of death by [the Interrogator] who comes out often in his illusion. Leejun lodges at a house near the coffee house ‘Seine’ in front of a prominent women's university in Korea as well as in world. The narrator describes an atmosphere of this street; ‘everything is awkward.’ The ‘Seine’ is an epitome of awkward atmosphere of this street and the awkwardness originates in fetish of shallow commercial culture, represented by The New Women Co. Since an exchange value replaces use value of everything to its quantity of money, the exchange value extinguishes qualitative differences of everything. The Seine's customers, young students of the women's university habitually classify everything into ‘interesting’ or ‘uninteresting’. Their words represent the relationship between the consumption culture and the indiscriminate words. Their indiscriminate words are a core of the novel that Leejun considers as a reason why he can't write novels. Then, how can he write novels in the times unable to write? The first clue is two fables presented in this work; the fable of Wang's fasting, and the tale of poet Yoonil & a failed singer ‘Jeong Eunsook’. These fables are the phases of tragic lives they live in the times unable to product any means. The presentation of these lives is one of leading method to write. The nude figures of women Wang is carving are ‘Verdinglichung’, and the symbols of indiscriminateness that even human being are reduced to exchange value. Those symbols bring their words, ‘interesting or uninteresting’ in relief. Wang is motionless, but devotes himself to carve confidentiallywith his hands under the table. This confidential action suggests very meaningful parody. He makes a nude figure of a man with a very big penis standing upright. And then he died. There is a rumor he may be alive, but anyway his fictitious function comes to an end by accomplishing his action. He takes his revenge of killing himself on the girls by sending out their words to their nude figures. This revenge seems to be the same as a method that he tries to overcome or extinguish permanently his hunger due to absence of intrinsic value by his fasting. The tale of poet Yoonil & a failed singer Jeong Eunsook shows lively how powerless a qualitative value of art such as poem, music, and the like is in front of the logic of quantitative (exchange) value such as money. Since their worthless lives are too awkward and shameful, they love each other only in the confidential place and at nights. Moreover, the more they feel shame at their love, the more they used to enjoy passionate nights. So Yoonil says that their love is adultery. As a result, they can' maintain their lives, but Eunsook kills herself and Yoonil returns to his native birthplace in the long run. The second clue of Lee Cheongjun's writing novels is to allegorically juxtpose the aspects of life suspended or frustrated by the quantitative logic like the fable of Wang's fasting, and the tale of poet Yoonil & a failed singer ‘Jeong Eunsook’ as describe above. Moreover he replaces the art performances represented in Wang's nude figure carving or in the tale of Yoonil & Jeong Eunsook into a writing novel and thereby dramatizes the writing novel itself. Like this, the way how to juxtapose the allegorical motifs and increase them as side branches is different from the technique of traditional novels. The third clue can be found out from his first short story published in a literary journal. The theme of the short story is hero's hesitation in the choice of a bride between a pretty girl and a slemn girl. The hero has left his choice to the result of the two girls' desperate fight. As a result, he gets married with the pretty girl. This motif reflects also allegorically the current tendency that the girl with solemn and serious values loses in the contest. The writing in the times that the literary journal publishing these fable stories are hardly sold is just an insanity in Seine girls' position like Wang's fasting that counters hungry with hungry. That is, they regard not only Wang's fasting but also writing novels as insane. But Leejun, i.e., Cheongjun's hunger becomes insanity, because he needs a very serious logic for himself-relief to overcome the hunger, so he has to be a novelist. The passion he has to be a novelist is an insanity followed by anxiety. His insanity is a spontaneous manifestation of his desire to be free from the bondage like uniforms, systems etc. The form of what he has to write is the final statement, i.e., his novel. The novel in the form of himself-statement is connected with his relief. He informs the Interrogator that his first short story is published in a literary journal, and then the Interrogator transmits His Excellency's reprieve order to Leejun. The reasons of the reprieve are as follows: firstly, the novel is a kind of the most honest and truthful forms of self-statement; secondly, his punishment has to be reprieved so far as his novels can be read and interpreted sufficently by readers; and the like. Therefore, the fate of a novelist is like that of a man reprieved for a predetermined period. Leejun's recognition of these facts comes into his existential consciousness as a novelist. I am sure Leejun's recognition made him to become a novelist. He is a novelist who writes every novel as if he left a will.