임철우 초기 소설의 공간 감정과 감각 소통

Abstract

In the early novels of Lim Cheol-woo, sensory communication between characters is very rich. It is a unique feature of Lim Cheol-woo’s early novels in the context of the author’s entire works. On the opposite side of emboding such sensory communication, the persons isolated from the closed space is commonly referred to as a “wall”. It is a spatial emotion resulting from the feeling of being trapped in a closed space, closely related to Gwangju in May of 1980 and to the division system under the 1950 Korean War. The isolation drives communication, while Lim Cheol-woo embodies many characters with developed senses and uses sensory sensitivity to advance the narrative. In his early novels, sensory communication such as vision, hearing, smell, and touch play an important role. Such sensory communication can make other’s absolute otherness, or recall dark memories to explain the current trauma, or make the past and the present narrative lines in a layered manners, or enriching progress of narrative, or drawing out communion with the objects. Sensory communication effectively reproduces the desire of trapped subject in a closed space to meet and commune other, ultimately narrowing the gap between the past and the present in narrative process, and thus inducing the characters to regain his or her identity and authenticity. Lim Cheol-woo has often written the desire for human faces at the closing of several early novels. His novels closes the narrative with a desire for a human face to emphasize the ultimate theme, in addition to the formulation of isolation and sensory communication. In other words, Lim Cheol-woo wanted to meet and communicate with the faces of others who should be absolutely respected against the world of violence, and ultimately restore the ethics of life-world.