tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-207003952009-07-08T18:30:12.162+09:00Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-14068580592150142342009-07-06T18:12:00.002+09:002009-07-06T18:29:13.549+09:00

The Portable Library of Korean Literature • Short Fiction • 3 • Jimoondang Publishing • SeoulThe Cry of the Magpies, By Kim Dong-Ni begins with an unusual literary conceit. The narrator tells us that what we are about to read is his retelling of a book he once came across that moved him as he felt “fraternal” with the author. Despite, apparently, having the story in hand, the narrator only

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-18820173980135784252009-07-01T13:59:00.003+09:002009-07-01T14:06:32.063+09:00

According to Arirang, by way of the Chosun Ilbo. That's only 40 a year, and I'd be interested to discover how many of these were books of poetry.No surprisingly Yi Munyol leads the list with most books translated. Actually not a bad choice as "Our Twisted Hero" is a good novelette and "Two-fold Song" is also pretty cool as is "An Appointment With My Brother".

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-88500400862188165962009-06-30T21:59:00.005+09:002009-06-30T22:53:12.148+09:00

Because I'm guessing the United States isn't "ready for Sijo."Harvard Professor David McCann clearly shares an interest in Korean Literature, but I'm afraid he is a popularizer who doesn't get what is going to sell to the US public. McCann wants to try to sell Sijo (A form of Korean poetry) to the US public. I'd like to go to pains to point out that I'm glad he's trying it, and since it is his

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-56594453002950022502009-06-26T19:32:00.000+09:002009-06-27T11:32:08.746+09:00

Well, at least three or four famous authors.Maybe I should be the idiot who does the Facebook version of this test?................Nah, I'll cut it short (as it is Friday night) and just be the idiot.

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-25555649377915868042009-06-23T08:28:00.000+09:002009-06-23T13:54:20.987+09:00

You rarely see this claim, and it is a very narrow one, but in Choi Yearn-hong's review of Poetess Moon Chung-hee’s 'Woman on Terrace,' he claims that one line in the English translation is "better" (if funnier means better) than in the original‘The distortion of a text,’ Freud (not writing about translation) says in Moses and Monotheism, ‘is not unlike a murder. The difficulty lies not in the

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-17766034691450997252009-06-21T07:46:00.003+09:002009-06-22T18:39:12.690+09:00

I suppose it is a general credit to the level of translation of Korean literature into English that I have read quite a few works and have just now come upon my second example of atrocious translation.This case is particularly unfortunate as the story is a classic one – Both classically Korean in that it involves the psychic amputation of part of a people (Dae Han Min Guk is a principle evoked,

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-26980873999147018942009-06-19T10:56:00.004+09:002009-06-19T11:28:54.155+09:00

Some notes I wrote up on multiple translations of Buckwheat Season - The quotes were translated by my supervisor and I wrote the notes up from the perspective of an English reader, so that she could use my input in a presentation.As I looked over multiple translations, notably of Buckwheat Season (by Yi Hyo-Sok and the original translation is available for pdf download here) and Kapitan Ri/The

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-86913214056099119162009-06-16T22:35:00.002+09:002009-06-16T22:37:50.089+09:00

I'm doing the rare (first time, actually) cross post with info from my scraps blog.And it has nothing to do with literature, but it is an amazing photo-essay on Daejeon (Then "Taejeon") after the Civil War.From here on out is a duped post.....--------------------------------------------------------------WowYvonne, the rare blogger at bulgogi (and, of course, my fiancee) found a slide-show of

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-5383018411049565042009-06-14T18:39:00.005+09:002009-06-14T19:22:20.197+09:00

You may need to click on that photo to see the details as they are rather small.. er... I mean.....OK.. I quiteBut it is one of the two cases in which a web search for "pederasty" got someone here to a website about Korean literature.On a good day I get 15 hits, so I want to keep the buggery folks coming back.Which is why I am relentlessly repeating words like sodomy, pederasty, and buggery.But

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-80740818359933836532009-06-12T19:20:00.001+09:002009-06-12T19:21:56.423+09:00

I'm still troubled by the short format. ;-)PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIESJane Austen and Seth Grahame-SmithA romantic novel with brains (delicious human brains!), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies begins, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more." With this truism established, author Seth Grahame-Smith is off, updating Jane Austen’s

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-78230863189688099392009-06-10T11:04:00.005+09:002009-06-23T20:07:17.746+09:00

The Portable Library of Korean Literature • Short Fiction • 22 • Jimoondang Publishing • SeoulThe Portable Library of Korean Literatures’ twenty-second imprint is Chinatown by Oh Jung Hee. This contains three stories, the eponymous Chinatown, Wayfarer, and The Release. These stories have been translated by the reliable team of Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.Prior to reading these three short stories,

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-13439993346004461962009-06-08T17:59:00.007+09:002009-06-08T18:22:21.468+09:00

Jeong-Hyun Shin's The Trap of History should have been a contender. Instead it’s underlying reactionary politics render it worthwhile to read, but better to distrust.The first issue is Shin’s palpable dislike of Korea, in the present and as a recent historical concept:During the nineteenth century, however, the Korean people failed to transmute their energy to higher and more subtle levels;

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-20492898524522751562009-06-05T15:12:00.003+09:002009-06-05T15:19:45.565+09:00

This article seems to be saying that Korean literature (particularly at the level of the novel) is in some way schismatic and that this is even affecting domestic consumption of Korean literature in the Korean language.It's the first I have heard of this, partly because I focus on translations, poor translation choices and poor translations when I look at Korean literature in translation, but

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-72170558411747252522009-06-01T20:45:00.003+09:002009-06-01T21:05:04.942+09:00

Yi Hyo-Sok's "The Buckwheat Season" doesn't impress me as much as it seems to impress Koreans. It is a pretty slow and predictable (SPOILER ALERT) story of a father and son reunion.But Koreans like it (my Senior likes it and it has been translated into English three times that I know of) and so it must be of some importance to Koreans. I find myself among the category that Jeong-Hyun Shin

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-35787620154288683292009-05-29T15:25:00.003+09:002009-05-29T15:27:20.292+09:00

I just noticed over at my e-buddy's site (Liminality) that he has a previously unpublished Kim Young-ha short story, Christmas Carol. Worth taking a look at, if you're in to Kim.

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-87765063341664536962009-05-28T15:50:00.001+09:002009-05-28T15:50:00.498+09:00

Good news from the Korea Times, which managed to evade me when it first came out. The main point of this is that there is a powerful demographic of women in their 20s and 30s that is purchasing Korean Literature. I'd hope that the more they buy, the more is published and eventually, it will all trickle down to me in translation. ;-)Korean literature is booming more than ever despite the economic

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-79369608980457350032009-05-26T22:18:00.012+09:002009-05-27T16:54:32.900+09:00

Kim Young-ha’s “I Have The Right To Destroy Myself” is a short novel that attempts quite a lot and achieves almost everything it attempts.A good story, cleverly told, and one that will prove very entertaining to a casual reader as well as a critical one.The story features multiple narrators.Perhaps.Kim has a rather tricky way with narrators.In the three translated stories of his I have read, and

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-26406431671946684572009-05-18T16:05:00.002+09:002009-05-18T16:10:07.692+09:00

Is that it has a searchable database which includes a variety of cool short stories in the PDF format. A while ago I reviewed Yi Sang's "The Wings" and lo and behold you can download it right here. The "read this article" link doesn't seem to work, but the "Download PDF" link seems to work just fine.I suppose I could have made the link to the PDF, but that seems a bit too deep-linked, if you know

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-78950590364395487942009-05-13T11:13:00.004+09:002009-05-13T11:18:53.418+09:00

As I've expanded on some bits of this, I thought I'd blog the whole thing. It was first published in Acta Koreana in June, 2008.The expanded edition of “Land of Exile” (first published in 1993, republished by M.E. Sharpe), translated and edited by the late Marshall Pihl, and Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton, takes a very good, but slightly dated anthology, and with an infusion of four new stories

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-83249157104592116102009-05-12T11:29:00.002+09:002009-05-12T11:30:52.809+09:00

Three little ones - the problem was actually to get them down to 150 words and still say something. I guess I'm a wordy writer. These will publish next month.THE APPEALJohn GrishamSummer reading season is here. On Gwangali or Boryeong beach, or huddled by your air-conditioner, you can count on John Grisham to deliver a solid summer book; a long story, simply told, in which the bad guys are really

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-9756867185450345112009-05-05T20:36:00.004+09:002009-06-23T20:06:16.297+09:00

The Portable Library of Korean Literature • Short Fiction • 14 • Jimoondang Publishing • SeoulI read my first stories of Kim Yu-Jeong while concurrently reading the essay Extravagance and Authenticity by Kim Uchang. This proved an interesting set of readings as the essay and the stories focus on romantic love.Kim Uchang’s essay follows the development of “free-love” as a new cultural artifact in

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-29632570714319585762009-05-04T20:27:00.002+09:002009-05-04T20:32:22.756+09:00

Cheryl Miller puts the hammer of the Gods to Paul Fisher.She attacks, rightly, the modern notion that it it useful to attribute all the sins a critic can find in their own head, onto the artists that they review. A sample passage of the review.Fisher is convinced that he is on the cutting-edge of literary interpretation, that his "intimate portrait" of the Jameses is new. The introduction is full

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-30622442673735538152009-04-27T19:01:00.010+09:002009-06-23T20:04:32.152+09:00

The Portable Library of Korean Literature • Short Fiction • 1 • Jimoondang Publishing • SeoulIn a recently published essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Mark Edmunson pleads for a contingency that I hope someone can help us achieve:If I could make one wish for the members of my profession, college and university professors of literature, I would wish that for one year, two, three, or five

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-58789702818066652422009-04-22T16:34:00.005+09:002009-04-23T19:08:21.450+09:00

Wednesday is my kick around Seoul and visit bookshops day. On this day I might have had too much coffee, as I bought a book for a second time. The book is "Modern Korean Short Stories and Plays" (Published in 1970 by the Korean branch of P.E.N.). But at least I bought it for a reason, even if that reason was, well, a bit off.One of the titles, "The Constant Doctor" caught my eye. For some reason

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20700395.post-59224335732774913062009-04-17T22:22:00.002+09:002009-04-24T11:41:49.306+09:00

The Portable Library of Korean Literature (PLKL) is an outstanding collection. It is easy to read, inexpensive, colorfully bound (though the hangeul cover design is in mirrored text, which seems an odd decision), and chock full of great stories, often several to a volume. If there is one flaw in the “The Portable Library of Korean Literature” (published by Jimoondong Publishing in a series of

Charles Montgomeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17489538189139910055noreply@blogger.com0