The Editorial Meeting (2)
40.
It wasn’t criticism; it was a manual. I knew that much.
For Park Yu, the critic who had written The Philosophical History of Cults, hearing that to his face would have been profoundly insulting. A manual meant one thing: that he had no thoughts of his own. But what could I do about that? About him having no thoughts of his own? What we were doing here was, after all, only an editorial meeting.
Letting an unworthy piece through would be a matter of pride for this side, wouldn’t it? Professor Park Geun-woo spoke first. “I understand what you’re saying. You mean it lacks a critic’s point of view and argument?”
“Yes.”
“Still, there is one unusual point here. If this were a quarterly without a theme, we wouldn’t have accepted it, but in this case we gave them the theme ourselves. Then we can excuse it to some extent if the critic’s perspective is a little thin.”
“I understand that too. Criticism can’t be written unless you’ve done your homework on the subject beforehand.” That was the biggest difference between fiction and criticism.
Fiction could spring from a flash of imagination, but criticism needed a foundation of knowledge.
And the amount of that knowledge was far greater than people thought, impossible to build only after the commission arrived. “But if that wasn’t prepared from the start,”
“….”
“He shouldn’t have accepted the assignment.”
I understood. Park Yu must have found the commission from Gyeongseong Geul too precious to pass up.
So he had probably ground out a piece on cult history he didn’t even care about. In truth, I had hoped the judges would simply vote it down and be done with it.
If I said everything I knew, after all, it would be far too fatal for Park Yu.
But as always with this editorial meeting, there was no such thing as “good enough.”
“That’s not entirely unreasonable,” Professor Im Seon-mi said, taking off her glasses. “Part of why we’re gathered here is to maintain the standards of Gyeongseong Geul.”
“If we’re talking standards, this piece does have strengths. It’s hard to find another essay that organizes the history of cults this well.” Professor Yoo Seung-beom pushed back again.
Editor Im seemed to be taking the role of chair and simply watching for now.
“I also think this piece is somewhat lacking for publication in Gyeongseong Geul. I broadly agree with Mr. Mok’s opinion.” Professor Yeo Song-yeon took my side. The situation was me, Yeo Song-yeon, and Im Seon-mi against Park Geun-woo and Yoo Seung-beom.
And from there, the effort to persuade the others began.
The two camps split apart and argued fiercely over Park Yu’s piece.
There were no knives, but it might as well have been war. I became a little curious. Their standards were high, every one of them.
So why was the evaluation divided so sharply?
The conversation bounced back and forth like ping-pong, all praise and all defense.
When I gathered up all those remarks, I realized—ah. So that was it. Yeo Song-yeon and Im Seon-mi, who were voting against it, were critics before they were professors. Park Geun-woo and Yoo Seung-beom, who were voting in favor, were pure professors—scholars, in other words. In the end, this was a fight over the conditions under which criticism could even exist.
The critic believed criticism could not stand without the writer’s own perspective.
The scholar, on the other hand, thought that if you simply supplied information well, that was enough for the basis of criticism.
And Park Yu’s piece? From a scholar’s point of view, at first glance it was neatly organized information.
At first glance, that is.
Chwararararak—.
Dozens of books opened in my mind.
All the books ever written on cults. And then Professor Park Geun-woo said, “We can at least acknowledge how concisely he arranged the information in his own language—”
“Professor, I’m sorry, but I can’t let that pass.” Even so, I couldn’t just ignore that line. “I wouldn’t even call this criticism written in his own language.”
There was no helping it.
I had no personal feelings toward Park Yu, but this seemed to be the only way to stop the fight from running along forever like two parallel lines. “First, the opening of the first paragraph—the ten lines that begin, ‘Cults are when the worship of a pseudo-religion becomes established as a minority cultural phenomenon.’ I brought the pages from Cult Theory, published by Soyoung Publishing in 2002, page 23. He changed the order of the sentences and a few words here and there to evade plagiarism.”
“…!”
“Mr. Mok, what did you just say?”
“In the middle of the next paragraph, the sentence that says, ‘The mysterious history of cults is determined by the worshipful behavior of a small number of enthusiastic fans.’ That came from the prologue of What Is a Cult?, published by Whale Books in 2016. Ah, and there’s more. The final sentence of this paragraph, ‘In the end, a cult is the imagination created by fans and creators together,’ was taken from page 214 of Cult Theory. In the original, the word used was ‘fantasy,’ but he changed it to ‘imagination.’ Fantasy and imagination are very different concepts, so it seems he had trouble finding a substitute.”
“….”
“Huh….”
“Should I keep going?”
No one asked me to.
There was no need. That was enough.
In one word, it was a patchwork article.
He had carefully altered the tone and wording, and he hadn’t cited a single source.
That meant it was malicious.
Shock settled over the meeting room in a single wave.
Professor Im Seon-mi said in a trembling voice, “Well… Park Yu, that boy… he actually graduated from our university, and he was my student….”
…He was? I hadn’t known that.
“I wondered why a kid who wasn’t even interested in cult theory accepted the commission so readily. That fool.” She let out a long, wounded sigh.
Students aren’t the only ones who can be hurt by professors.
If you had invested yourself in turning a student into a critic, then from her perspective this was no different from betrayal.
“Hmm….”
“…Good grief.”
A silence full of sighs followed.
Rather than anger, what hung in the air was the sorrow of adults.
These people had connections to several publishing houses.
Now that they knew, Park Yu would have a hard time receiving commissions from here on out.
That was why, before coming to the editorial meeting, I had checked Park Yu’s previous pieces.
There had been no sign of patchwork before.
It seemed he had done this out of greed for the commission.
So I had intended to strike this piece down and warn him privately.
After all, this was a matter of livelihood.
Then Editor Im asked me, “How did you know this essay was stitched together, Mr. Mok?”
What was I supposed to say?
“It was obvious.”
The editors’ eyes wavered.
The way they looked at me changed too.
Until then, they had merely regarded me as a promising junior; now there was even a trace of awe in their expressions.
In any case, the meeting ended in a rather bitter mood.
For me, it was satisfying in one sense,
and bitter in another.
But one thing was certain: I had done the right thing.
I stopped by the office for a moment, intending to head home afterward.
Far away, by the elevator, I saw Professor Yeo Song-yeon and Professor Im Seon-mi.
Professor Yeo Song-yeon spoke gently, as if comforting her. “Think of it as having stopped a bigger disaster. It’s a good thing we caught it in the editorial meeting. If the book had been published and then exposed later, the ones in trouble would have been us. And Professor Im, as Park Yu’s advisor, even more so.”
“I know. I know, but I still feel awful. Sigh… In any case, Mok Hyunsun really did something.”
“He did more than something. At first I thought we had been too hasty, bringing such a young man into the editorial meeting. Now I think he’d be impossible to do without.”
“He’s really a genius, isn’t he? Never mind how well he writes—how does someone memorize a whole book like that? A theory book, no less.”
Ping.
Just then, the elevator arrived.
“A genius is someone who goes beyond common sense—”
With their conversation fading into the distance, the doors closed.
…My ears burned hot.
I learned one thing then.
Praise was even more embarrassing when you overheard it in secret.
─┼
The summer issue of Gyeongseong Geul was published.
As many readers had expected, the theme was cults. And here—
Jang Hee-soo stepped into a small bookstore in Hongdae. The summer issue of Gyeongseong Geul was piled high on the display table.
“Would you like a copy of Gyeongseong Geul?” the owner asked.
Judging by his tone, he had already sold dozens.
And it was only the first day of publication.
“Just looking.”
As someone in the independent publishing world, buying Gyeongseong Geul somehow bruised her pride.
After founding ZZ, this was the first time she had come to a bookstore because of a literary quarterly.
But this time she couldn’t pretend not to care.
How had they handled a theme like cults?
Jang Hee-soo began reading Gyeongseong Geul.
It was certainly substantial. The poetry and fiction were decent enough.
Just barely within the territory of cults, perhaps?
The other pieces weren’t bad either.
“There’s no criticism in this issue. I thought they’d just parade cult theory around and act superior.” That was one of the reasons other quarterlies got criticized so much.
Independent magazine fans used to say things like, It reeks of ink and ego.
Oh. That’s a Mok Hyunsun piece. The editorial criticism section… I didn’t know he was in charge of a regular column.
A strange twinge of jealousy rose in her.
A kid years younger than her was planning a regular feature for Gyeongseong Geul.
And then—
“Kim Ki-un?!” Jang Hee-soo jumped.
The bookstore owner glanced at her.
They covered Kim Ki-un?! A forefather of Korean cult writing that even writers in this scene barely know?
Every single independent writer had some taste for cults.
No, they had no choice but to.
And for people like them, Kim Ki-un was also a standard by which they measured their own “level.” Meeting someone who knew Kim Ki-un meant sharing a quiet, smug little sense of superiority—So, you actually know your stuff. He was a kind of litmus test for true cult nerds.
And now that name was appearing in Gyeongseong Geul?
She read his criticism straight through at once.
“…Huh.”
A cry of admiration escaped her before she could stop it.
No, no. Not anymore. I can’t keep reading.
If she went on like this, she was going to end up buying Gyeongseong Geul as if possessed.
Jang Hee-soo stepped outside the bookstore for a moment instead.
She had to plant her feet hard just to keep her legs from giving way.
…What on earth did I just read?
She couldn’t make sense of the situation.
She pulled out her e-cigarette.
Only after the nicotine hit did her head begin to clear.
I’ve never once thought a piece of criticism was good. But that article is different. Different. The way it says the essence of cults is fantasy; the way it argues that Korean cults began in the war-torn 1950s; the way it stays scholarly without losing sight of what cults actually are. And when it explained the film and pulled the keyword “colorful” out of the screenplay—
Goosebumps raced down her spine.
In the end, she sank down with a heavy thud.
…Damn it, that’s insanely cool. So cool it’s ridiculous!
She couldn’t believe it.
The moment she read his writing, it was as if color had bled into black-and-white text.
Like the vividly patterned shaman robes of Saekdong.
She even found herself thinking this:
If a critic like that had existed in the independent magazine scene… how wonderful would that have been?
She checked the reactions on independent magazine fans’ social media through her phone.
Without even searching, one word kept repeating through the feed.
Namely, “Mok Hyunsun.”
[Honestly, I hate admitting that a mainstream quarterly put out something like this, but Mok Hyunsun completely pierced the essence of cults.]
[Reading Mok Hyunsun feels like getting hit across the back of the head. Doesn’t the independent magazine scene need to raise a critic like that too?]
[The little film I knew became a mainstream life-changing movie because of Mok Hyunsun. I guess it’s time to let Saekdong go.]
[Bought Gyeongseong Geul. I’m furious I had to buy it, but I couldn’t stand not to.]
“...I lost.”
Independent magazines could not exist without fans.
If Gyeongseong Geul had managed to turn those fans’ hearts, then there was no choice but to admit defeat.
Suddenly, she remembered something.
How she had tried to block Mok Hyunsun’s criticism of Cooking, Sex, Murder.
No, perhaps… as he had said, that really had been abuse of power.
Only now did she feel ashamed.
If she wanted to protect the pride of independent publishing,
she should have done it through the writing itself.
Not by pulling that kind of leverage.
At the same time, another thought came to her.
Maybe I feel this way because I’ve gotten better at making a living too. Since “Soop” appeared, the independent magazine scene has been able to breathe again.
And that, too, was thanks to Soop.
If Mok Hyunsun was at Gyeongseong Publishing,
then the independent magazine scene now had Soop.
With a grunt, she stood up.
The weather was beautiful.
Perfect weather for admitting defeat.
Jingle.
Jang Hee-soo went back into the bookstore.
“Boss, one copy of the Gyeongseong Geul summer issue, please.”
─┼
At the same time,
someone else was tearing at his hair over the summer issue of Gyeongseong Geul.
“This is insane, this is insaaane!”
His identity was a webtoon artist.