Fame (2)
A few hours earlier, Moon Representative Mun had sent Chief Editor Im Myeong-eul a message like this: “The Ministry of National Defense and the Cultural Heritage Administration sent official documents. I think you’ll need to handle them, Chief Editor Im.” And then came the subject line of the email he had captured and forwarded: “The National Heritage Administration and the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs request Gyeongseong Publishing’s cooperation.”
On second glance, the representative’s message was full of things that needed correcting. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the Ministry of National Defense but the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, and the Cultural Heritage Administration had since been renamed the National Heritage Administration. As an editor, that kind of sloppiness was irritating in all the ways that mattered, but then again, Moon Representative Mun had never been good with details. It wasn’t as if this was the first time he’d mangled a title or two.
Still, the basic meaning was clear. What now? What are these thieves trying to make us hand over this time? Gyeongseong Publishing wasn’t Samsung or LG. When the government asked a publisher for cooperation, it usually meant they were planning to borrow something without much regard for the owner’s feelings.
It could be a text. It could be a person.
“...In commemoration of that discovery, we are planning to hold a memorial event at the National Museum of Korea. We would like to invite your company’s employee, Mok Hyunsun, who made a significant contribution to the analysis of the artifact, and ask for your understanding and cooperation.”
So that was it. They wanted to borrow Mok Hyunsun for a ceremony honoring the pottery relic that had been causing such a stir lately. They really dressed up “can we borrow one employee for a few hours on a weekday afternoon” in absurdly grand language.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
“Furthermore, we would like to propose that Mr. Mok Hyunsun’s criticism, which was originally scheduled to be attached to your quarterly magazine, be read in full as a commemorative address at the event. We respectfully ask that you consider this favorably.”
“Those bastards.”
The curse slipped out before I could stop it. Right now, the entire cultural scene was waiting for the autumn issue of Gyeongseong Geul.
Not just the literary world, either. Archaeologists and ceramic scholars were waiting too. Everyone wanted to see the remarkable analysis the research team had pulled off in Yongin, and the credit for that brilliance had fallen squarely on Mok Hyunsun, who had said on the news:
“What I want to say will be published soon through a quarterly magazine.”
He hadn’t explicitly named Gyeongseong Geul, but everyone knew what he meant. And now they wanted him to recite the whole thing at the event first?
Worse, the full text?
From Gyeongseong Publishing’s perspective, it was a total buzzkill. It would affect sales of the autumn issue of Gyeongseong Geul, of course, but more than that, there was the matter of principle. Gyeongseong Geul had always maintained the rule that it published only unpublished manuscripts. So to print something that had already been publicly delivered? That was an issue of pride.
Which was exactly why Representative Mun had handed the matter over to Chief Editor Im. It was a headache, and an irritating one at that.
He decided to be rational about it. If we refuse to cooperate on something like this, we’ll just get accused of being petty. Sending Mok Hyunsun is unavoidable. But we can’t let a published manuscript appear in Gyeongseong Geul as-is. Even if it’s a stretch, we should have him write a new piece.
So that was the proposal he made to Mok Hyunsun.
“I’d prefer if you wrote something else for the autumn issue of Gyeongseong Geul. Is that impossible?”
Mok Hyunsun said it wasn’t impossible, but he didn’t seem especially keen on the idea. Then, after thinking it over for a moment, he had suddenly held out his own criticism and said, “Chief Editor, would you read this first and reconsider?”
As he accepted the manuscript, Chief Editor Im thought, It’ll probably be good. That won’t change the outcome, though.
The title was If You Are the Kind of Person Who Sends Such an Innocent Letter. A sentimental title. These days, it was hard to find a title like that in criticism at all.
At some point, criticism had begun to resemble academic papers. It had happened as literary critics grew more educated. The prose grew heavy with technical vocabulary, new concepts were introduced, and the level of criticism certainly rose—but it also drifted farther and farther from the general public.
And there was another thing: critics disliked sentimental writing. Emotional prose required actual artistic talent. If you mixed emotion into it clumsily, the logic of the argument could start looking ridiculous too. In that sense, Mok Hyunsun was attempting something rather difficult.
Whether he knew that himself, Im Myeong-eul couldn’t say. ...
From beginning to end, he read it in one uninterrupted stretch.
Then he let out a breath. “...Hoo.”
Mok Hyunsun, seeing that strange sigh, watched him cautiously. Chief Editor Im swept back his white hair.
“All right. We’ll print it. In Gyeongseong Geul.”
“...! Then I won’t need to read it at the event?”
“No.”
“?”
“You’ll read it there too. It’s not as if the administration will punish us for refusing a state event, but it’s best to maintain good relations with government offices.”
Mok Hyunsun was privately taken aback. Showing the criticism to Chief Editor Im had been meant to get him to say, Then publish it in Gyeongseong Geul instead of at the event.
But he wanted it presented in both places?
“Then from our side, we’d be printing work that’s already been publicly released.”
He didn’t say it outright, but the meaning was obvious. Are you sure our pride will survive this?
Chief Editor Im waved him off. “I’ll handle that part. You can go home now.”
It was a sudden eviction. Mok Hyunsun left the editor’s office in confusion.
Im Myeong-eul sat silently on the sofa for a while. Then, first of all, he brought the matter to the editors’ group chat.
Pushback was only natural.
Chief Editor Im typed calmly.
Everyone fell silent. A piece we can’t let slip through our fingers. It was the first time Chief Editor Im had ever so specifically defended a particular text like this.
There had been plenty of times he strongly opposed publication, but never the reverse.
In the end, everyone had no choice but to follow Chief Editor Im’s lead. Even so, even after their objections had been overcome, even after he had seen the so-called piece we couldn’t afford to miss, Im Myeong-eul’s expression remained hard.
Wuuung— wuuung—.
Then a phone call came in from Professor Yoo Seungbeom. “Yes, Professor Yoo. What is it?”
-I’ve got something a little concerning.
They didn’t show it in front of others, but the two of them had been close classmates in college. “What is it?”
-It’s Mr. Mok.
“...”
-I have this feeling that Mr. Mok’s presence is starting to outweigh Gyeongseong Geul itself. If this keeps up, I’m worried we’ll end up getting swept along by him whether he wants that or not.
“I was already thinking the same thing.”
That was a way of saying Mok Hyunsun was at fault.
No—if I said he was at fault, I’d have no shame.
He was simply too good at what he did. The problem was that Gyeongseong Geul was a collaborative work.
The more Mok Hyunsun accumulated that so-called fame, the more the internal balance of Gyeongseong Geul would be thrown off.
Just like this. And as chief editor, that was what bothered Im Myeong-eul the most.
“We’ll have to come up with something. If that kid is going to stay with Gyeongseong Geul for the long haul.”
─┼
National Museum of Korea. The central gallery was packed with people, a low hubbub filling the air. The research team that had gone to Yongin, including myself, the monks from Yong Law Temple, scholars from literature and ceramic studies, invited civic activists, and government officials with gold badges pinned to their chests had all taken their seats. But that wasn’t all.
Reporters and camera operators ringed them, and beyond that, police officers ringed the reporters. It was the kind of crowd that made thronged to overflowing seem like an understatement.
I had thought a state event was still just an event, but perhaps because everyone was mindful of public opinion, the scale was considerable. “We’ll hand out the program now,” said an employee in charge of the event, making the rounds with printed copies.
Good grief. It was long.
[Commemorative Event for the Placement of the Yongin Independence Army Cipher Pottery (12-0)] Program
1. Opening Remarks
2. National Anthem Performance
3. Introduction of Guests
4. Congratulatory Address by the Director of the National Museum of Korea
5. Artifact Reveal
(…)
They went through all sorts of things before finally reaching number 13.
Only then did it become my turn to read.
This looked like the sort of thing where you could even go take a nap and come back.
At the next seat over, writer Lee Heesoh grumbled. “It’s insanely long. Mr. Mok, I feel like we could go grab a coffee somewhere and come back.”
“Shall we?”
“Want to go to Insa-dong? My studio has plenty of good tea.”
“Sounds good.”
A National Heritage Administration staff member nearly had a heart attack trying to stop us. “N-no—absolutely not. Please, anything but that.”
Naïve of him. We were joking too, of course. With this many cameras around, how could we possibly empty the front row?
Anyway, the event began, and everything proceeded according to the program. In other words, it was boring beyond belief.
The Korean traditional orchestra’s rendition of the national anthem was at least tolerable, but after the introduction of the guests, my mind was about ready to drift clear into Andromeda.
“Ah... so, um, the discovery of an artifact containing the spirit and essence of our independence fighters... it means that, as one Korean people, we must carry ourselves with pride and go on living—well, something along those lines...”
The gold-badged official sounded as if he would never, ever finish speaking. And during the museum director’s congratulatory address, the poor sounds of people trying not to yawn could be heard everywhere.
If anything, the gold badges looked the most accustomed to this sort of tedium. Seeing their dead-serious faces, I made a private vow for no reason I could quite explain.
I absolutely should never go into politics.
At any rate, the pottery was finally unveiled. Then we watched the video prepared by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, listened to a senior city official from Yongin explain at length the relationship between the independence fighters and Yongin, and after we had seen and heard every last thing they had to offer, the announcer finally said, “Next, we will have the reading of the commemorative essay by the research team. For the reading, we invite critic Mok Hyunsun, who made a tremendous contribution to the artifact analysis.”
At last, my turn came. Clap, clap, clap, clap...
The applause was weak and drained of energy. I stepped up to the podium. More than half the people in the audience looked as if they’d lost the will to focus. In the civic activist section, a few people were openly dozing.
If I just read this as-is, how many people will actually listen?
The pottery text had already been interpreted by Professor Tak. The media had covered it with all the pomp and noise they could muster. In other words, every possible source of curiosity had already been used up. All that was left was the fame attached to the man named Mok Hyunsun.
What kind of piece had he brought? Or maybe people just wanted him to hurry up and finish.
I would have felt the same way myself.
I glanced sideways at the artifact on the podium. More precisely, at the Chinese characters engraved on it. I couldn’t let the value of those words get buried under ceremony.
I’d need to draw some attention.
“You all.”
I spoke the words, then stayed silent for a moment.
At first, people just stared at me blankly. But gradually, expressions of confusion spread through the hall. Was he talking to us?
Good. Let’s begin.
“If I say ‘you all’ that way, then the ‘you all’ are the people in this room. I’ve defined my own ‘you.’ But a letter is different. When you call out ‘you’ in a letter addressed to someone you cannot see, it means the writer hasn’t decided who that ‘you’ is.”
“...”
“It’s a letter written without knowing what person, from what time or what place, will see it. In a way, you could say it leaves itself to fate. In that sense, the anonymous independence fighter who carved these words into the artifact must have hoped that the ‘you’ of the distant future would be a descendant of a free Joseon, and that descendant would truly hear his letter.”
I could feel the audience’s attention gathering around me one by one.
“Then the ‘you’ for this artifact would be all of you, here and now.”
“!”
“Ah...”
“I’m only adding a little to the letter he sent to you.”
The sleepiness vanished like it had never been there. I didn’t need flashy language to seize their attention. The power of that one word—you—was enough on its own.
“Then I will begin reading the commemorative essay.”