Nuance (2)
Nashida gave a faint smile. “Yes. It’ll be published in Korea soon. The translation should already be finished, too.”
“Well, well. It feels like only the other day it became a bestseller in Japan, and now time is really flying.”
“But you’re not expecting much from the Korean market, are you?” one writer asked with a sly little grin. “What do you mean by that?”
“I’ve heard mystery novels don’t do well in Korea. Apparently, Korean readers tend to respect pure literature more than genre fiction, and if you want to do genre work, it’s better to aim for film instead.” It wasn’t exactly wrong.
It was just an unpleasant thing to hear if you were Nashida.
“We don’t really take each country’s situation into account that much when we publish,” he said. “My novel won’t change just because it’s translated, will it? If my novel has real strength, then it’ll hold up in Korea, the United States, wherever.”
“Ehh—aren’t you being a little too theoretical?” another writer asked, sounding concerned. “We’re just hoping you’ll be recognized overseas this time the way you were in Japan. Why not publish first in China, since the market is even bigger than Korea’s?” The man had a talent for making every sentence irritating.
Not only were they implying that Nashida’s work wouldn’t receive the same acclaim overseas as it had in Japan, but they were also suggesting he should release his novel first in China, a country Japan especially looked down on. Nashida felt his stomach beginning to boil.
But he never let it show. He shot back at once. “Well, I suppose I have a rather small heart, because I was already delighted just that Gyeongseong Publishing, Korea’s biggest publisher, accepted my novel.”
“...Heh.”
“Ahem. I see.” A wave of displeasure rolled through the tea room. Not one of them had ever published a book with Gyeongseong Publishing.
They probably hadn’t said it out loud, but there were likely quite a few among them who had submitted manuscripts there and been rejected.
After all, it was Korea’s premier literary publisher. But for mystery writers like these men, Gyeongseong Publishing’s threshold was high.
Gyeongseong Publishing mainly released literary fiction, and in the case of genre fiction, they only published works that were genuinely recognized.
If the others hadn’t all been senior figures, Nashida would have twisted the knife properly. But in Japanese literary circles, going any further than this against industry elders was asking for trouble.
Tsk. Old raccoons. Next time there’s a gathering, I’d rather be cursed at behind my back than attend at all. What a waste of a life. Nashida was already on edge these days.
That was because Gyeongseong Publishing had been giving him almost no response.
They’d already told him to “wait,” and it had been more than a week since then. If only they’d said the criticism would be in Pyeong only, then I could still say a few things here. But looking at how there’s been no news at all, they must’ve turned it down. This should have been alcohol in front of him, not tea.
Nashida drained the lukewarm cup in one go. While the senior writers droned on about another topic,
he kept watching for the right moment to leave.
Then—bzzzt. His phone vibrated in his trousers, and he glanced down. An email? ...What, could it be? He turned his body toward the wall and checked it in secret.
Sure enough, it was the person in charge of the overseas literature department at Gyeongseong Publishing. “!” He forced his pounding heart down and opened the email. [(…) [Pyeong] Issue 2 will carry the writer’s critique on (…)] ! That’s it! Before he even realized it, Nashida had clenched his fist tight.
But the back half of the email contained something he’d never expected. [Also, Critic Mok Hyunsun said that he plans to include the critique of The Theater Class in Japanese as well, so if the writer could help promote that point too, it would greatly aid sales of Pyeong Issue 2 (…)] It’s going to be printed in Japanese, too?! What on earth was this supposed to mean?
It was already a relief enough that they were writing the critique at all,
but now they were going to write it in Japanese as well. He had no idea how any of this had come about.
Still, one thing was certain: the critique of The Theater Class would appear in Pyeong.
“Writer Nashida. Did you get some pleasant news?”
One of the elders, the one who had been needling him so pointedly before, the one with the sly smile in his eyes, asked.
Then everyone’s attention turned to Nashida again. “Heh. Is that so? Did you already hear some good news from overseas?”
“What are you talking about? It hasn’t even been published yet—how could there be good news already?”
“True enough, I suppose. Hahaha!” Yes. Gnaw on that all you like, you raccoons. Nashida still kept smiling.
Something about his expression had begun to feel off, and the others exchanged looks.
When the laughter faded and silence settled over the room,
Nashida finally spoke. “Earlier, you said that believing in the strength of a novel was too theoretical, did you not?”
The writer who had said it flinched slightly. “Well, it’s not as though it’s completely wrong, but...”
Nashida’s eyes flashed with a sharp, bright edge as he said, almost like a stab, “It may be possible if you meet the right critic.”
What critic?
The elders couldn’t quite understand what Nashida was talking about. But Nashida didn’t care.
Whatever they thought was none of his business.
He was simply delighted to have received Critic Mok Hyunsun’s critique.
─┼
The rumor that the critique of The Theater Class would be published in both Korean and Japanese.
After giving the overseas literature department quite a shock,
it made a brisk circuit through the staff and team leaders,
and finally reached the editor-in-chief. Meanwhile, Editor Im heard the news the moment he arrived at work. “In Japanese, too?”
“Yes. That’s what they said.” The team leader answered. “The manuscript is already ready. Apparently Hyunsun wrote both versions himself.”
Editor Im thought back on Mok Hyunsun’s application form.
He had paid close attention because Hyunsun was Mok Pilhyun’s son,
but there had been nothing on it about being good at Japanese.
Suddenly, he became curious.
What on earth Hyunsun was thinking this time. “Tell Mok Editor to drop by when he has time.”
“Understood, Editor-in-Chief.” The team leader left at once. Until recently, he would probably have referred to Mok Hyunsun in a slightly different way.
Something like, “Tell him to bring the manuscript right now.”
But however young he was, however few subordinates he had, Mok Hyunsun was still an editor in his own right.
Even if only as a matter of appearances, he deserved to be treated as one.
And before even five minutes had passed—knock, knock. The door flew open. “Editor-in-Chief. You called for me?” Mok Hyunsun had come.
He still looked like one of Editor Im’s own employees.
In that respect, Editor Im felt that Mok Hyunsun was quite good at office life.
There was none of the inflated swagger or overconfidence that usually came with young people who had climbed the ladder fast.
That alone made it clear that Mok Hyunsun was cut from different cloth.
...Though to speak of his “cut from different cloth” was perhaps odd, since Mok Hyunsun had already become a rather large tree.
“Sit down first. What’s that?” Editor Im pointed with his chin at the document envelope Hyunsun had brought.
Mok Hyunsun sat on the sofa and said, “Ah—this is the critique of The Theater Class that’s going into Pyeong Issue 2.”
“...”
“I thought you might be curious.” There was something hanging behind that calm tone. If not, no matter.
It was a little annoying, but Editor Im decided to go along with it.
Because, to be fair, he really was curious. “Since you brought it all the way here, I suppose it’d be good to take a look. I wanted to see how things were actually moving along, anyway.”
Mok Hyunsun took the critique out of the envelope and handed it over. “Have you read The Theater Class?”
“I have. Both the version before the translation revision and the version after it.”
Mok Hyunsun was surprised despite himself.
He hadn’t expected that the editor-in-chief, who wasn’t even from the overseas literature department, would have read both versions of the translation.
It showed, very clearly, just how far his reading habits extended.
And also just how much interest he took in Pyeong.
“If you read this, you’ll understand why I requested the translation revision.” Editor Im began reading the critique. “The curtain rises on murder....” It was a forceful title, fitting for a mystery novel. [Some novels decide everything about themselves in the first paragraph.] And the first sentence was equally forceful.
The first sentence? Is he talking about the section that underwent the most revision in translation? From what he’d heard, it hadn’t been a particularly sweeping rewrite.
Still, rumor had it that the first paragraph was where the editor and outsourced translator had practically staked their lives.
That alone meant it was a decisive part of the novel. And in Editor Im’s view, the revised version was much better.
It was hard to put into words exactly why, but the atmosphere of the novel itself had become stranger somehow.
Only after seeing that did Editor Im begin to understand.
Why Nashida was so beloved in his own country. [Look at the moment the curtain rises in the novel’s opening paragraph. At this moment, the protagonist is neither the stage nor the children standing upon it. It is the curtain itself. The higher it rises, the heavier and more burdensome it becomes. And yet, in the end, it rises all the way and opens the stage—yes, that curtain.
To rise. Perhaps that is the curtain’s nature, if it has any nature at all. The stage appears only when the curtain rises, and someone becomes the protagonist. Then what of this? The nature and desire of all those who wish to step onto the stage is... “ascent.”]
“!” [Extras want to become supporting roles, and supporting roles want to become leads.] Editor Im understood immediately. Right. If I put it bluntly, The Theater Class is a story about second place killing first place, and third place killing second place. But he’s expressed that through the image of a curtain rising? [Therefore, the expressions “heavy” and “burdensome” in the first paragraph are quite important. Let us return to the curtain. The curtain’s natural physical tendency is, of course, “descent”—to go down. Such is the case with any object subject to gravity. For a curtain to rise against that nature, many things are required. Force, will, the vertical lines that must hold it taut on the brink of failure. If we translate that into human desire: in the human world, to rise toward a goal is the same as saying one has shoved others aside and climbed over them. The competitive instinct that emerges then, sometimes the filthiness, sometimes even malice. We live, knowingly or not, while bearing all such things. The difference is only one of degree.(…)]
Not only was the content itself excellent, but he’s developing the logic in a highly technical way. He’s pointing out the novel’s context without spoiling the actual story. [In that sense, the curtain—desire—is indeed heavy and burdensome.] Editor Im let out a long, thin breath without a sound.
Brilliant.
How could he connect the first paragraph and the novel’s theme so perfectly? And besides, the original translation didn’t emphasize the curtain that much at all. Right. This is the kind of critique you can only write if you’ve read the original properly and caught the nuance shifts. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he could hardly believe it.
Not only had Hyunsun picked up the nuance of a foreign language and asked for the translation to be redone,
he had then turned around and written a critique this superb with that material?
The rest of the critique was, needless to say, excellent as well.
Without laying the two murders bare too crudely,
it still explained in full just how tense and razor-sharp the novel was as a mystery.
In fact, Editor Im even felt a little jealous.
Even he, with all his years of experience in criticism,
didn’t have the confidence to review genre fiction like mystery novels with such poetry.
What an extraordinary bastard. He scanned the critique again.
And then, suddenly.
“Hmm.”
One question occurred to him.