Maria (1)
There is a word, simulacre. The meaning is somewhat different, but it is enough to understand it as something close to “simulation.” Suppose there is a play.
Just before the “real” performance begins, the actors stage the same play on the very set where the actual show will take place. The acting, costumes, makeup, lines, music, even the lighting are all identical.
Sometimes the staff even fills the seats with people in anticipation of the audience. When we see something like that, we say that they are running a “simulation” before the main performance. In other words, a simulation is a fake that looks exactly like the real thing.
No matter how closely the pre-show performance resembles the main stage, it is still only a copy imitating the real thing.
If you want a deeper understanding, you could even think of Plato’s theory of Ideas. If the Idea means the essence of a thing, its true form, then the simulacre means precisely the opposite. A simulacre is something that may look real, but is fundamentally fake.
Let me give another example of a play.
If staging that performance in advance, before the real show, is a simulation, then the pre-performance itself, copied through that simulation, can be called a simulacre.
So simulation is an act, while simulacre is closer to a thing. And in the theory of simulacre, this is what is said.
For those who seek the original, the sight of a simulacre can inspire unease, a sense of threat, even disgust. The moment I read Maria, that theory of simulacre came to mind.
Along with the keyword “motherhood.” “Motherhood and simulacre.” Let me put it in order. Maria was written in the 1970s.
And Maria is set in the countryside. Seoul may have been somewhat different, but the rural regions of that time were still not fully modernized.
The more traditional a society is, the more women’s roles tend to be upheld through motherhood.
“A real family” means blood relation.
And as the group bound by blood grows larger, so too does the power one can wield in the village. In that sense, a family formed through adoption, especially one without a man to serve as household head or patriarch, would naturally strike the villagers as strange and offensive.
The moment they acknowledge an adoptive family as a family, the value of their own blood-tied family unit begins to erode. Of course, one must not forget that this was the case in a 1970s rural village. So the criticism and oppression the villagers direct at the woman are, in a way, only natural.
The woman is not simply raising children.
She is threatening the sanctity of the “real family” and creating a new form of family altogether. Her selling off land to start a business is part of the same logic.
That is not the role of a mother, but the role of a breadwinner, and to them that too would have been a new shock. Yes.
The woman’s family can be seen as a simulacre, a “fake” that resembles the real thing.
Also, up until now, the villagers’ abuse of her in Maria had been described as “jealousy,” but in truth, it was closer to anxiety.
Anxiety over the values they had protected being overturned and transformed by a simulacre. And then came the climax of the novel.
The scene where the birth mothers appear and try to take the children away was truly remarkable, wasn’t it?
It is the moment where the new family structure the protagonist built is about to be dismantled.
Watch the children struggle between the two mothers at that point.
If this were the modern era, they would choose the woman who raised them without hesitation, but the children continue to hesitate until the end.
That reveals just how powerful the existing family structure is.
Even those who have lived inside a simulacre cannot reject the aura carried by the words “real family.” And here, the most important passage of the novel appears.
The scene where the five children gather and deliberate.
“To abandon the mother who raised us would be lower than an animal’s act.
“But what about the suffering of the mother who gave birth to us? She tore open her flesh to bring us into the world. Can we really pretend not to know her now?
“I don’t know. I just want to die.
“But.
“The eldest speaks.
“There is work we have to do with our mother. Our family business. Isn’t that what we built over our whole lives? Even while taking abuse from farmers, we went to the market to buy goods and carry them back, and we traveled all the way to those distant factories to make deals. Because of that, our family became this wealthy. Our lives are different from the farmers’. We are not fish that live in a pond, eating weeds and huddling together. Mother is the one who let us go out to sea.
“Brother. Then what about blood ties?
“Why would the mothers who share our blood come looking for us now? Because we now have money, and we know how to make money. Those mothers only want to eat the plumpened fish for themselves.”
The fourth child, whose heart is soft, begins to cry. But the eldest has no intention of softening his cold words.]
After this crucial conversation, the five children make up their minds.
Except for the fourth child, whose birth mother is gravely ill, all of them leave with their foster mother in search of a new village. Even the fourth child promises to return to his foster mother after his birth mother dies, and that is where the story ends. I found this conversation thoroughly entertaining.
And I began to see how this work could be reinterpreted from a modern perspective. This family is a kind of simulacre.
A simulacre that imitates a classical, orthodox “real” family and makes them uneasy. If so, what does the existence of this simulacre signify?
I found the answer in the eldest son’s words. “Our lives are different from the farmers’.” The denial of the previous generation’s agriculture-centered worldview, and “Why would the mothers who share our blood come looking for us now? Because we now have money, and we know how to make money.” A logic that converts one’s own existence into capital and calculates it accordingly. That threatening, forceful logic
Isn’t it too familiar to our generation? Yes. This work is, at its core, a novel about the birth of “capitalism” in Korean society.
─┼
Every department at Gyeongseong Publishing had its own flagship product.
The periodicals department, needless to say, had Gyeongseong Geul, and in the case of the foreign literature and Korean literature departments, it was the world literature collections.
That was why the heads of those two departments had been in a foul mood lately. The Korean literature department editor, Yoon, and the foreign literature department editor, Ryu, were smoking together in the balcony smoking area of the building as they talked about it. “To think they might publish another literary collection. No matter how I look at it, this is just too bewildering.”
“Exactly. Even if they’re putting it out as a special edition... no, it’s no good. No matter how you slice it, this is too much for Mok Hyunsun.” The foreign literature editor Ryu shook his head from side to side.
The world literature collection was the pride of the foreign literature department.
Korean literature was at least published mainly as standalone books by authors, but the main route through which foreign literature entered the market was through the world literature collection.
In that situation, there was no way they could be pleased about another literary collection appearing.
They respected Wolkwang Publishing as much as anyone else, of course, but it was hard to avoid the sting of pride.
The softer-hearted editor Yoon said, “Still, if the commentary and planning are good... they’re saying it’ll only be a one-time run of 300 copies, so maybe if Representative Moon says to do it, we have to do it?”
“Hey, no. Absolutely not. Don’t even say that out loud. Things are bad enough as it is.” Editor Ryu waved a hand. “But if Wolkwang Publishing is going to end on that note, it does have a certain meaning, doesn’t it?”
“Even so, this isn’t easy from the start. Call it reinterpretation if you want, but if Gyeongseong Publishing doesn’t want people saying they’ve gone money-mad, the commentary has to be genuinely spectacular.”
“That much is obvious.”
“Obvious to who?”
“It’s Mok Hyunsun.” The three syllables of Mok Hyunsun’s name slipped from Editor Yoon’s mouth.
Together with a plume of white cigarette smoke. Mok Hyunsun, what? Was he some sort of god? Editor Ryu wanted to shoot back like that. But... the truth was, he couldn’t really say it either.
Just thinking about the performances Mok Hyunsun had already delivered. In fact, it was precisely because it was Mok Hyunsun that the editors were grumbling in the smoking room.
If anyone else had pulled something like this, they would have gone straight over and confronted them.
Because it was Mok Hyunsun. Because he had already done enough for the other departments that they were only swallowing their anxiety in silence. He could at least act like an editor and get carried away with himself. Then we could use that as an excuse to persuade the representative. Unfortunately, Mok Hyunsun had managed his image too well for that sort of angle to work.
Then Editor Ryu felt a chill creep up the back of his neck for no reason. Heaven forbid, but... Mok Hyunsun won’t be the one making all of this possible, will he? No, that’s impossible. He shook the thought off with effort.
And then, acting tough, he said, “No matter how much it’s Mok Hyunsun, there’s no way. If Pyeong reinterprets the Wolkwang literature collection... then let’s just support that.” He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.
─┼
“Editor, I brought the materials.” Intern Yoon came into the office, hugging a terrifying stack of printouts. “Be careful. If you drop those, it’ll be a disaster.”
“Haha, I’m fi-ine. Hup.” He set the printouts down on the desk. “These are critiques and papers on thirty works. The amount of material is seriously absurd.”
“That must’ve cost a bit in paper. Good work. You can leave early today.”
“Ah, no. If there’s anything I can help with—” I waved him off, signaling that I was fine and telling him to go on out.
Then Intern Yoon barely managed to swallow the grin that looked ready to burst out of him and said, “Then I’ll head out first.” And with that, he left the office. Sending Intern Yoon home early like this was fine.
The kid was already doing several times the work of the other interns.
“Now then, shall I take a look?” I stood up and examined the printouts.
I wasn’t planning to read everything here and now.
First, I intended to look through the materials related to Maria. After searching for Maria-related material, I found nineteen critiques and five papers. “Not as many as I expected.” Compared with its reputation, the number was definitely on the small side.
That meant Maria had been analyzed almost exclusively in one direction until now.
Mainly in the form of, “This foster mother’s love is also a powerful motherhood.”
And when analysis proceeds in only one direction like that, there is inevitably less accumulated insight to work with. I began reading the critiques quickly. Flutter, flutter, flutter, flutter....
“...” As expected, it was a critique praising motherhood. Flutter, flutter, flutter, flutter....
“This one’s the same too.” Flutter, flutter, flutter....
This one too. The papers were not saying anything all that different.
The dissertations were roughly a hundred pages each, but the basic line was identical. That cursed motherhood, motherhood, motherhood. Flutter. I turned the last page of the final paper.
“This too is motherhood.” I set the papers down on the floor.
The floor was already piled high with paper.
Only then did I fully appreciate how wasteful all that paper had been. And then, I think I can do this. Courage began to rise in me. I straightened my back and sat down in front of the computer.
I opened a Word file and typed this onto the blank page: [Maria], The Birth of the Capitalist Mother