Description

At the point where everything seems to be over, if one can imagine the best future, that is, such an ordinary future, then "An Ordinary Future" showcases eight ways in which fiction imagines time and the miraculous moments when stories change our lives, illustrating how the end of the world and the beginning of love can coexist. The narrative revolves around two intertwined stories centered on the keyword 'future.' The first story follows 'me' and 'Jimin' during the summer of 1999. Twenty-one-year-old 'me' heads to a publishing house where my uncle works as an editor shortly after the end-of-semester party, seeking to uncover the details of a banned novel, 'Ash and Dust,' written by Jimin's mother before her suicide. My uncle, who has spent his life reading books, recalls the novel published in the 1970s and describes its content, which astounds both of us. This is where the second story begins. The novel features a couple who realize that the end of their time together, the end of their love, is approaching, and they choose to commit suicide together. However, at that moment, their entire life unfolds before their eyes, leading to a new beginning. This time, the journey is not forward from the past to the future but backward. The day of their joint suicide becomes the first day of their new life, and when they wake up, it is the previous day. The reason 'me' and Jimin were shocked by my uncle's story is that the plot seemed to predict their future. The two were planning to commit suicide together that summer. Upon hearing their plan, my uncle continues to explain about 'Ash and Dust.' In that novel, the couple discovers that as they travel backward in time, they eventually arrive at the moment they first met, recalling the joy and excitement they felt then. In their second life, which progresses from the future to the past, they experience the events that occurred because of that meeting first. While actively imagining the future, which would normally be the past, they realize how "imagining that the best comes last changes the present" (p. 23), and at the end, time begins to flow back to the future as it originally did. After a long story, my uncle tells them, "The past can be imagined fully because it is something we have already experienced, but the future exists only as a possibility, making it impossible to imagine at all. This thought carries the tragedy of humanity. What we need to remember is not the past, but rather the future" (p. 29). "Again, to Barbara in 2100" explains the act of imagining the future from a slightly longer temporal dimension. 'Me' overhears that my grandfather, who has been hospitalized and whose condition has worsened, has been talking to himself as if he is conversing with someone, and the name 'Barbara' repeatedly appears in those conversations, prompting me to recall a long-forgotten memory. Working at a publishing house, I had once planned to record my grandfather's stories and turn them into a book, but it had fallen through. I wonder if 'Barbara' was mentioned in my grandfather's stories and open the recording manuscript to search, discovering that the Barbara he speaks of is actually his youngest sister, who was unjustly killed by political police in 1949 while he was in a monastery in North Korea. This event caused my grandfather to suffer the pain of "complete closure of the soul" and transformed him into a different person. However, life continues even after suffering, and my grandfather finds the motivation to keep living through other stories of Barbara, one of which is about another Barbara who decided to maintain her virginity and received the sacrament even to the point of accepting her illness, dying in 1850. This story was published in a book in 1980, but my grandfather had learned about Barbara directly from his grandfather 50 years earlier. Realizing that the Barbara of 1850 is directly connected through stories to the Barbara of 1949 and to himself, my grandfather concludes, "If we live eighty years in the flesh, we can live another eighty years in the mind, both in the past and in the future. Therefore, we can say that the life of our minds spans two hundred and forty years. If we can experience two hundred and forty years, anyone would have no choice but to be optimistic about the future" (p. 231). The novel does not stop there; it sets up a situation where, after a long time, my grandfather accidentally encounters a person involved in his younger sister's death. In a situation where he is within reach, my grandfather chooses not to act. More precisely, he struggles to decide not to act. He could do this because he is someone who believes that even if it is impossible to "think of our future" (p. 240), he must continue to "think and believe that he can think." Just as my uncle's words in "An Ordinary Future" suggest that "we must remember the future," my grandfather's difficult decision evokes deep reflections on the meaning of "remembering the future" in the realm of action. "You said that when we try to understand others, our lives are worth living, but is it really possible to understand someone?" "The reflection on the theme of 'understanding others,' which is akin to Kim Yeon-soo's signature, shows how far we have come. (...) The author's labor to expand his fictional territory is palpable," says the review that led to "The Ending of Jinju" being awarded the Excellence Prize at the 2022 Kim Seung-ok Literary Award. This novel explores the truth behind a crime through the story of 'me,' a criminal psychologist, and the suspect 'Yujinju.' Appearing on the current affairs program "The Ending of the Case," 'me' analyzes Yujinju, a single woman in her late thirties accused of murdering her father, who had dementia, and setting fire to their home. He concludes that she is not an active criminal but rather a passive victim who committed the crime impulsively while suppressing her emotions after her mother passed away. The next morning, after the broadcast, an email from Yujinju arrives. She admits that it is true she wished for her father's death and feels guilty about it, but insists she did not kill him. This opens a tense dialogue between 'me' and Yujinju regarding the interpretation of the incident. While 'me' believes, "I do not think there is a hidden truth in humans" (p. 75), Yujinju counters, "Your premise is that I was inevitably pushed into a situation where I had to kill my father, and that is wrong. Therefore, your subsequent analysis must also be entirely incorrect" (p. 84). As the tension escalates, we are compelled to reflect meaningfully on the following sentence from the beginning of the novel: "A time traveler can decide which events to witness and which to ignore. Regardless, what will happen will happen, and the conclusion will remain the same. The only difference is which stepping stones one chooses to reach that conclusion" (p. 71). The mention of the time traveler in Yujinju's first email suggests that when an event occurs, we each create our narratives by selectively choosing the processes leading to the conclusion. What did 'me,' as a criminal psychologist, choose to confront and what did he choose to ignore? What did the suspect Yujinju choose to confront and what did she choose to ignore? Even if they arrive at the same conclusion through different stepping stones, can that conclusion truly be the same? While "The Ending of Jinju" explores the (im)possibility of understanding someone through a murder case, "But I Remember One Person" examines the significance of 'remembering someone' through the lens of a romantic relationship. The first written piece among the collection, "But I Remember One Person," begins in April 2014 when 'me' receives an email from my ex-lover 'Heejin.' In that seemingly endless email, Heejin explains a series of coincidental events that happened to her. She is in Japan representing an indie singer from Korea and, during a performance, she unexpectedly breaks down while singing her original song "I Remember One Person." After the concert, she meets a man in his fifties named Fukuda Jun, who had gone through great lengths to invite her to this performance. When she asks him why he sought her out, Fukuda explains an incident that occurred ten years ago, related to a song called "White Grave" that Heejin used to enjoy listening to while they were still together. He recalls how he had asked the café owner to play that song, only to forget the CD there. At that time, Fukuda, who was contemplating suicide after a series of failures, happened to visit that café and rediscovered the meaning of life upon hearing that song. He later finds the lyrics of "White Grave" along with the initials 'H.J.' in the café's guestbook. Thus, he began searching for a Korean indie singer with the initials H.J. After a lengthy explanation, Heejin adds, "At some point, I started thinking about how someone, who I have never met and whose face I do not know, has been remembering me. Can that memory have any impact on my life, my existence in this world? When we try to remember someone, can this universe change even a little?" (p. 181) Although posed as a question, we realize through Heejin's recounting of Fukuda Jun's story that "when we try to remember someone, this universe can change even a little," and considering that this piece was written in the winter of the year the Sewol ferry incident occurred, we understand that this statement carries a sense of urgency. "Reflections on Love, 2014" also illustrates how personal changes can connect to societal changes. 'Jihun,' who has been separated from his lover for three years, has believed that "the eternal summer was an illusion, and everything has an end" (p. 196), but while randomly searching for "I love you" on a news site, he comes across a list of articles and realizes, "Once love begins, it never truly ends; (...) we simply forget it, and when we remember that love existed, we can love forever" (p. 211). The list of articles consists of love letters sent by parents and friends to the children who died in the Sewol ferry incident, promising not to forget them. No one can deny the eternity of love in the face of that. In 2014, Kim Yeon-soo pondered what a writer could do when a significant event occurred in society, while in the 2020s, he seems to reflect on what a writer can do in the face of an unavoidable disaster. In "Before the Sea of Nanjoo," the novelist 'Jung-hyun' receives a request to give a lecture and travels to Chuja Island, where he unexpectedly reunites with his college classmate 'Son Yu-mi' after thirty years. Son Yu-mi, who dreamed of writing detective novels during their college days, is now living that dream. The difference is that she experienced a significant upheaval in her life after losing a child a few years ago. One of the things that helped her during this time, when "there is no way to return to the previous life" (p. 58), was a term Jung-hyun had once shared with her: "second wind." This term, used in sports, refers to a state where pain diminishes during exercise, and one feels a renewed desire to continue. According to Jung-hyun's explanation, it is the "new wind" that blows when one reaches extreme pain. "Enduring and enduring, falling is the same. But falling doesn't mean it's over. There is something next. You will understand when you are KO'd and lying on the ring floor. When you are lying there, you feel that the air has changed from just a moment ago. The world seems to retreat, and the disappointment of those who supported you is conveyed, making you feel as if you are alone in this world. It is at that moment that the wind blows toward me" (p. 60). The story that comes to Son Yu-mi's mind along with the second wind is that of Jeong Nanjoo. Jeong Nanjoo, who was exiled to Jeju Island with a newborn baby after her family was destroyed two hundred years ago, is said to have survived long enough to become a grandmother despite extreme suffering. After contemplating how Jeong Nanjoo could hold on to life and not give up, Son Yu-mi concludes that Jeong Nanjoo must have held onto the belief that "if she lives, the child can live." Here, we are reminded of the sentence from "The Ending of Jinju": "What will happen will happen, and the conclusion will remain the same. The only difference is which stepping stones one chooses to reach that conclusion." While the conclusion does not change, the choice of which story to select is up to each individual. And that choice undoubtedly impacts the present self. Just as Son Yu-mi created her own story, which is somewhat different from the story of Jeong Nanjoo that has been passed down, and just as that story uplifted her during a critical moment. Therefore, after reading the eight stories in "An Ordinary Future," we will feel that the phrase "we must imagine the future" also means "we must actively imagine stories." Just as Jung-hyun's words from thirty years ago reached Son Yu-mi after a long time, and as he shared with the children at a middle school in Chuja Island, "I hope the future you will live will be better. But as you grow older, there will be difficult times. I felt that way too. When you feel like you want to die because it is hard, I hope you remember today" (p. 48), we can imagine without any doubt that Kim Yeon-soo's current novel awakens us to the beauty of imagining the future, the deeper and broader dimension of sensing time, and ultimately finding the "direction of hope" (p. 73) through the best means a story can offer.