The Joy of Literature - Jeong Je-won

What is literature? I recall being taught that literature is a collection of language expressing 'human life and emotions.' I think that was probably in an Introduction to Korean Linguistics class. Among the books I read as a child, it seems like there was literature, and also like there wasn't. If you think of works like Aesop's Fables as literature, the story of the twelve zodiac animals as literature, and, well, all sorts of various things as literature, then surely many of the books I read as a child were 'literary works.'
This book divides the meaning of literature into 20 chapters and examines it one by one. Rather than simply defining literature as 'such and such,' it weighs the meaning piece by piece, bringing in a work in each chapter. What stands out is that it tried to explore what 'literature' is using a variety of works—starting from a Japanese novel titled 'One Bowl of Udon,' to 'The Last Leaf,' 'Moby-Dick,' 'Snowy Road,' 'Amiel's Journal,' 'The Road Not Taken,' 'Three Days to See,' 'The Railroad Man,' 'Love Letter,' 'Utopia,' 'Brave New World,' 'Walden,' and so on.
'Moby-Dick' was a novel I'd heard of for the first time; the content has a 'white whale' that takes away the leg of one of the protagonists, and with a person who makes that white whale the 'object of revenge' and a newcomer who has newly joined the ship appearing as characters, the writer's thoughts come through about the degree of expression in the novel 'Moby-Dick,' its psychological-description techniques, and the question of whether there can even be just 'one' protagonist after all.

How poetic is the word 'study' (gongbu)?
Study, pronounced the Chinese way, is kung fu. It isn't simply learning knowledge; just as Jet Li devotes himself to martial arts in a state of body-mind unity, it means to hone body and mind together, I suppose. During study time, and in Korean class no less, I often dozed off. It was an era, for instance, when the poems in the textbook were precisely what made me keep poetry at a distance. Of course there were times I didn't doze, too. It was the day I was reading a letter sent by a girl from the next school. When I think of the word 'lover,' my heart trembles like a bird caught in the act...... Throwing my whole body and soul into the spaces between the lines of that letter, I struggled to read out the words hidden in her trembling. But even that brief reading was caught by the teacher and was torn into pieces, yet after that, reading that chased along with the eyes was as plentiful as the drowsiness that poured down during study time, but now, with eyes that have come far away from school, as I gaze faintly at the lives within the school walls, outside the teacher's gaze, throwing my whole body and mind, that moment of reading a puppy-love letter was the only kung fu of my life.
- Yu Ha, 'Love Letter,' in full - (Yu Ha, , Yeollimwon, 1999, included)

I can't tell you what a blessing it is that a poem like this is included. At the very least, as I read writing, I look back on myself, but I also come to think about the future, and about people, don't I.

I'll close this piece with the 'Literary Resonance' writing that was included in the book.

To the person who thinks a new world has unfolded before us when they first owned a mobile phone, and then, evolving at rapid speed, finally owned a smartphone, I'd like to recommend reading . To the person who thinks a new world has unfolded before us when they first owned a personal computer, and then, evolving at rapid speed, finally entered the era of a computer carried around in one's pocket, I'd like to recommend reading .
To the person who thinks a new world has unfolded before us when the internet first made its debut in the world, and then finally, when we came to handle nearly all of daily life over the internet and to share almost all the information of the whole world, I'd like to recommend reading . To the person who thinks a new world has unfolded before us when digital TV first opened the arena of visual culture, and then finally when 3D films were screened, I'd like to recommend reading .

Compare the new world that science has thrown open with the new world that literature has thrown open, ponder carefully what true creation is, work out how we ought to receive true creation, and nurture a dream of true creation that productively and proactively changes our lives. And thereby understand why true scientists hold the joy of literature in such high regard.