2024-10-10 16:42:00
In a recent publication on the MK website, trying to guess the name of the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature, the author of these lines “bets” on Asia and on a woman. I assumed that the favorite nominated by the bookmakers was the People’s Republic of China writer Can Xue, due to her vaguely expressed, but still, opposition to the authorities in Beijing, her childhood experiences of the horrors of Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution” and the his fame exactly where it was needed: in Europe and the United States the Nobel Committee will most likely be awarded. But there was a small mistake.
How to evaluate the victory of Han Gan, whose name was in the third ten lists of bookmakers and was a complete surprise? Seoul’s prose writer has become what is called a “dark horse” – if it is politically correct to use that expression.
It is normal to make mistakes in such matters. And, by the way, expert Maria Semenyuk, candidate of philological sciences, associate professor of the department of Chinese philology at the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University, was not so optimistic about Can Xue. But he spoke almost prophetic words:
“There is a high probability that the award will be collected by an Asian representative. Now there is a “turn towards the East”, an orientation towards a differently represented culture”.
And while in the shops they take Han Gan’s books from the highest shelves, clean them of dust and put them in the foreground, let us remember that he began by publishing poetry and received a “Nobel” for poetic prose.
True, the historic event for the Republic of Korea (Han Gang became, after all, the first Nobel Prize winner) will inevitably be reduced to a feminist, vegan or any other and politically colored agenda.
In fact, one of his major books is a literary protest against the division of Korea into North and South.
And the novel “The Vegetarian”, which, as the reviewer Daria Gritsaenko wrote in the Zvezda magazine in 2018, reached the Russian reader 11 years late (our publishers woke up only when the book was translated into English) , contains a number of “Hollywood” clichés. A young woman from a conservative family rejects meat due to nightmarish dreams, which lead to conflict – first, the head of the family is a Vietnam War veteran (who else?), a rapist – second, domestic violence – here it is, sexual violence – also the female body and the problem of its acceptance – here.
QUOTE FROM THE WINNING BOOK
“The only thing I trust is my breasts.” I love my breasts. Because they can’t kill anyone. After all, hands, feet, teeth, tongue and even gaze are weapons that can kill and cause harm. But breasts are not capable of this. I have two such round breasts, which means everything is fine. So far, so good. However, why are my breasts getting thinner? Now they are not so round anymore. I wonder why? Why does my body get dry and dry?..
If you read to the end and try to complete the open ending in your head, it will become clear that there is no need to rush into the film adaptation: following the “fashion trend” led to the self-destruction of the heroine, which was not ready for freedom, which in the West it is customary to impose on everyone and “export” to different countries on Earth without taking into account local specificities. This means that the audience will think: why imitate him and turn into a “city madman”? – and the film will fail at the box office.
And if you dig deeper, you become convinced that the text is not complicated for Russian literature: too simple. Imagine opening a book in a random place, wondering whether to buy it or not, and reading the following:
…It was the seventeenth floor of a sunny house, the windows facing south. From the front the view was blocked by a nearby building, but from the rear façade a strip of woods opened up…
Or this passage:
Finally, with anger rising to the top of his head, he hit his daughter once more on the cheek.
– Father!
My sister-in-law rushed to my father-in-law and grabbed him by the waist, but at that moment he managed to stick a piece of pork into the mouth of my wife, who had opened her teeth. However, Yongho, already tired of holding her, loosened his grip and she spat out the meat in disgust. He let out a cry that sounded like an animal’s roar.
– …Let go!
One can only hope that the numerous literary clichés – “a sunny house” and “a cry like the roar of an animal” – are still the “jamb” of translators, and in the original everything sounds much more poetic.
Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29381 of 11 October 2024
Newspaper title:
Instead of Chinese – Korean
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