| Cover of novelist Kim Jin-myung's latest work "Geulja Jeonjaeng (Letter Wars)" / Courtesy of Saeum |
Novelist Kim Jin-myung's latest work, "Geulja Jeonjaeng (Letter Wars)," raises a provocative question — where did Chinese characters originate?
After it was published in early August, "Letter Wars" quickly climbed the list of the top 10 best-selling books in Korea, proving that Kim is a chart-topping writer here and his stories — mostly focusing on national secrets or hidden bits of Korean history — are entertaining.
So is "Letter Wars." As the author's previous books did, the book starts with a simple paradox: China claims all Chinese characters (called "hanja" in Korean) were invented by its people, but there are some letters that do not exist in the Chinese system but are actively used in Korea.
Before Koreans used "hangeul," its own alphabet commissioned by King Sejong of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) in 1443, they only wrote in hanja. Thus, the invention of hangeul has long been a source of pride for Koreans, who had toadyism toward China in the Joseon era.
In this book, Kim takes a step further from this idea and writes that hanja actually originated from remote ancestors living on the Korean Peninsula through a fictional tale featuring two lead characters, Lee Tae-min and Jeon Jun-woo, whom Tae-min calls Kilimanjaro.
Tae-min is an ambitious arms dealer who proclaims that his ultimate goal is earning 50 billion won. However, his successful career starts to go wrong as a prosecutor investigates him on a charge of illegal lobbying. He flees to China and gets along with North Koreans, looking for a chance to return to his job.
Then, he meets Kilimanjaro and finds out he is a novelist writing about the "true history" of hanja. Kilimanjaro's unfinished novel is about an ancient Chinese dynasty's scheme to get rid of some letters that do not exist in China and indicate that all hanja did not originate from China by killing those who know the letters in an ancient Korean kingdom.
Kilimanjaro's novel is provocative because the writer claims that historical evidence shows that hanja originated from Korea. Tae-min, inspired by this, researches the history and makes a more controversial argument that even Sima Qian, China's revered historian, and Confucius manipulated history to insist hanja came from China at a seminar between China's renowned historians.
Writer Kim has garnered popularity with his stories deriving from a hidden piece of history or a conspiracy that can be interpreted in a way of promoting Koreans' pride. Such a theme and the veteran novelist's technique create a riveting read.
Indeed, Kim is a good storyteller. His sentences are short, precise and dedicated to explain how the story will go. He never distracts readers with absurd bids to materialize abstract thoughts.
Rather, he mesmerizes readers with a meticulously designed plot, which is comprised of endless events. In those events, his characters are active, always looking for breakthroughs in the challenges they face — a stark contrast to some modern novelists' stories that are studded with passive, helpless and melancholic characters.
And Kim's excellence in portraying fiction in a non-fiction narrative shines again in "Letter Wars," which is a bit disturbing this time.
In the book, Tae-min appears as an arms dealer and engages in real or verisimilar arms deals, including Korea's picking of the Anglo-Italian AW159 Wildcat as its new multi-mission maritime helicopter. However, it appears that those anecdotes are measures to help the whole story be seen as non-fiction, and when readers finish this 343-page book, they will only find out Tae-min's arms deals actually have nothing to do with the main plot.
In the end, the prosecutor investigating Tae-min gives up the indictment because she was impressed by Tae-min's work to reveal the origin of hanja, saying it was a "brave deed." And this is a part where Kim's Korea-is-a-great-country idea comes again, satisfying local readers who want Korea to win and perhaps contributing to the book's strong sales.
Still, this is an entertaining book, proving there are few novelists who can write stories as interesting as Kim's. The amount of time and study that Kim has done can be easily sensed with just a quick scan of this book.
Kim has been writing his best-selling "Goguryeo" series. But to release his previous "THAAD," a story about the U.S. missile system, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense System, a hotly debated issue that has put Korea and the United States at odds over whether it should be deployed on the Korean Peninsula or not, Kim halted writing after publishing the Goguryeo's fifth volume. As Kim released "Letter Wars," loyal Goguryeo fans have to wait, but this book can surely soothe those longing for the sixth volume.