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Eotbi Book Review

In the end, he ends up crying.

December 2, 2021

📖 Soon, adult time begins_Baek Young-ok

If I had to choose my favorite book, it would be by author Baek Young-ok.

It is a collection of prose titled <Soon, the time of adulthood begins>.

Every time I read it, it’s the same, maybe even better.

In Korea, where I have lived since I was 20

The town where the university was located is like home to me.

Although the times are different, it is described by a writer who worked in the same place.

From the moment I read the red bricks of Hyehwa-dong

I couldn’t help but like this author and this book.

At first, I read this prose collection at the school library.

I found it by chance at an Aladdin used bookstore and bought it with joy.

On the first page of the book, the book was given as a gift to a PD.

It contained the handwritten signature of author Baek Young-ok.

My favorite author personally touched this book

Just the fact that I picked up a pen and pressed letters to write them down is an honor.

When you feel lonely and empty, it’s like getting a prescription at the hospital.

I always go back to this collection of prose.

📝Thoughts and sentences I liked

(I just want to transcribe the book from beginning to end,

Still, among them, I brought a sentence that especially touched my heart.)

I think it was about 6 years into my career. Some people resign and go on a long trip. The age at which one changes jobs, becomes unemployed, or gets married. An age where one is vaguely anxious, nervous and unreasonably angry with oneself.

If you want to know about the tough journey of riding a camel through the desert with blue-clad Berbers, eating a lamb’s balls in the middle of an unknown desert, or squatting in a Vietnamese market and drinking Vietnamese coffee made by an old woman, you might want to open this book. When it comes to drinking the black liquid that drips like thick syrup through an old, blackened strainer. From the best restaurants in Spain to eating a whole pig the Portuguese way. Anthony Bodin travels the world in search of ‘the spice of lost memories’, tasting the pinnacle of Mondogane-style gastronomy. If I were a chef at a restaurant and planning a trip around the world, it goes without saying that I would write like Anthony Bodin. At least that’s how he would have wanted to write it.

I took the bus back home and listened to the zoo’s . When the bus passed Hannam Bridge, I opened the window. My hair was flying and my cheeks were itching. I feel like I have to listen to while walking down the street or riding the bus. In a moving landscape, this song stimulates the sounds of my memory much more freely.

“I got a call from a friend I had forgotten about today. They say they will go far away tomorrow. They say I will meet them in the alley where we used to play when we were kids. They say we will go very far away tomorrow. The road we take on the bumpy train. How many things we have forgotten…” After hearing the lyrics, I think of the horse chestnut park in Hyehwa-dong, where I spent a spring day when I was 29, and the long line at the ‘Love Ticket’ box where I was queuing to buy the cheapest ticket. A horse chestnut tree swaying in the wind and sprinkled with sunlight comes to mind.

There was a time when comedy movies featuring gangsters were shown in theaters every season. But what was really surprising was that a comedy movie that was supposed to be funny ended with a bang. According to a movie insider I interviewed at the time, Koreans think that it is worth the money if you cry. At the same time, he left a meaningful remark, saying, “I’m tired of the idea that something that makes you laugh is light and something that makes you cry is heavy, but that’s the Korean sentiment, so we have to make it that way.”

A mother may be someone who has to clean up her daughter’s messes until the moment she closes her eyes. I thought about the moments that daughters around the world never get used to, when they have to call their mothers ‘mother.’ My friend said, “The cat actually likes its mom more than me,” and then laughed and then cried out loud. Through the fan dimples on my friend’s cheeks as he cried and then laughed, I could see the peaceful times we spent together when we were several years old.

“I’ll do well!” Did Yoo Ji-tae say this in ?

“I will change!” In Memories, Barbra Streisand spoke to a young Robert Redford at that time. However, people who cry about doing well or changing end up being abandoned. How does love change? People who say that always fall victim to romantic movies. Like in horror movies the busty blonde is always the first to be killed. This is the cruel law of love. - Baek Young-ok, from

If you, a 30-year-old who was having a hard time working overtime for days on end on a tiring and languid spring day, saw the trailer for the movie with the exhibition’s playing in passing, you might find yourself staring blankly at the movie screen for a few seconds. Suddenly, I belatedly realized that an unexpected pain was living and writhing deep in my ribs. The spring sunlight streaming through the open window, the haze like a kitten’s back, and the face of first love flowing beneath the soft, languid wind lightly brushing against one’s cheek. The moment you suddenly turn your head towards the wind blowing, you realize that spring has come. At this point, I have no choice but to run to the theater to see the movie.

In the world of love, I have been relegated to the status of untouchables. In an instant, everything fell into darkness. As Truman Capote said, ‘This world did not stop for my sorrow,’ so I became a person who stopped and did nothing to endure the dizzying pace of the world. And for someone who has experienced the pain of rejection and loss, I know that there is nothing easier than becoming a person who does not eat, sleep, or speak. Even though I lay down, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t eat at all. Of course I didn’t want to say a word to anyone.

The day I found out about Euna’s death was around Chuseok. I remember eating songpyeon with a swollen face from crying and getting my lip pricked by a needle-like pine needle that was attached to the songpyeon. After crying for a while, I realized that the rib soup I ate at the funeral was so delicious that I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I had suddenly learned what adults used to say in self-deprecation, that the living still have to live, and I hated myself so much that I shuddered.

I like the story of Gyeongju written by Seok-kyung Kang. is a beautifully written book that explains the history of the construction of the Silla royal tombs in Gyeongju, the reigns of the kings who owned the royal tombs, the subjects of their poems, and the author’s reflections on his thoughts while touring the royal tombs and Gyeongju. The author created the flow of this book uniquely by connecting human life, including civilization, sadness, solitude, and consolation, with the tombs scattered throughout Gyeongju. A rhythm unique to a person who walks slowly while looking around, then suddenly stops and thinks deeply. She described November in Gyeongju as a month like ‘the bass of a cello’, and described herself as ‘returned’ after walking around Silla’s tomb and returning to Gyeongju with a wounded body. As she walks through the tomb, she thinks of poems such as Ryu Si-hwa’s and sings about the sadness of life.

When I want to go on a trip, but I can’t. Therefore, I read Yun Dae-nyeong’s novel. I take out one of his novels and feel the back of a traveler passing by in the sentences. Some people want to transform and change, but I mostly support and like people who have a certain rhythm and keep pushing it. For example, seeing the faces of Yoo Jun-sang and Kim Sang-kyung, who seem to appear in all of Hong Sang-soo’s films, always seems fortunate rather than boring to me. Some of Daenyung Yoon’s novels inevitably overlap with other novels, and I don’t find this disappointing at all.

Times flying past Taebaek across the foggy lake, times like a good wet towel to be flown away and placed on a sore forehead, slight fevers rising like fog on that forehead, that woman embracing those slight fevers and turning into a flower of mist, that woman like a fish biting its own tail, that woman who was once me, that woman with a laugh like a broadleaf tree

- Poet Ahn Hyun-mi’s

In-young falls in love with 17-year-old Yi-seok, who resembles her first love. She went up to the roof of her house and drank a beer and said, ‘What am I doing with a child!’ He mocks himself, but at the same time, he is preoccupied with finding kind words to make Lee Seok happy. A thirty-year-old woman falls in love with a seventeen-year-old man. A seventy-year-old man falls in love with a seventeen-year-old woman. Absurdity and irrationality are the nouns that appear most frequently in the history of love.

A woman who doesn’t waste her life talking about other people. When I heard this, I felt like I had been punched. In our lives, how much do we listen to the stories of people other than ourselves? They say ‘I’ am the master of life, but in the end, if you ask yourself, how many people can really say that?

People often say that happiness ‘comes’ from somewhere, but happiness cannot be something abstract that comes from such a distant place. Happiness is a concrete thing that can only be attained if I ‘choose’ it with my will. It is something that cannot be known unless one encounters life fiercely and learns it. I have always believed that the beginning of happiness lies in the power to listen to your own heart.

What if music is superior to other arts?

Books need to be read and analyzed, but music is something you get absorbed in. Like standing motionless in front of a shower.

People organize ‘dating’ and ‘love’ into various categories, but after living my life so far, I’m not sure how to define it. Should I just say that just like waves crashing into the sea, the waves of love are crashing endlessly in the sea of life.

A quote from Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving” is sometimes quoted as saying, “Love is an active interest in the life and growth of the other person.” Of course, in Alain de Botton’s , ‘We all fall in love based on insufficient data, and make up for our ignorance with desire. Quotes like, “One of the ironies of love is that you can easily seduce the person you least find attractive.”

Novelist Yamada Eimi said this in her novel . “Of course. She’s the only one who knows about me. She can know about me because she didn’t try to know about me.” This is the insight of Eimi Yamada, who has caused countless scandals through her relationships with hostesses, nude models, and numerous men and their failures. What you don’t want to know. Just let the wind blow and let the flowers bloom.

I have always believed that there is a beautiful sense of distance between humans. Ironically, the mature gap created at that time makes each other’s expressions and faces more visible. Even if you really love someone, if you just hug them nose to nose, you may not be able to see their face at all. Isn’t the reason why life is so difficult is because only after accepting solitude can one begin to truly love?

Her womb, which must have been shriveled up while giving birth to her first daughter, second daughter, and youngest son, is depicted as a baby’s home. Although the wrinkles have subsided now, I think there was a time when my mother’s face was white without any blemishes. At times like that, my heart becomes like sour red bean porridge in the middle of summer. Memories and regrets come flooding back at the same time.

I wonder if the countless stories about mothers in the world depict the gap between the mother I knew and the mother I did not know. The greater the vibration, the more the story divides into numerous branches and breaks people’s hearts. If my first love has no choice but to unconditionally be a ‘double bastard!’ to me, it is an unconditional and absolute world in which I have no choice but to be an absolute ‘double bitch!’ to my mother.

Have I ever asked my mother about her dreams? Although I told many people to dream, have I ever paid attention to what my mother’s lost dream was? While listening to my young niece’s answer that her dream was to become a mother, I keenly felt my ignorance toward my mother. When my mom said she wanted to learn ‘salsa’, she just gave her noodles and didn’t ask why she wanted to learn it.

The motto that heated up the World Cup in June 2002 was ‘Dreams come true,’ but dreams do not always come true, and coming true does not necessarily make you happy. In reality, dreams often end up being just dreams, and what is more important is how to overcome them when they cannot be achieved.

What causes people the most difficulty is the talent that once shined brightly. The things you are best at, the most familiar with, and the things you worked really hard on eventually become shackles. Those closest to you are the ones who run furthest away, and those you love most are the first to betray.

Removing an old movie and watching it isn’t a shortcut; it’s like a gift you can suddenly give yourself on a day when you want to binge-watch it. In it, I also met the young face of an actor my age. It’s like looking at an old diary where a bird writes that the reason there are clouds in the sky is so the bird doesn’t get bored.

Because of , I learned one more reason why the wind blows. This is so that when you leave on the train, your soft hair blows wildly through the open window.

Watching Hong Sang-soo’s movies in the theater provides a unique theater experience every time. Despite positive reviews from critics and invitations to numerous overseas film festivals, only a few people come to the screening theater, and even when leaving the theater, the question in the back of their head is always, “What is this? Why is it like that?” A sour reaction is heard. Some people call Hong Sang-soo’s films ‘sophisticated modernism’, while others praise him as ‘the epiphany of a realist’, but to me, he is a kind of relief that shows a predictable world. I’m still making things, and I’m grateful that they’re still making things. It’s good that he hasn’t changed.

Even the lines in the movie are similar, “You’re so, so pretty,” “Honey, you’re so kind!” The same words appear in this movie and that movie. The actors are also Kim Sang-kyung, Yoo Jun-sang, and Kim Tae-woo, so it is easy to get confused in one way or another. In addition, the high point of the movie, which shows the sexual activities of adulterous men and women taking place in motels and bars all over the country, starting from Seoul, Sokcho, Gyeongju, Chuncheon, Jeonju, and Jeju Island, is the embarrassing scene where they are caught in the middle of each other’s affair in front of the motel, and these scenes are also not unfamiliar. Even though we cried out not to become monsters, we also look at people who have already become something similar to monsters.

They meet the same people in the same space, but they understand the space and people from different perspectives and only talk about ‘good and enjoyable things’. Even Admiral Yi Sun-sin appears and preaches like this.

I only see good things. Always see only the good and the beautiful. People only see the good things. Beware of dark and sad things. It contains the worst things.

As the solemn general who appeared in Mungyeong’s dream says, he is happy because he can feel his mother’s love even though he gets beaten on the calf by his mother in broad daylight, hahaha, even though he gets scolded by a woman, hahaha, and even after taking medication for depression, the watermelon is big and delicious, hahaha. They laugh it off and clink their glasses while shouting ‘Cheers!’ The breakup scene in this movie takes place in front of the ‘Naples Motel’ in Tongyeong, and Seong-ok, who meets her lover who secretly had an affair with her in front of the motel, immediately shouts: “I’ll give you a piggyback ride one last time!” The scene where Seong-ok, wearing high heels, waddles while carrying Jeong-ho and then falls to the ground shows that Hong Sang-soo’s jokes, in which life is ultimately a comedy, are in full bloom.

This is because a good novel cannot be created other than by asking ‘questions’ by talking about the possibilities of humans who lived in that era, rather than providing ‘answers’. The answer to the question can and does change depending on the times. This is why classics are read differently by people every time.

The poet’s life is well known, as he traveled to every corner of Jeju Island every summer with his poetry collection and art album. My friend told me that the year he graduated from medical school, he buried a book of his poetry somewhere in Seongsanpo. Every time I walked on the sea in Jeju, I imagined what he said. A woman walking there luckily discovered a collection of poems by Lee Saeng-jin and silently read a line filled with the scent of the sea, eventually ending up crying. If that cry doesn’t sound sad, it means

I thought it was because of the power of poetry.

I said this to the woman who said that she loved it so much that she really wanted to do it, but she had no hope or money to hold on any longer. Instead, you should live your life moving and working hard. If you sit down at the kitchen table in the middle of the night and start writing a novel, even if it means making three typos in one sentence due to fatigue from the day. Only then can you protect yourself from dreams that keep drifting away. Looking back, he also said that dreams are not something everyone can dream. A dream is something that is ultimately preserved through the best efforts to protect it.

I faintly heard him getting up to write in the early morning when I couldn’t sleep, and it occurred to me that what was important was his attitude toward literature.

“Water does not boil at 98 or 99 degrees Celsius. Water only boils at 100 degrees Celsius. So, to get to 100 degrees Celsius, you have no choice but to use it constantly. You can only silently use a certain amount.”

In the afternoon, I would have lunch, go for a walk, or talk to him while drinking coffee. When I looked at his serious frown that narrowed every time he spoke, I felt pitiful and embarrassed as he gave countless reasons for not being able to finish.

Whenever I skip breakfast and drink two cups of Americano with extra shots, my stomach always fills with electricity. My stomach grumbled. Because it was a story about heartbroken, sick people, I couldn’t write a single line without being sensitive. I tried my best to see the backs of people who were sick, like the main character, Yoon Sa-gang, who loved a man who had a wife.

I once thought that the reason humans were lonely was because they could not see their own backs throughout their lives. The loneliness of all living things began from there. A being who cannot see behind himself cannot possibly gaze into his own darkness without fear. If you want to face the truth behind you, which you cannot see no matter how hard you try, you must face fierce fear, prepared to die by having your neck broken.

- Baek Young-ok, from <Seven o’clock Breakfast Meeting for Broken People>