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Modern Korean Literature #106

by Hwang Sun-won, 황순원

Rain Shower, also called Shower in English, 0r Sonagi (in Romanized Korean), is a short story written by Hwang Sun-won in 1959 (Hwang also wrote the seminal novel The Descendants of Cain – a horrific story of greed and betrayal). Sonagi is a brief but a heavy rain shower that suddenly comes down usually on a hot afternoon. In Hwang’s story, the rain shower both causes and symbolizes the short and tragic love of the boy and the girl.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Romance, Literature

144 pages

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

See: 황순원

Hwang Sun-wŏn was a Korean short story writer, novelist, and poet.

Reviews

[Katherine]

Although it was a very brief story, it had a huge emotional impact. The descriptions of the
landscape and the purity of nature in all its richness created a dual space – magical in its cornucopia of flora, yet absolutely realistic due to the raw energy of life reverberating from every word. It was also both a manifest of loneliness and fulfilment, yet with an unsatisfactory ending for the male character. I see why it is described as a ”nostalgia of lost innocence”; it shows just how ephemeral and fragile human life is. Yet it is also proof to the fact that sacrifices are worth to be made for the right people. I'm not going to lie, the end got me pretty teary-eyed.

[Tony]

Is short story. Little boy fall in fall but too bad she die. What loser. This is like that one movie with Josh Hutchinson and the bridge. He small child, he falls in love with other small child, they have adventure and someone bad happen. Then they go home, thinking about each other cause they like each other. Then she die. Man he gonna be thinking about this for the rest of his life. The cloudburst is symbol for she die. Did I mention she die.

[Travis Kim]

"Why, before she died, believe it or not it seems she said that if she died, she wanted them to bury her in the clothes she'd been wearing every day, just as they were..."

This is the first of hopefully many Korean literature books which I will read, and even more hopefully, continue to be read in Korean. Reading this was difficult because of the unending list of archaic and compounded conjunction systems in Korean language, but reading with my mom helped a lot. Just by reading this though, my comprehension has greatly improved.

Re-learning Korean has become very important to me this summer after traveling alone in Korea for five weeks. Reading is one way that I can do this.

Onto the book though.

This book is extremely delicate in its portrayal of all characters, from a childlike point of view yes, but equally in its apt descriptions of the surroundings in a way that captures the setting in the way only innocence could see it. Rivers and beauty in an old Korea. After the Korean war ended in 1950, General MacArthur said “It will take [Korea] 100 years to recover from the devastation.”

Before the past 75 years, Korea was much like other undeveloped asian countries, thatched roofs, feudal systems, etc.

Of course westernization is not any sort of savior. To say that Korea was undeveloped implies that "development" is a positive, but that's not fair. Western development was the erasure of stories like Cloudburst.

Western literature is rigorous, it's aesthetic is centered in Christianity—works like Ulysses or Inferno, beasts of literature, equally majestic in their own right, but to call these "developed" is not true. There is no such hierarchical system when it comes to literature, nor is there any fault to these Korean stories.

And I haven't felt as emotionally tied to a storyline as when reading this book. Maybe because it was the last thing I read with my mother before I went on a plane to go to college, and that's always a time tied to so many emotions, and we both cried a great deal after reading this, but maybe there's something more to this that western literature is missing. The delicacy of such writing. The ability for Korean to be rearranged in any way due to its particle grammar system, giving it incredible poetic agility and subtlety.

To many more.

[Ian]

A very sweet and timeless account of two young people’s coming of age, innocence loss and the crashing of reality into the shattered world of 1950s korea… im shocked this is taught as young as elementary school age , the sexual imagery is clear from white pebbles gift, parting of millet and entering the narrow space, crush flowers (i mean come on) intimacy and breathing and .. wait for it.. a surprising brownish red stain on the front of her dress. Not only does the river ripen every day after but the girls child life literally and metaphorically dies. Bit much for kids no? However it is beautiful and delicately put, handles class difference interestingly and leave perhaps the new post colonial korea as reborn and equal. Will read more

[Supriya]

*Read for my Korean literature class, in English.

[Nicholas Thurn]

All the cliches important to Korean narrative. If you want to understand modern Korea, the giver suggested, this will help. It did.

It's a work that has informed and is telling of the Korean psyche. There is both a beauty in the willful rusticity of Hwang's settings and themes and also a kind of inflexibile sentimentality that is inescapable throughout. If you dig it, you'll love much of Korean fiction, film, etc. Hwang's work is the ultimate toe-dipping bellwether.

[Em]

Hwang’s use of perspective is unique and offers a precious insight into the shift in color as the story approaches it melancholic ending. The characters being a young girl and a young boy, creates a dynamic simple yet engaging as the difference in gender creates traction between the seemingly mundane interactions. Like the simple occurrences of the two, Hwang makes incredible use of short sentences and casual language. Repeating words makes for a pleasant lyrical read and the story works out in a setting like a painting. The nature is unembellished but enchanting.
The symbol of the blood on the shirt serves as a reference for the spill of innocence which is the beginning of the end; of life itself. The few romantic escapades of the girl and boy show the preciousness of life and how quickly it can be lost. The quickening of love filled excitement cut short by death is a perfect microcosm of the process of the human condition.
Looking back, death seems to be a graceful end to the story. It makes perfect sense when examining the metamorphosis in perspective; the change in tone.
The hesitant unfinished sentence of the girl was fully intentional. It was a sorry pitiful attempt to prolong to mystique of a blossoming young love, although she knew her time to perish was soon. We are left with the pensive country lad, who never got to fill the proper boots of Prince Charming for a young lady, so infatuated that as she lay dying, insisted on being buried in the pink sweater with her inamorato’s red stubborn nectar.

[Jo Jaemin]

Incredible. So quintessential to Korean culture, thinking, love and language as art. Korean is a deeply relational language, and the way this story uses language to indicate the role that the girl in the story has to the boy from a societal vs personal level — is uniquely only possible in maybe Korean perhaps Japanese.

I love the imagery, and I love how it uses the unique qualities of Korean language and culture to create art.

[Madhurima Das]

What a beautiful little story! The tragedy of first love amidst the natural, simple country life. I hate spoilers and unfortunately, I knew what I was going to read, thanks to the internet.
But that didn't take away from the emotions I experienced despite knowing everything. I can see why this short little piece is a classic and a beloved of an entire nation! Lucky South Koreans!

[P.J. Nwosu]

A friend gave me a copy of this one and I really liked it. It is written simply but beautifully, and the images really stayed with me. I can't get the stained sweater out of my mind, for some reason. Super short, but well worth a read I thought. I'm glad to have been gifted it.

[Zahra Louridi]

this is my very first time reading korean story thought I didn't understand the majority of the words I only understanded the context. I will give it second try in other time.

[Gabriel "Sempere"]

Humbling to see where so much of what we see of Korean fiction has stemmed from. Short, sweet and tragic.

[Charles]

Sweet yet sad.

[seriy moon]

it captures the korean sentiment of 'han' wonderfully

[*･ﾟﾟ･* yvonne *･ﾟﾟ･*]

i should've expected that ending i hate it here

[Sam Lien]

Read in both English and Korean.

[Mari]

아름답고 감동한 소설이다. 몇번은 읽었는데 아직도 안 심심하고 사실 좋은 이야기란 게 맞다. 추천합니다.

[Sarah]

Can't rate it. Fucked me up. god damn

[Mindaugas Gudaitis]

greitas skaitaliukas bet paliko siurpuliukus

[nadanera]

A short story of modern of korean literature
This book is read by korean high school students

I loved the story it's very sweet and short about a country boy and a girl moving to the country

[Romaine Lastimosa]

rated it