The Martyred

by Richard E. Kim

"Written in a mood of total austerity; and yet the passion of the book is perpetually beating up against its seemingly barren surface. . . . I am deeply moved." -Philip Roth

During the early weeks of the Korean War, Captain Lee, a young South Korean officer, is ordered to investigate the kidnapping and mass murder of North Korean ministers by Communist forces. For propaganda purposes, the priests are declared martyrs, but as he delves into the crime, Lee finds himself What if they were not martyrs? What if they renounced their faith in the face of death, failing both God and country? Should the people be fed this lie? Part thriller, part mystery, part existential treatise, The Martyred is a stunning meditation on truth, religion, and faith in times of crisis.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, American, 20th Century, Psychology

228 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

Reviews

[Bên Phía Nhà Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

Một nhóm 14 mục sư ở Bình Nhưỡng, ngay trước thềm cuộc chiến tranh Triều Tiên, bị Cộng sản Bắc Hàn quây bắt, tra tấn: 12 người bị xử bắn, 2 người sống sót quay về: 1 phát điên, 1 cương quyết không tiết lộ cho ai việc gì đã xảy ra. Nếu tóm gọn toàn bộ “Chúa đã khước từ,” của nhà văn Hàn Kiều Richard E. Kim xuất bản năm 1964, từng gây ra những cơn sóng lẫy lừng trong lòng giới phê bình và độc giả Mỹ, để rồi nhanh chóng bị quên lãng và đến tận 2011 mới được Penguin phát hành trở lại, thì câu chuyện chỉ đơn giản có vậy.
Nhưng mọi chuyện quả không phải chỉ có vậy. “Chúa đã khước từ” diễn ra trên cái nền giai đoạn lịch sử cực kỳ cam go: vài tháng ngắn gọn mùa đông năm 1950, khi quân đội Nam Hàn được sự trợ giúp của Liên Hiệp Quốc (Hoa Kỳ) tấn công và chiếm Bình Nhưỡng, quân đội Bắc Hàn tháo chạy, để rồi nhanh chóng được Trung Cộng tiếp sức và lấy lại Bình Nhưỡng khi quân Nam Hàn và Liên Hiệp Quốc triệt thoái hoàn toàn bỏ rơi thành phố này. Không chỉ có vậy, tiểu thuyết này còn động chạm đến những vấn đề phức tạp của lịch sử Thiên chúa giáo ở Triều Tiên, với những chuyện về thánh tử vì đạo (chính là tựa đề của tiểu thuyết “The Martyred”).
Trung úy Lee, từng là giảng viên đại học môn Lịch sử văn minh ở Hán Thành, gia nhập quân đội Nam Hàn, đến Bình Nhưỡng vào tuần thứ hai của tháng 10 năm 1950 và được đại tá Chang, phân công vào bộ phận tình báo, với nhiệm vụ điều tra vụ án cái chết của 12 mục sư được coi là tuẫn tiết vì đạo kia. Trong 12 người đó, có cha của Park, bạn thân của Lee, hai người từng từ nhau vì mối bất hòa tôn giáo.

Có thể lý giải vì sao “Chúa đã khước từ” được đón nhận nồng nhiệt đến vậy khi nó ra đời, năm 1964, khi những Chiến tranh Triều Tiên vẫn còn là đề tài mang tính thời sự tương đối được quan tâm trong giai đoạn Chiến tranh Lạnh, với tác giả từng là quân nhân của quân đội Liên Hiệp Quốc, để rồi nhanh chóng bị Chiến tranh Việt Nam leo thang che mờ đi. Dẫu có câu chuyện hay và đầy những ý nghĩa triết học, “Chúa đã khước từ” lại không phải là một câu chuyện được viết quá tốt. Những lẩn quẩn trong nội dung, những câu văn kể đều đều liệt kê các tình tiết xảy ra làm tiểu thuyết bị tước đi hầu hết sự hấp dẫn có thể có của một câu chuyện kể.

đọc nốt: https://www.facebook.com/phianhaz/pos...

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, oh man, this is one of those crushingly beautiful novels that just flattens the reader. It's a dogged, spiritual/political crisis set into words, a simple exercise in the vagaries and tumultuous upheavals of human nature writ large.
Superficially, it's about the early months of the Korean War when the South made some considerable gains and captured Pyongyang. This has little to do with anything, though the Chinese advance to recapture the capital later adds a degree of tension to the novel's final acts. The novel is really about a group of Christian priests executed by the North and whose deaths are being exploited by the South. Thing is, two ministers survived and get involved in the main character's attempts to discover the truth of what really happened.
This barely skims the surface of a deep, troubling story. As the main character delves deeper and deeper into the shootings, truth, faith, and even devotion are called into question.
I'm reluctant to add further to the above. There are so many ambiguities and cross-thoughts in the novel, that discovering the next exasperating and disturbing turn of events is one of the joys of the work.
The imagery and subtle settings are just great, too. The constant winter and cold--everyone is indoors. Everyone is cramped before ovens and sipping tea, just adding to the overwhelming claustrophobia of the work.
I usually don't fixate on particular characters either, but the main character's superior, Colonel Chang, with his unending tirades thick with lies, humor, and secrets, and who ends up running spy networks once the city falls, is such a peculiar creation that I can't help but mention him here. He is truly the pivot of all the madness that ensues.

[Eva Guerrero · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5
Esta es una de esas reviews que puede variar con el paso de los días.
Se trata de un libro complejo en lo moral que debate constantemente sobre el bien, el mal, la mentira, las relaciones personales y la fuerza del cristianismo en 1950 con la Guerra de Corea como telón de fondo. Una Pyongyang a punto de ser ocupada de nuevo por las fuerzas del Norte envuelta en niebla, nieve y miseria.

[Huy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Một cuốn sách nhiều tham vọng và đặt ra rất nhiều câu hỏi thuộc phạm trù đạo đức mà có lẽ mỗi người sẽ có câu trả lời cho riêng mình. Là một người vô thần, mình rất sợ những cuốn sách liên quan đến tôn giáo vì sợ kinh thánh :P, nhưng cuốn này không trích kinh thánh quá nhiều nên không có bị dội.
Bài dài hơn ở đây: https://docsach.org/2017/06/25/chua-d...

[John Pistelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard E. Kim's The Martyred was published to great sales and acclaim in 1964. It dominated the bestseller list, earned comparisons to Camus and Dostoevsky, and boasted blurbs from Pearl S. Buck and Philip Roth. Kim was born in what is now North Korea in the 1930s, in the waning days of Japanese domination of the peninsula, and he fought on the side of the south during the Korean War. In 1955, he came to the U.S., and studied history, political science, writing, and Asian languages and literatures at a multitude of prestigious institutions—perhaps most notably the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and given what we now know about aspects of the Workshop's political goals, the anticommunist novelist's presence is, leaving his talent aside, perhaps no surprise. But Kim's talent is considerable, and it is good that Penguin Classics rescued The Martyred in 2011 from its undeserved post-Cold-War oblivion, not only because the consequences of the unfinished Korean War confront the world every day in the news, but also because it is a very good novel.

The Martyred is set during the very early days of the Korean War and narrated by Captain Lee, a former university professor of humanities now serving in the army. It opens in Pyongyang during the brief phases in which the South held the city, and it concerns the execution of twelve Christian ministers by the Communists on the eve of the war. Lee's superior, the seemingly cynical (and anti-Christian) pragmatist Colonel Chang, wishes to use the execution as propaganda against "the Reds," but he is worried that two survivors of the mass execution may have survived by collaborating or capitulating to the Communists. If word of that were to leak, it would harm the morale of the Christian Koreans whose spirit is need in the fight against Communism. From this premise, a fast-paced narrative of investigation proceeds as Lee attempts to determine what actually happened to the ministers and whether or not in particular the saintly and tubercular Rev. Shin is telling the truth as his story about the massacre shifts. Furthermore, the stakes are personal as well as political, since one of the murdered ministers is the religiously fanatical father of Lee's best friend from school and now military colleague, the rebellious atheist Captain Park.

As my summary should indicate, the thriller plot, while effective, is something of a veneer for a novel of ideas in the mode of the aforementioned Dostoevsky and Camus. The novel is, in fact, dedicated to Camus and shares an epigraph with The Rebel , just as its dialogues on theodicy and endurance clearly take inspiration from The Plague as well as from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. The characters spend much of the novel in disputation about the nature of faith and evil:

"Your god, any god, all the gods in the world—what do they care for us? Your god—he does not understand our sufferings, he doesn't want to have anything to do with our miseries, murders, starving people, wars, wars, and all the horrors!"

[...]

"Courage," he said gently, laying his hands on my shoulders. "Courage, Captain. We must hope against hopelessness. We must dare to hope against despair because we are men."

While respectful to Christianity as a way of giving significance to Korea's nearly unendurable modern experience of war and pain, the novel ultimately recommends an ethic of stoical endurance beyond all ideology and abstraction, the moderation praised by Camus in The Rebel. The last author we see Captain Lee consult is Aurelius, and in the end he pledges his loyalty not to God but to his suffering nation.

Even novels of ideas need more than ideas, though: they need sights and sounds and smells to give body to thought. In this, Kim acquits himself beautifully. The Martyred is expertly paced, its dialogues punctuated cinematically by long shots of the devastated wartime landscape, its descriptive prose a midcentury masterpiece of quaking minimalist restraint, bleakness just barely haunted by a nearly forgotten promise of transcendence, intimated by the church bell that rings at intervals in the novel's ruined city:

Across the street the church bell clanged. I opened the window. From the white-blue November sky of North Korea, a cold gust swept down the debris-ridden slope, whipping up here and there dazzling snow flurries, smashing against the ugly, bullet-riddled buildings of Pyongyang. People who had been digging in the ruins of their homes stopped working. They straightened up and looked toward the top of the slope, at the remains of the nearly demolished Central Church and then at the gray carcass of the cross-topped bell tower where the bell was clanging. They gazed at each other as if they understood the esoteric message of the bell.

Since The Martyred is not very well known, I will keep this to a brief review rather than a full-scale interpretation and suggest only that you read it if you admire novels of passionate dialectic and harsh realism, as well as if you want a fictional supplement to, or aesthetic consolation for, the bad news about the prolonged continuation (let us hope not to the death) of the last century's wars.

[Pio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Được kể lại bằng một giọng nói khắc khổ và ngột ngạt, Richard E. Kim đã mang tôi đến ranh giới giữa đức tin và lòng hoài nghi, thách thức chúng trong những giờ phút tuyệt vọng và cùng quẫn nhất của những con người sống trong thời chiến. Nhiều lúc tôi cảm thấy rất khó chịu khi cầm quyển sách lên vì giọng văn ấy, nhưng cho đến phút cuối, tôi đã có thể dần nghiệm ra được phần nào vị trí của niềm tin trong một bối cảnh hiểm nghèo như thế.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Martyred was #7 on the 1964 bestseller list. Though I did not completely dislike the novel, it was so strange I wondered how it became a top ten bestseller.

Richard E Kim was a Korean born author who emigrated to the US in 1955 at the age of 23, became an American citizen and was educated in political science, history and writing. His profession was teaching at the university level and he received numerous awards and fellowships. In other words, he was the kind of immigrant who worked hard and made the most of the opportunities he found in America, as is true of most immigrants as long as the opportunities are available.

The Martyred was his first novel and concerns the 1950s Korean War from the viewpoint of a South Korean military man. Captain Lee, Army Intelligence, is ordered by Colonel Chang to investigate the killing of 12 Christian ministers by the Communists. Chang wants to determine why two of the 14 ministers rounded up had been spared.

If you know Korean War history, which I did not and had to look up, there was a time early in the war in mid 1950 when the South Korean army occupied the northern city of Pyongyang. Colonel Chang is close-mouthed about his reasons for the investigation but Captain Lee is one who follows orders without much questioning. Neither man is religious but as the story progresses it becomes clear that Chang is looking for some propaganda he can use against the Communists. He wants his Captain to make sure no ministers betrayed others to save themselves. Captain Lee, on the other hand, becomes intrigued by Mr Shin, one of the survivors.

Richard Kim's writing style is spare and almost devoid of emotion with awkward dialogue. I have not often read an American bestseller that feels this way. For most of the story I could not grasp what Kim was getting at in his story. Eventually it became more a story about spiritual conflict among the ministers and their parishioners at that time.

Catholicism first came into Korea from China in the late 1700s. It had a rocky beginning and its members were disciplined or imprisoned by the Korean government. Then followed the annexation of Korea by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Both Catholic and Protestant churches grew during that time and became part of the Korean Independence movement against Japan.

I learned the information in the paragraph above from my own perusal on the Web, done after I finished the book. I also have to thank Min Jin Lee for her wonderful novel Pachinko in which she covers some of that history. I found it interesting that initially Christianity in Korea was looked upon as a force for reforming the Confucian system in order to modernize the country.

What I surmise then is that Christianity was a growing religion there for a long time and by the time of the Korean War was also under threat from Communism. Since American bestseller lists in the 20th century often included novels about religion, I can see how this novel might have caught on with the American book buying and book reading public. It also fits in with the extreme anti-communist mood of the times.

While I didn't exactly enjoy the book it did lead to a better understanding of Korea. That is no small thing in these troubled political times when North Korea is still communist with no love for America.

[Phạm Thuận · Rating 4 out of 5]

Một câu chuyện thật hay về tín ngưỡng và tôn giáo, trong bối cảnh chiến tranh phức tạp của cuộc chiến Nam-Bắc Triều Tiên những năm 1950. Đây là cuốn sách với cách đặt vấn đề thực sự ấn tượng, cứ như là một cuốn sách về trinh thám. Có ai mà không bị thu hút bởi một câu chuyện liên quan đến 14 người bị cầm tù, 12 cái chết, và chỉ có 2 sống sót trở về. Nhưng mà câu chuyện này không chỉ có vậy.
Với mình, một kẻ vô thần, cảm thấy bị hấp dẫn bởi tựa đề Tiếng Việt, có cùng những thắc mắc về Chúa, và sâu hơn là tôn giáo, như viên đại uý Lee, người dẫn chuyện. Bằng một giọng văn khắc khổ, ngột ngạt như chính cuộc chiến tranh phi nghĩa kia, Chúa Đã Khước Từ đã mang đến một thế giới quan mở về câu chuyện tôn giáo và những ý nghĩa của nó đến với cuộc sống con người. Câu chuyện đức tin được dẫn lối bằng một trong những cú twist đậm chất điện ảnh, với một sắc thái tâm lý được biểu đạt không thể chân thật hơn.
Một câu chuyện mang tầm nhìn triết học hiện sinh, dễ hiểu vì sao cuốn truyện này lại được giới thiệu như một trong những tác phẩm xuất sắc ở thời đại của nó. Tuy vẫn còn một số tiểu đoạn luẩn quẩn trong câu chuyện, nhưng nó vẫn sẽ là một trong những đầu truyện hay nhất mình được tiếp cận trong năm 2023 này.

[Dina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me esperaba una historia de guerra y es una historia de fe que no me ha convencido...

[cc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so simple, yet so profound.

[DROPPING OUT · Rating 5 out of 5]

How wonderful to have this book back in print! It was a best-seller in 1964, but then disappeared like a rock under the waves thereafter.

The reasons are several, and the introduction explains to a new generation of readers some of the how and why.

The book bears a dedication to Albert Camus, and is clearly in the style of his novels of the 1950s that raised so many philisophical and moral questions.

Kim's book disappeared because as the American involvement in Vietnam deepened, Korea became all the more "the forgotten war."

What the introduction misses altogether (perhaps because the writer of the introduction was born in 1960) is that the Beatniks of the 1950s had at least the pretension of being interested in philosophy, especially Existentialism. But the Hippies who appeared suddenly in the mid-1950 were very anti-intellectual and highly hedonistic.

There was no place for Kim's novel in their world that abdicated reason.

While I believe readers today will find meaning in this novel, I think the duplicity of leaders and the needs of propaganda - which takes Kim's protagonist by surprise - would seem all to ordinary in these our times.

The ending is also very much in tune with Camus and the secular view. That said, however, had the protagonist been converted to a Christian point of view at the end might also seem disingenuous (if not cheesy).

I give the book the full six stars because, although dated in some respects, it presents the vividness and moral quandaries of the Korean War in a way the reader, I feel, may not forget soon.

[el · Rating 2 out of 5]

"'...Do you think you can do it? Can you tell all sorts of people we are fighting this war for the glorious cause of our independence, our liberty, and, to make the matter more complicated, for the interest and preservation of our democratic system of government? Can you tell a bevy of sweet old ladies and housewives or a flock of young students here who are dying to know what is going on in the South-well, can you tell them all their sufferings are worthwhile because this is a noble war we are fighting, that people, many, many people will have to be sacrificed in order to make sure that the cause of individual liberty, the duty of man and free social, political, and economic life will survive and be maintained for us and for our posterity? Well, what do you say?'

I was dismayed at the prospect.

Colonel Chang went on. 'Or, would you rather tell them this war is just like any other bloody war in the stinking history of idiotic mankind, that it is nothing but the sickening result of a blind struggle for power among the beastly states, among the rotten politicians and so on, that thousands of people have died and more will die in this stupid war, for nothing, for absolutely nothing, because they are just innocent victims, helpless pawns in the arena of cold-blooded, calculating international power politics? Well, now?'" (172-173)

[Sueyeun Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew my mind. I'm amazed it is out of print and hasn't been rescued by Asian American literary studies. A tautly written and absolutely cutting investigation into the questions of morality, humanity, justice, and truth set in the context of a proxy-war--only the "proxies" have their own demons to battle, as well.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to this story by the title alone, as I often read and get engrossed in stories about Christian persecution and the lives of martyrs. Turns out, this is a fictional story set during the Korean War. The martyrdom of 12 clergy members is central to the story, but it's about so much more. Kim tells the story of several key players trying to find the truth about what happened, and how two men escaped what seemed an unavoidable fate. While I don't agree with the motivations and conclusions many of the characters arrive at in terms of faith and God, the writing was outstanding. I loved the philosophical quality to the story and want to read the rest of Kim's work. This story will stay with me for a long time!

[Tony Giannattasio · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read book

A Christian Tome No Doubt but still an absolutely outstanding novel. The book has many twists and turns regarding the many protagonists in the book. In this novel many many times what appears to be on the surface is not so. THe book delves into many fascinating subjects, such as religion, politics, intersection of both, what is a lie what is truth, when is the lie more important than truth and even better than truth. A Most Fascinating book that though short should should be read slowly and carefully. This is one of those very rare must read books.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminiscent of Endo's Silence and vocally indebted to the alienation style of Camus's works, this novel concentrates on the early days of the Korean War as our narrator stays in Pyongyang before the necessary retreat. There, he weighs the question of apostasy by ministers who were executed by the North Korean military; in this question, larger themes of devotion, sacrifice, and family legacy all converge. Kim comes at these angles from a wide variety and the novel is best when it places different perspectives against one another in a polyvocal dialogue.

[Tran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thật khó bình luận về cuốn này, hay mình không muốn bình luận về vấn đề mình không liên quan nên chẳng có vai vế gì để nói. Câu chuyện mở đầu, và kết với 2 tình huống na ná nhau, vụ hành quyết 12 mục sư và việc quân đội Nam Hàn rút khỏi miền Bắc bỏ mặc hàng ngàn dân tình. Những con người bị bỏ mặc đều đã để trọn niềm tin nơi chúa, hay người bảo vệ họ, và dường như đều bị phản bội. Nhưng họ có thể quay lưng với người khước từ họ được không? Bỏ niềm tin thì họ còn lại gì?

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was beautifully written, thoughtful, and surprisingly entertaining. For much of the novel, it reads sort of like an Agatha Christie mystery with the characters investigating the situation with clever dialogue as the mystery unfolds. The mystery is "solved" by the half-way point, but the novel doesn't stop being interesting. Existential questions permeate the characters musings as well as their eventual actions. Lots to think on here; I see why it's a classic.

[Hyerin Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book grapples with the question of death and what humans do owing to and in the face of the prospect of mortality. I felt like I was reading Dostoevsky. Christians might not like it due to its potentially blasphemous content from Christian POV but I appreciated this book so much because it explores many questions I have asked myself, am still trying to answer, and may never find answers to. If you are into Ernest Becker or Kierkegaard, this book will resonate with you.

[Sam Nesbitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written and engaging novel. Bleak circumstances, interesting characters, simple but interesting plot, and deep subject matter. As the story developed, the Christian themes are subverted into a more humanistic message, which I am conflicted about. Definitely a book that should not be read by young Christians.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quietly compelling and a very well written, intricate look into that disturbing part of Korea's history when communists claimed the north, and the world stood aside and capitulated -- not just the land but the people, too.

[Robert Muir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kim keeps one's interest all the way through this well thought out tale. His writing, like Joseph Conrad's is particularly noteworthy since English isn't his first language.

[Nameun · Rating 4 out of 5]

진실을 마주하고 있는 자의 고독.
엘리 엘리 라마 사박다니

[Descabellos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es realmente conmovedora.

[Divya Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm positive that there are complex ideas in this book that I didn't notice

[Seungjin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It explains why “You shall not give false testimony” is not in the Ten Commandments.

[mads ౨ৎ · Rating 2 out of 5]

i had to read it for class

[andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Religious or not, everyone is destined for equal death. Martyr or not, there is no justice in war.

[Juan Jiménez García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard E. Kim. ¿Dónde está la verdad?

No debemos confundir Los mártires de Pyongyang con una novela negra. Cierto que el género amplía sus límites y que cada vez entran cosas más increíbles, al calor de las modas o las circunstancias, pero la novela de Richard E. Kim cumple cincuenta años y está tan cerca del género negro como del bélico, aunque en realidad allá donde se instala es en el drama existencial y el misterio de Dios. Porque sí, en cierto modo, esta es una novela negra sobre la búsqueda de un asesino desprejuiciado al que nunca vemos y en el que solo algunos acaban de creer: Dios.

Pensemos. Guerra de Corea (una guerra no tan conocida como la de Vietnam, pero con parecido resultado). Los comunistas se repliegan hacia el Norte y los aliados (Naciones Unidas, que no son otros que los marines norteamericanos, y el ejército del Sur) toman la capital roja, Pyongyang. El capitán Lee está entre ellos y se le encomienda una misión especial. Antes de su entrada, unos ministros de la Iglesia (el catolicismo, no muy extendido, era evangélico) han sido secuestrados, torturados y asesinados. Doce. Dos sobrevivieron. De ellos uno loco; el otro, no tanto. Solo atormentando. Es el señor Shin. La misión del capitán Lee es conocer qué sucedió y por qué aquellos dos seguían vivos y no los otros. Sencillo, pensaremos. Y sí, es sencillo. Y es sencillo porque Richard E. Kim no pretendía construir su novela sobre un misterio policiaco, sino sobre un misterio religioso, por mucho que el primer tercio del libro juegue con esa ambivalencia. El misterio religioso es uno bien conocido, que no se resolverá porque aún no está resuelto: por qué Dios es capaz de maltratar a su pueblo, de condenarlo, incluso a aquellos que le sirven y le son fieles. No vamos a entrar en discusiones teológicas. Kim algo, no mucho. A él, de nuevo, le interesa otra cosa. Y aquí, finalmente, llegamos al que es seguramente el motivo que vertebra la novela: la verdad.

Las últimas guerras mediáticas han puesto muy de moda este concepto, a menudo olvidado, de lo que es la verdad. Ahora que podemos estar en casi todos lados presentes a través de la televisión, de Internet, y nos damos esos baños de realidad (¿cómo no creer lo que estamos viendo?), es cuando menos seguros estamos de aquello que vemos (o deberíamos, porque siempre quedarán ingenuos o, peor, gente que solo ve aquello que quiere ver). Frente a esa nueva calidad de la realidad está, claro, la nueva calidad de la mentira, de lo falso. Para una gente ávida de cosas ciertas, qué mejor que darle cosas que no lo son pero que son útiles a la causa de cada cual. Si ya nos hemos vuelto insensibles a los muertos, en esa sorda sucesión en nuestros televisores, ¿cuánto tardaremos en volvernos insensibles a aquello que nos cuentan? Nada.

En Los mártires de Pyongyang la cuestión no es saber de la existencia de un ser superior y sus razones. Lo importante es la necesidad de que este exista o no, y que aquellos ministros evangelistas muertos sean convertidos en mártires, útiles para las necesidades de la guerra. Y lo que haya ocurrido no tiene demasiada importancia. Porque conocer la verdad solo es necesario cuando esta responde a nuestros intereses. Se pueden tener dudas al respecto (como las tiene el señor Shin, atormentado), pero esto es fácilmente solucionable con otro concepto, con otra necesidad: la de la esperanza. Frente a la promesa de la nada, frente a la certeza de haber muerto estúpidamente por una causa idiota, es necesario ofrecer al menos otra cosa, una estancia superior, un paraíso donde reencontrarnos con aquellos que fueron algo para nosotros. Sin esa esperanza, la vida carecería de sentido para mucha gente; luego hay que dársela, aunque seamos conscientes de su inexistencia. Y ahí es donde debe estar la Iglesia: dispuesta a ofrecer, ya que no soluciones para los problemas actuales, al menos un más allá de la vida digno.

No tengo muy claro que el libro de Richard E. Kim se posicione contra esa mentira “existencial”, la necesidad de una droga para pobres, pero lo cierto es que seguramente intentando demostrar lo contrario se acerca peligrosamente a su opuesto. Hay en él como una necesidad de otorgar a todos un buen final y, quizás, el mundo no diera ni entonces ni ahora para tanto. Lo cierto es que su novela, en esa mezcla de relato bélico, algo de negro y drama religioso, funciona, y nos acerca a una visión del mundo no tan lejana como puede parecer. Los años pasan, la Historia sigue su curso y todo parece seguir igual. La verdad compartirá con Dios los mismos problemas: su necesidad y su inexistencia.

Escrito para Détour.

[Evsly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A group of Korean Christian ministers are murdered in cold blood by the Communists in the Korean War, persecuted for their faith. The narrator, a South Korean intelligence officer, is informed that two were spared because they renounced their faith in the face of death. He then confronts the inner turmoil of whether to reveal the truth to the public, risking the populace to lose hope to bear their sufferings during the war. The moral ambiguity becomes increasingly gray as he delves deeper into the details. This novel explores themes of truth, suffering, war, and theology, ultimately begging the question, "What do I believe in and what beliefs will I renounce and condemn to save my own selfish life?".