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Pavana per una Principessa defunta
Il protagonista di questo romanzo, segnato dalla separazione dei genitori (il padre, un bellissimo uomo diventato star del cinema, ha abbandonato lui e la madre, una donna dall’aspetto insignificante), conduce un’esistenza inconcludente. Trova lavoro nel parcheggio di un grande magazzino, dove conosce una ragazza molto brutta e stringe amicizia con un collega più grande di lui che ama molto filosofeggiare e bere birra. Siamo a metà degli anni Ottanta a Seul, un periodo di boom economico. Il protagonista, che ha ereditato la bellezza dal padre, si avvicina alla ragazza, e lentamente nasce un rapporto sempre più profondo e delicato. Con la complicità del collega, si crea un terzetto che trascorre insieme la maggior parte del tempo libero, in un viaggio di conoscenza reciproca e di amicizia bruscamente interrotto dal tentato suicidio dell’amico e dall’improvvisa partenza della ragazza. La ritroverà dopo molte ricerche: la storia sembra destinata al lieto fine, ma un tragico incidente spezzerà questo sogno, che però riprenderà qualche anno dopo, sotto altre forme, in un gioco di prospettive e punti di vista discordanti dove niente sarà più come sembrava un tempo. Con uno stile caratterizzato da continui rimandi tra il presente e il passato e frasi spezzate come la memoria dell’io narrante, Park Min-gyu affronta con sguardo ironico e incisivo la frenesia della società contemporanea e i suoi miti di progresso.
Se in quel momento non mi avesse stretto la mano e non avesse posato piano la sua testa sulla mia spalla... non sarei stato capace di respirare, né di aprire gli occhi in quel mare profondo dove non c’erano più pesci. Appoggiati l’uno all’altra, non parlammo più, ascoltammo semplicemente la musica, con un auricolare a testa. Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields. Nothings is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry Fields forever.
Non esiste un luogo eterno, come non esiste un uomo eterno, ma quella notte cominciai a credere che determinati ricordi possano esserlo. Quell’autobus procedeva in direzione di Seul lento come un carretto... All’interno l’aria era pesante e si percepiva una puzza di sterco di cavallo e di piedi, dato che un passeggero si era tolto le scarpe. Percepimmo quell’odore come se fosse stato sprigionato dai nostri corpi. Usciti dalla stazione dei pullman, le abbottonai il cappotto fino al collo, poi attraversammo il piazzale e il passaggio sotterraneo avvolti dall’oscurità, infine prendemmo un altro autobus per rientrare a casa. Non brillava nessuna luce colorata, ma per me, in quel momento, la notte rappresentava il Natale. Era Natale.
«Tra gli autori coreani più conosciuti del nuovo millennio, Park Min-gyu scrive con stile leggiadro e arioso di argomenti molto profondi e spinosi, provando sempre grande empatia per i cosiddetti “perdenti” esclusi dalla massa».
- List
«A volte si ride di fronte alla rigidità quasi caricaturale dei rapporti sociali coreani, altre volte ci si commuove per l’esclusione, il disprezzo e la silenziosa sofferenza provocati da una diversità rifiutata e punita dalla società imperante. Questo romanzo disseminato di musica, da Ravel ai Beatles a Bob Dylan, è una bellissima scoperta».
- La cause littéraire
Se in quel momento non mi avesse stretto la mano e non avesse posato piano la sua testa sulla mia spalla... non sarei stato capace di respirare, né di aprire gli occhi in quel mare profondo dove non c’erano più pesci. Appoggiati l’uno all’altra, non parlammo più, ascoltammo semplicemente la musica, con un auricolare a testa. Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields. Nothings is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry Fields forever.
Non esiste un luogo eterno, come non esiste un uomo eterno, ma quella notte cominciai a credere che determinati ricordi possano esserlo. Quell’autobus procedeva in direzione di Seul lento come un carretto... All’interno l’aria era pesante e si percepiva una puzza di sterco di cavallo e di piedi, dato che un passeggero si era tolto le scarpe. Percepimmo quell’odore come se fosse stato sprigionato dai nostri corpi. Usciti dalla stazione dei pullman, le abbottonai il cappotto fino al collo, poi attraversammo il piazzale e il passaggio sotterraneo avvolti dall’oscurità, infine prendemmo un altro autobus per rientrare a casa. Non brillava nessuna luce colorata, ma per me, in quel momento, la notte rappresentava il Natale. Era Natale.
«Tra gli autori coreani più conosciuti del nuovo millennio, Park Min-gyu scrive con stile leggiadro e arioso di argomenti molto profondi e spinosi, provando sempre grande empatia per i cosiddetti “perdenti” esclusi dalla massa».
- List
«A volte si ride di fronte alla rigidità quasi caricaturale dei rapporti sociali coreani, altre volte ci si commuove per l’esclusione, il disprezzo e la silenziosa sofferenza provocati da una diversità rifiutata e punita dalla società imperante. Questo romanzo disseminato di musica, da Ravel ai Beatles a Bob Dylan, è una bellissima scoperta».
- La cause littéraire
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 20, 2009
20 people are currently reading
2127 people want to read
About the author
Min-gyu Park
10 books27 followers소설가 박민규
Born in 1968, Park Min-gyu published his first book Legend of the World's Superheroes in 2003, for which he was awarded the Munhakdongne New Writer Award.
Born in 1968, Park Min-gyu published his first book Legend of the World's Superheroes in 2003, for which he was awarded the Munhakdongne New Writer Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
November 9, 2018
Goddamn, this book 😭❤️ Set in 1980s Seoul amid the commercial spoils of Korea’s industrial boom, Pavane for a Dead Princess is both a polemic against the fetishization of material wealth and physical beauty and a tender account of the brief, cautious romance between a handsome parking lot attendant and the breathtakingly ugly woman he falls for. Come for the star-crossed love story, stay for the postmodern existential dread and the beauty and agony of youth—and for the last 30 pages, which take an unexpected turn that will make you want to go back and read the whole book all over again. It also might make you cry alone in your apartment at 1am, who’s to say.
July 25, 2015
I froze. How do I describe how I felt when I first saw her? It was like how I'd feel sitting in front of my TV, eating curry and watching the same music program I watch every Saturday that features the same batch of young pop stars and R&B singers, listening to the audience clapping and the same host introducing the next artist, with everything as it should be, when, suddenly, an old middle-aged guy takes the stage and starts yodeling, "Yodel-ay-ee-yo, lay-ee-yo, lay-ee-yodel-ee!"
What did I do to deserve this? In a past life I must've worn a Sammy Hagar horny hat to pillage sea sides, all Mariel the Mean viking in crimes of fashion. Okay, so I didn't have to read this. My "Uh oh, this is going to suck" moment happened very early on. I was still hoping for a good book about an ugly girl, though. John Lennon probably didn't deserve this, though, and I'm fairly positive that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and many other Beatles tunes did nothing a hell sentence wouldn't accomplish without the heaped on punishment of 'Pavane for a Dead Princess'. Their stars are asteroided back to earthly hell with the weight of a.... Is it a romance if a guy continuously droops about how Beatles lyrics are exactly the time he saw that girl he liked? Dude, just call a radio station and request a dedication. That was a thing in the '80s, right? But this time it is unique because she wasn't beautiful like the other girls? It is worse than that. He's a writer.
I am compartmentalizing the trauma.
a) Park Min-Gyu never met a simile he wanted to only use once. There's an elephant limb grabbing one that appears on the same page three times. I'm trying not to remember the especially bad cucumber slices falling off one should my mismatched Christmas socks in July warrant punishment and I unconsciously plagiarize it (and that crime sets me in a vicious cycle of bad books and ugly clothes).
a.2) Shitty fanfic or what I always assumed shitty fanfic was like. Slow dances to whatever song the twelve year old girl swooned to those days. The Mariel dictionary would have "Fanfic" as "Music the author likes and assumes the reader associates the same meanings in lieu of doing the heavy lifting themselves" and not "Non-canon stories using the characters from the Harry Potter universe."
a.3) Flashbacks of bad writing I proofread for an ex boyfriend. I probably would hate endless descriptions of the stories the main character was writing anyway but being reminded so strongly of this exactly did not help. If you have to be told that they are turning on their computer to write... Where was the editor? Why is this happening? Insert friend to discuss the writerly things the author hopes you are smart enough to understand that only appear in said story through the conversation about writing with the friend. Hey, did you know he is concerned with the loss of time? Friend says so.
b) Morrissey lolls admist phallic rock formations. A torn lacey mesh top (pre-torn, not a side effect of phallic rock formation lolling) barely conceals the bandages barely concealing his nipples as he croons his mourning of November Spawned a Monster. One day she won't be rich or beautiful but she will be dressed in the clothes she chose for herself. 'Pavane' only knows what the Moz father and his pompadour knew when the girl doesn't wear nail polish because some assholes must've once told her that it would only make her uglier. If she tried to be pretty, for herself or for them, they would be stupid bitches. If she could go somewhere they won't know the difference she could be herself in her own eyes. It is hard when you can't forget what you thought everybody saw when they looked at you. That is what happens. She gets older, they get less prettier. She never catches up but they are not speeding faster in the pretty abyss this book believes in. She stops thinking so much. She leaves Korea for a time. I wish they could have been a lonely girl who meets a lonely boy for his own reasons. They smile, they eat a lot in Kentucky Chicken (footnotes are there to tell you that a wise person wouldn't confuse Kentucky Chicken with KFC. The KFC knockoffs were seemingly everywhere+). See each other enough, know they miss each other when they look forward to seeing each other again.
b.2) In a world when Britney Spears is incredibly pretty. Madonna is unbelievably beautiful in this world. In the 1980s worldly world and the, uh, whenever Britney was incredibly pretty, I guess. Karma must dictate that it doesn't matter my slavish devotions to hip hop records because I'm going to be lumped in with Katy Perry idolizers with all the rest of them. I guess I can squint back and vaguely recall another's memory an '80s in the USA that was the me! decade. More people in Korea had money than they used to is what I got more than anything else. I know about the plastic surgery and pretty boy obsession now. That doesn't make it a fog tuning blue fairy surgeon's Pinocchio's plastic nose to tv drones just because it has to be that way. It didn't HAVE to be that way just because MRA neck-beards post on reddit that all women hit a wall at 23. He's fixated on their age. I have read that Koreans are concerned with age and where that places them in the dance routines. It is kinda true and it isn't all true, you know? If your character is twenty and you stop there it isn't good. If you are dictated to that extent it says as much about you as it does about where you live. ESPECIALLY if it is your interior monologue anyway! I wanted to know more about the "parking etiquette" that didn't exist in South Korea in the '80s. I'm imagining good Samaritans parking their motorcycles on the ends so other drivers won't be fooled into circling a spot that was taken all along.
b.3) His parental looks sickness was more real to me. Papa wants to be a television star. He's like those jerks that sucker a woman (or the other way around) into working three jobs so he can chase his too good for you now sucker! dreams. He knew all along he was going to dump her. So kid grows up hearing from everyone that daddy is too good for ugly mommy. I don't know, though, it would have been better to felt this weight on his mind than being told it happened. Are people this conscious about the society wheels breaking their backs? Friends say dump that girl. Why do they care insidiousness. I believe the neighborhood would have beat down his mom that way, totally. The best part was the full length mirror his dad had that no one else was allowed to use. Did he think they'd wear it down?
c) The part when I started to suspect that he was trying to be the South Korean Haruki Murakami. When Murakami is good you feel these suspicions about where things are going to go. When it ties together it works in a suspicious snake skin. But I guess he thought ripping off Breakfast at Tiffany's cats with no names, semen spraying, cock talk and missing girls was the ticket. I don't want to think about the "twist" ending that he was dead all along (reason for writerly conversations with friend). When you're dead and you can't escape the regret what the hell do you care about making a point what anyone else thought about pretty people? Just be glad she didn't know any better and thought your Breakfast at Tiffany's theft was brilliant. I liked that all of her references were from children's books. I liked her a lot better than him, for sure. If he had had the trying to make Christmas nostalgia not too late by bringing the nostalgia on purpose before it has happened (not too soon after it has happened) he would have made it into a story to talk about the grand themes he had. He ruins the comparison of her bowing her head like a snowman by using it again immediately after. I could have seen a wistful children's story about a snowman who is only your friend that one night for her. It could have been good if it was from her perspective rather than his. She asks him if he ever felt ashamed of himself that he wanted to die on the spot. He had had a boil on his forehead when he was a kid and the looks from the other kids, not seeing him, never leaves him. Every face he ever knew before his eyes. If he had made that feeling (but without saying it was that feeling explicitly in the text) that he could relate to her that one day the meaning of her ugly fears instead of the droning facts of Korean society.... Their momentary the same the melting snow man, Winnie the Pooh, Velveteen Rabbit. The years they spend apart the mourned.
+ My own footnote to ask why the footnotes bothered to give crucial to the plot info about Britney Spears, Tom Jones and Michael Jackson but only footnoted The Beatles once and UFO not at all.
What did I do to deserve this? In a past life I must've worn a Sammy Hagar horny hat to pillage sea sides, all Mariel the Mean viking in crimes of fashion. Okay, so I didn't have to read this. My "Uh oh, this is going to suck" moment happened very early on. I was still hoping for a good book about an ugly girl, though. John Lennon probably didn't deserve this, though, and I'm fairly positive that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and many other Beatles tunes did nothing a hell sentence wouldn't accomplish without the heaped on punishment of 'Pavane for a Dead Princess'. Their stars are asteroided back to earthly hell with the weight of a.... Is it a romance if a guy continuously droops about how Beatles lyrics are exactly the time he saw that girl he liked? Dude, just call a radio station and request a dedication. That was a thing in the '80s, right? But this time it is unique because she wasn't beautiful like the other girls? It is worse than that. He's a writer.
I am compartmentalizing the trauma.
a) Park Min-Gyu never met a simile he wanted to only use once. There's an elephant limb grabbing one that appears on the same page three times. I'm trying not to remember the especially bad cucumber slices falling off one should my mismatched Christmas socks in July warrant punishment and I unconsciously plagiarize it (and that crime sets me in a vicious cycle of bad books and ugly clothes).
a.2) Shitty fanfic or what I always assumed shitty fanfic was like. Slow dances to whatever song the twelve year old girl swooned to those days. The Mariel dictionary would have "Fanfic" as "Music the author likes and assumes the reader associates the same meanings in lieu of doing the heavy lifting themselves" and not "Non-canon stories using the characters from the Harry Potter universe."
a.3) Flashbacks of bad writing I proofread for an ex boyfriend. I probably would hate endless descriptions of the stories the main character was writing anyway but being reminded so strongly of this exactly did not help. If you have to be told that they are turning on their computer to write... Where was the editor? Why is this happening? Insert friend to discuss the writerly things the author hopes you are smart enough to understand that only appear in said story through the conversation about writing with the friend. Hey, did you know he is concerned with the loss of time? Friend says so.
b) Morrissey lolls admist phallic rock formations. A torn lacey mesh top (pre-torn, not a side effect of phallic rock formation lolling) barely conceals the bandages barely concealing his nipples as he croons his mourning of November Spawned a Monster. One day she won't be rich or beautiful but she will be dressed in the clothes she chose for herself. 'Pavane' only knows what the Moz father and his pompadour knew when the girl doesn't wear nail polish because some assholes must've once told her that it would only make her uglier. If she tried to be pretty, for herself or for them, they would be stupid bitches. If she could go somewhere they won't know the difference she could be herself in her own eyes. It is hard when you can't forget what you thought everybody saw when they looked at you. That is what happens. She gets older, they get less prettier. She never catches up but they are not speeding faster in the pretty abyss this book believes in. She stops thinking so much. She leaves Korea for a time. I wish they could have been a lonely girl who meets a lonely boy for his own reasons. They smile, they eat a lot in Kentucky Chicken (footnotes are there to tell you that a wise person wouldn't confuse Kentucky Chicken with KFC. The KFC knockoffs were seemingly everywhere+). See each other enough, know they miss each other when they look forward to seeing each other again.
b.2) In a world when Britney Spears is incredibly pretty. Madonna is unbelievably beautiful in this world. In the 1980s worldly world and the, uh, whenever Britney was incredibly pretty, I guess. Karma must dictate that it doesn't matter my slavish devotions to hip hop records because I'm going to be lumped in with Katy Perry idolizers with all the rest of them. I guess I can squint back and vaguely recall another's memory an '80s in the USA that was the me! decade. More people in Korea had money than they used to is what I got more than anything else. I know about the plastic surgery and pretty boy obsession now. That doesn't make it a fog tuning blue fairy surgeon's Pinocchio's plastic nose to tv drones just because it has to be that way. It didn't HAVE to be that way just because MRA neck-beards post on reddit that all women hit a wall at 23. He's fixated on their age. I have read that Koreans are concerned with age and where that places them in the dance routines. It is kinda true and it isn't all true, you know? If your character is twenty and you stop there it isn't good. If you are dictated to that extent it says as much about you as it does about where you live. ESPECIALLY if it is your interior monologue anyway! I wanted to know more about the "parking etiquette" that didn't exist in South Korea in the '80s. I'm imagining good Samaritans parking their motorcycles on the ends so other drivers won't be fooled into circling a spot that was taken all along.
b.3) His parental looks sickness was more real to me. Papa wants to be a television star. He's like those jerks that sucker a woman (or the other way around) into working three jobs so he can chase his too good for you now sucker! dreams. He knew all along he was going to dump her. So kid grows up hearing from everyone that daddy is too good for ugly mommy. I don't know, though, it would have been better to felt this weight on his mind than being told it happened. Are people this conscious about the society wheels breaking their backs? Friends say dump that girl. Why do they care insidiousness. I believe the neighborhood would have beat down his mom that way, totally. The best part was the full length mirror his dad had that no one else was allowed to use. Did he think they'd wear it down?
c) The part when I started to suspect that he was trying to be the South Korean Haruki Murakami. When Murakami is good you feel these suspicions about where things are going to go. When it ties together it works in a suspicious snake skin. But I guess he thought ripping off Breakfast at Tiffany's cats with no names, semen spraying, cock talk and missing girls was the ticket. I don't want to think about the "twist" ending that he was dead all along (reason for writerly conversations with friend). When you're dead and you can't escape the regret what the hell do you care about making a point what anyone else thought about pretty people? Just be glad she didn't know any better and thought your Breakfast at Tiffany's theft was brilliant. I liked that all of her references were from children's books. I liked her a lot better than him, for sure. If he had had the trying to make Christmas nostalgia not too late by bringing the nostalgia on purpose before it has happened (not too soon after it has happened) he would have made it into a story to talk about the grand themes he had. He ruins the comparison of her bowing her head like a snowman by using it again immediately after. I could have seen a wistful children's story about a snowman who is only your friend that one night for her. It could have been good if it was from her perspective rather than his. She asks him if he ever felt ashamed of himself that he wanted to die on the spot. He had had a boil on his forehead when he was a kid and the looks from the other kids, not seeing him, never leaves him. Every face he ever knew before his eyes. If he had made that feeling (but without saying it was that feeling explicitly in the text) that he could relate to her that one day the meaning of her ugly fears instead of the droning facts of Korean society.... Their momentary the same the melting snow man, Winnie the Pooh, Velveteen Rabbit. The years they spend apart the mourned.
+ My own footnote to ask why the footnotes bothered to give crucial to the plot info about Britney Spears, Tom Jones and Michael Jackson but only footnoted The Beatles once and UFO not at all.
November 25, 2014
Park Min-gyu's 'Pavane for a Dead Princess' has a writer looking back to the mid-eighties, a time when he arrived at the threshold of adulthood. The opening scene is of a bus arriving in the snow, bringing the writer (and the reader) to a final, heart-warming meeting between two young lovers.
Moving back a year, we learn how the two met while working in the underground car park of a busy Seoul department store. Both of them are eye-catching, but in very different ways. The narrator is a young man who stands out, having inherited his father's movie-star looks. The girl? She, as is made very clear, is totally, breath-takingly ugly...
'Pavane for a Dead Princess' is an easy, comforting read, a story chronicling the development of a relationship against a back-drop of near hedonistic consumerism. The two main characters, young people at odds with society, have arrived in the adult world without the appropriate social tools to survive and ignore outside pressure. It's hard to follow your own path when countless millions seem to be telling you that there's only one way to go (and it's not yours).
This is particularly true of mid-80s Seoul, a city seemingly attempting to fit decades of consumer development into a few months - this is truly the age of the commercial and the superficial:
"The world had laid down its judgement long ago. It was an age where pretty trumped justice and pretty had the last word. Nearly everything was determined at first sight, in terms of what school you went to, how much money you had, and how you stacked up in the eyes of others. Glancing at the calendar on the wall, with its picture of a provocatively posing model practically demanding our attention, I poured my friend another glass."
p.48 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2014)
Having worked hard, the Korean middle classes want to enjoy their gains, and shopping has become a national past-time. In truth, though, they have been swept up in a race to buy more, spend more and become 'better', getting into debt in order to have the latest fashions. It's all seems more like hard work than real leisure.
The narrator, his girl-friend and their friend Yohan stick out in this sea of consumerism, all misfits in their own way. The narrator is a budding writer, a school drop-out recovering from the break-up of his parents' marriage (his actor father dumped the narrator's plain mother once he hit the big time...). Yohan is the foil to the introverted narrator - he's clever and witty, and he helps his friend to cope with the daily grind. However, underneath his affable exterior, there's a palpable sense of darkness waiting to emerge.
The boys' issues, however, are nothing when compared to the girl's problems. Her appearance prevents her from living a normal life (and the writer makes sure that we understand how big a problem this is). Whenever she walks down the street, people gape at her, unable to quite believe what they're seeing, and most turn away rather than keep looking at her. Her looks prevent her from getting, and keeping, decent jobs; understandably, she sees her appearance as an affliction:
"Some people might point to handicapped people and tell me things can be much worse. I'm aware there are many people who are in pain. But, although I know this will sound shameless and selfish, there were many times when I envied those people. At least the world recognizes their handicaps for handicaps. The world never accepted my darkness as a handicap, yet everyone treated me as such. My handicap was never recognized as one, although, while I don't want to admit it, it was the world that had crippled me. I had to go to the same school and wear the same clothes as other kids, but I was always treated differently. I had no choice but to live this life. That was my fate.
Ugly." (p.179)
The writer later contrasts her situation with fleeting portraits of pretty girls. Unlike the narrator's girlfriend, theirs is an easy life, life pandered to by a safety net of admirers. Coincidentally, I was reading this book when the Renée Zellweger 'controversy' erupted - a sobering reminder that it's not just 80s Korea that had a fixation on beauty...
'Pavane for a Dead Princess' is a touching love story (with a twist...) and a scathing indictment of modern society. It's a compelling tale, and if the themes and style sound familiar, they cetainly are. You see, there's more than a touch of the Murakamis about this one with the Japanese writer being a very obvious influence on Park. In fact, some of the writing is very reminiscent of Haruki's idiosyncratic style:
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Her voice was tiny, but it unsettled me. Why was she sorry? She began to cry to my utter confusion. The thought crossed my mind that maybe twenty-year-old guys are like AM radios. We can turn the knob all we want, but we'll never receive that elusive signal called woman. I sat there blank as a dead radio, facing her tears. I felt I'd done something very wrong. (p.8)
That's a passage which could have come straight out of 'A Wild Sheep Chase' or 'Dance, Dance, Dance...' The scenes of the three friends at the run-down bar, 'Kentucky Chicken', will instantly have Murakami fans thinking of the many nights Boku and the Rat spend at J's Bar, and there are constant mentions of pop music and reading books in public places. Yes, if you wait long enough, there's also a cat ;)
Even the title is unmistakably Murakamiesque. It refers to a piece of classical music, Ravel's 'Pavane pour une infante défunte', music from an LP given to the narrator by his girlfriend on their last night together (a melancholic piano piece). If only Park had Murakami's sales, I'm sure it would soon be as frequently searched for on Youtube as the Liszt pieces from 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki...' or 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle''s The Thieving Magpie!
Park is a lot more than just a Murakami clone, though. 'Pavane for a Dead Princess' is a straight-forward, but fascinating story, a book I flew through. I've had some issues with the translations in this series, but this one was generally good, and I found it easy to remain absorbed in the story, eager to keep turning the pages. I'd probably still recommend Jang Eun-jin's 'No One Writes Back' as the standout of the ones I've read, but this one is definitely up there with the best.
*****
N.B. I received a review copy of this book from the publisher - this review is a slightly amended version of the one on my blog (Tony's Reading List).
Moving back a year, we learn how the two met while working in the underground car park of a busy Seoul department store. Both of them are eye-catching, but in very different ways. The narrator is a young man who stands out, having inherited his father's movie-star looks. The girl? She, as is made very clear, is totally, breath-takingly ugly...
'Pavane for a Dead Princess' is an easy, comforting read, a story chronicling the development of a relationship against a back-drop of near hedonistic consumerism. The two main characters, young people at odds with society, have arrived in the adult world without the appropriate social tools to survive and ignore outside pressure. It's hard to follow your own path when countless millions seem to be telling you that there's only one way to go (and it's not yours).
This is particularly true of mid-80s Seoul, a city seemingly attempting to fit decades of consumer development into a few months - this is truly the age of the commercial and the superficial:
"The world had laid down its judgement long ago. It was an age where pretty trumped justice and pretty had the last word. Nearly everything was determined at first sight, in terms of what school you went to, how much money you had, and how you stacked up in the eyes of others. Glancing at the calendar on the wall, with its picture of a provocatively posing model practically demanding our attention, I poured my friend another glass."
p.48 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2014)
Having worked hard, the Korean middle classes want to enjoy their gains, and shopping has become a national past-time. In truth, though, they have been swept up in a race to buy more, spend more and become 'better', getting into debt in order to have the latest fashions. It's all seems more like hard work than real leisure.
The narrator, his girl-friend and their friend Yohan stick out in this sea of consumerism, all misfits in their own way. The narrator is a budding writer, a school drop-out recovering from the break-up of his parents' marriage (his actor father dumped the narrator's plain mother once he hit the big time...). Yohan is the foil to the introverted narrator - he's clever and witty, and he helps his friend to cope with the daily grind. However, underneath his affable exterior, there's a palpable sense of darkness waiting to emerge.
The boys' issues, however, are nothing when compared to the girl's problems. Her appearance prevents her from living a normal life (and the writer makes sure that we understand how big a problem this is). Whenever she walks down the street, people gape at her, unable to quite believe what they're seeing, and most turn away rather than keep looking at her. Her looks prevent her from getting, and keeping, decent jobs; understandably, she sees her appearance as an affliction:
"Some people might point to handicapped people and tell me things can be much worse. I'm aware there are many people who are in pain. But, although I know this will sound shameless and selfish, there were many times when I envied those people. At least the world recognizes their handicaps for handicaps. The world never accepted my darkness as a handicap, yet everyone treated me as such. My handicap was never recognized as one, although, while I don't want to admit it, it was the world that had crippled me. I had to go to the same school and wear the same clothes as other kids, but I was always treated differently. I had no choice but to live this life. That was my fate.
Ugly." (p.179)
The writer later contrasts her situation with fleeting portraits of pretty girls. Unlike the narrator's girlfriend, theirs is an easy life, life pandered to by a safety net of admirers. Coincidentally, I was reading this book when the Renée Zellweger 'controversy' erupted - a sobering reminder that it's not just 80s Korea that had a fixation on beauty...
'Pavane for a Dead Princess' is a touching love story (with a twist...) and a scathing indictment of modern society. It's a compelling tale, and if the themes and style sound familiar, they cetainly are. You see, there's more than a touch of the Murakamis about this one with the Japanese writer being a very obvious influence on Park. In fact, some of the writing is very reminiscent of Haruki's idiosyncratic style:
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Her voice was tiny, but it unsettled me. Why was she sorry? She began to cry to my utter confusion. The thought crossed my mind that maybe twenty-year-old guys are like AM radios. We can turn the knob all we want, but we'll never receive that elusive signal called woman. I sat there blank as a dead radio, facing her tears. I felt I'd done something very wrong. (p.8)
That's a passage which could have come straight out of 'A Wild Sheep Chase' or 'Dance, Dance, Dance...' The scenes of the three friends at the run-down bar, 'Kentucky Chicken', will instantly have Murakami fans thinking of the many nights Boku and the Rat spend at J's Bar, and there are constant mentions of pop music and reading books in public places. Yes, if you wait long enough, there's also a cat ;)
Even the title is unmistakably Murakamiesque. It refers to a piece of classical music, Ravel's 'Pavane pour une infante défunte', music from an LP given to the narrator by his girlfriend on their last night together (a melancholic piano piece). If only Park had Murakami's sales, I'm sure it would soon be as frequently searched for on Youtube as the Liszt pieces from 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki...' or 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle''s The Thieving Magpie!
Park is a lot more than just a Murakami clone, though. 'Pavane for a Dead Princess' is a straight-forward, but fascinating story, a book I flew through. I've had some issues with the translations in this series, but this one was generally good, and I found it easy to remain absorbed in the story, eager to keep turning the pages. I'd probably still recommend Jang Eun-jin's 'No One Writes Back' as the standout of the ones I've read, but this one is definitely up there with the best.
*****
N.B. I received a review copy of this book from the publisher - this review is a slightly amended version of the one on my blog (Tony's Reading List).
December 18, 2014
This is my first book of Korean literature I've read thanks to the recommendation by a friend. The basic story is set in the 1980s and revolves around a young man, his friend, and his girlfriend. The three of them work together at a department store in Seoul. All three are single and live alone, all three come from different parts of Korea.
From here the author deftly weaves several stories.
The romance between the narrator and an ugly girl. She knows she's ugly and she's shunned because she's ugly and she has some of the most eloquent speeches explaining her life as an ugly woman. It's touching and realistic: "You know what's the most pitiful thing in the world? The obvious effort made by an ugly woman to look beautiful. The world is merciless on the pitiful attempts made by ugly women... Unlike the rest of the world's women, I can only show the side of me I want hidden. Even if I wanted to turn around and show the world my brighter side the world tells me not to... Even if I became a cultured, knowledgeable individual, I'd still be an invisible moon." Their romance makes up the bulk of the story with many quotes about love, the meaning of love, society's influence on love, the pitfalls of love.
The narrator's friendship with Yohan who befriends him at the department store where they work is funny and a springboard for further critique of society: "This world is one big sham. People would follow you to hell as long as you blindfold them or hoodwink them with pretty things to look at. You think dictators are the ones who ruin the world? No, the ones who ruin the world are the idiots who vote for the assholes who say their party can boost the local economy or raise real estate prices. The ones who ruin the world are the idiots who don't care whether the people they vote for used to be serial killers or might end up dictators. The world is ruined by people who want a better life."
Yohan's advice on what to do if there's a conflict with a costumer: "Now let's suppose there's been an accident. This is what you have to do, so listen and learn. First, take off your armband and cap. Next, run back to the office without looking back. If the supervisor's there, knock him out. Open the second drawer of his desk and look for your employee record. Either tear that into shreds and swallow it or burn it. Then run straight home. Then start looking for another job. Is that clear?"
Korea is at a crossroads in the 80s. On the verge of change from years of dictatorship to a democracy. The great thing about reading Korean literature is that they are not enamored of Western ways. They look at and acknowledge the ugly side of capitalism: "The world tries to hammer into our heads the fantasy that we can have anything we want. That's how it gets the 99% to envy the 1% and work to get to the top." The ugly side of consumerism and democracy: "No matter how much the rats compete, they'll always be rats. Rats who believe they're practicing majority rule."
There have been negative critiques of the ending since it does try to have three endings in one. Like a 'pick your own ending' story, but I am very satisfied with the overall book and it's depth and scope. This was a great introduction to Korean literature and glad it was recommended to me!
From here the author deftly weaves several stories.
The romance between the narrator and an ugly girl. She knows she's ugly and she's shunned because she's ugly and she has some of the most eloquent speeches explaining her life as an ugly woman. It's touching and realistic: "You know what's the most pitiful thing in the world? The obvious effort made by an ugly woman to look beautiful. The world is merciless on the pitiful attempts made by ugly women... Unlike the rest of the world's women, I can only show the side of me I want hidden. Even if I wanted to turn around and show the world my brighter side the world tells me not to... Even if I became a cultured, knowledgeable individual, I'd still be an invisible moon." Their romance makes up the bulk of the story with many quotes about love, the meaning of love, society's influence on love, the pitfalls of love.
The narrator's friendship with Yohan who befriends him at the department store where they work is funny and a springboard for further critique of society: "This world is one big sham. People would follow you to hell as long as you blindfold them or hoodwink them with pretty things to look at. You think dictators are the ones who ruin the world? No, the ones who ruin the world are the idiots who vote for the assholes who say their party can boost the local economy or raise real estate prices. The ones who ruin the world are the idiots who don't care whether the people they vote for used to be serial killers or might end up dictators. The world is ruined by people who want a better life."
Yohan's advice on what to do if there's a conflict with a costumer: "Now let's suppose there's been an accident. This is what you have to do, so listen and learn. First, take off your armband and cap. Next, run back to the office without looking back. If the supervisor's there, knock him out. Open the second drawer of his desk and look for your employee record. Either tear that into shreds and swallow it or burn it. Then run straight home. Then start looking for another job. Is that clear?"
Korea is at a crossroads in the 80s. On the verge of change from years of dictatorship to a democracy. The great thing about reading Korean literature is that they are not enamored of Western ways. They look at and acknowledge the ugly side of capitalism: "The world tries to hammer into our heads the fantasy that we can have anything we want. That's how it gets the 99% to envy the 1% and work to get to the top." The ugly side of consumerism and democracy: "No matter how much the rats compete, they'll always be rats. Rats who believe they're practicing majority rule."
There have been negative critiques of the ending since it does try to have three endings in one. Like a 'pick your own ending' story, but I am very satisfied with the overall book and it's depth and scope. This was a great introduction to Korean literature and glad it was recommended to me!
January 29, 2021
You have to root for any novel that addresses modern society’s obsession with beauty , wealth, and status, but this tale of a handsome young man’s relationship with a much less than beautiful woman just doesn’t quite hit the target. There are three strands in the novel. The first, dealing with the relationship, is the most successful, especially in the first wonderful chapter. This strand suffers a little later from the problem the author seems to have between objective and subjective ‘beauty’ or more relevantly ‘ugliness’, so it never sustains the sincerity felt in that first chapter. The second strand deals with the wealth and status aspect, a strand which is a little too much exposed by in your face examples of people screaming because they can’t park where they want or having outbursts over rules being applied to them. The third strand is found in the man’s friend, who adds both the humor and many of the inspirational thoughts. Unfortunately, the inspirational thoughts in the book are most often less than inspirational .
"What defines a successful life? A successful life is one in which more time is spent loving someone than is spent sitting on the toilet".
Despite the above comments, the novel is readable and has its moments, and on one level is a welcome critique of modern Korean society, and of course, of our own. I just kept thinking it could have been so much better. I wonder if any other reviewers got the feeling that there is a Murakami influence somewhere in both the style and structure. Let me know.
"What defines a successful life? A successful life is one in which more time is spent loving someone than is spent sitting on the toilet".
Despite the above comments, the novel is readable and has its moments, and on one level is a welcome critique of modern Korean society, and of course, of our own. I just kept thinking it could have been so much better. I wonder if any other reviewers got the feeling that there is a Murakami influence somewhere in both the style and structure. Let me know.
March 17, 2019
A young woman and man become lovers, despite the stark difference in their appearance.
Book Review: Pavane for a Dead Princess not only has a magnificent title, but it was a story I've never read before. Park Min-gyu has an "interesting" sense of humor (be prepared) and periodically includes footnotes, sometimes for no apparent reason. Some parts are ostensibly written by one of the characters (there's a certain postmodern factor (hence footnotes) here), and those sections can fall flat, into cliche, or otherwise twist the story. We learn that "women are not fried chicken." Good to know. But the writing can also be intensely beautiful: "Winter strips away the names of many things." Park creates levels within levels with his three main characters: the handsome "I," the homely "she," and their male friend Yohan. Similar to Haruki Murakami in his use of Westernisms, leaning more to popular music than jazz, but like the author of Norwegian Wood using Beatles music as a refrain for the novel. And yes there's a cat, a mysterious woman who disappears, cooking, train stations, and urban ennui. But unlike Murakami, who deliberately confounds, disappoints, and frustrates his readers, taking his novels into unexpected and intentionally unsatisfying directions, Park writes on a more human, more fulfilling and persuasive level, capable of meeting his readers' expectations even with unforeseen plot twists and unpredictable but intriguing characters. The language and voice changes constantly, giving a texture of different viewpoints, even from the same character. Park rails for pages, but in a straightforward way cloaked as two young intellectuals credibly dissecting Korean society. He aimed Pavane for a Dead Princess squarely at the Korean (and Western) obsession with consumerism and appearance. In a money-driven society, both beauty and the beautiful can be bought for a sum, as we're shown by the stories of the narrator's father and Yohan's mother, both unfairly attractive. If you think this is just a sweet love story, you read it wrong. But even his attacks on the shallowness and futility of Korean (and all consumer) society, are only a cocoon for the individual interactions and connections of the three main characters. Then Park creates an ending which is a prism for everything that went before, interweaving the sadness and happiness, the possibilities that are necessarily part of reality, and reminding the reader that fairy tales are only fairy tales. Pavane for a Dead Princess is a story that transcends culture, making it all too real even for Western readers. Tears are a distinct possibility. [5★]
Book Review: Pavane for a Dead Princess not only has a magnificent title, but it was a story I've never read before. Park Min-gyu has an "interesting" sense of humor (be prepared) and periodically includes footnotes, sometimes for no apparent reason. Some parts are ostensibly written by one of the characters (there's a certain postmodern factor (hence footnotes) here), and those sections can fall flat, into cliche, or otherwise twist the story. We learn that "women are not fried chicken." Good to know. But the writing can also be intensely beautiful: "Winter strips away the names of many things." Park creates levels within levels with his three main characters: the handsome "I," the homely "she," and their male friend Yohan. Similar to Haruki Murakami in his use of Westernisms, leaning more to popular music than jazz, but like the author of Norwegian Wood using Beatles music as a refrain for the novel. And yes there's a cat, a mysterious woman who disappears, cooking, train stations, and urban ennui. But unlike Murakami, who deliberately confounds, disappoints, and frustrates his readers, taking his novels into unexpected and intentionally unsatisfying directions, Park writes on a more human, more fulfilling and persuasive level, capable of meeting his readers' expectations even with unforeseen plot twists and unpredictable but intriguing characters. The language and voice changes constantly, giving a texture of different viewpoints, even from the same character. Park rails for pages, but in a straightforward way cloaked as two young intellectuals credibly dissecting Korean society. He aimed Pavane for a Dead Princess squarely at the Korean (and Western) obsession with consumerism and appearance. In a money-driven society, both beauty and the beautiful can be bought for a sum, as we're shown by the stories of the narrator's father and Yohan's mother, both unfairly attractive. If you think this is just a sweet love story, you read it wrong. But even his attacks on the shallowness and futility of Korean (and all consumer) society, are only a cocoon for the individual interactions and connections of the three main characters. Then Park creates an ending which is a prism for everything that went before, interweaving the sadness and happiness, the possibilities that are necessarily part of reality, and reminding the reader that fairy tales are only fairy tales. Pavane for a Dead Princess is a story that transcends culture, making it all too real even for Western readers. Tears are a distinct possibility. [5★]
November 7, 2014
Nobody, in a slow and deliberate love story, can as savagely attack the narrowness and superficial nature of society as fashioned by capitalism as Park Min-gyu. If Is That So? I'm a Giraffe laid bare the era in which people were merely input - cogs in a machine and treated that way - Pavane does an even more flaying job on the skin-deep nature of of a world in which money has been aestheticized and aesthetics, in the traditional sense, are judge only by monetary worth.
Pavane is about a triad of friends: Yohan the man who can make seemingly anything into a metaphor or argument against the superficiality of the world; The handsome young man, the son of an actor who left the family for success; and "the ugliest woman in the world."
The latter two fall in love, and the rest of the book is combination of their biographies after a horrible circumstance separates them, memories of the times the three friends spent together, and conversations that go to places you would never expect (e.g. how rectum folds would become incredibly important in a world in which everyone was attractive).
As usual in Park's work, while all is gloom in the world as it exists, better possibilities are out there, and Park, in a kind of "director's cut(s)" of an ending shows how this might work.
Park's style is deft, hard-hitting, and brief, all of which makes reading Pavane quite easy despite its oftentimes grim subject matter.
Pavane for a Dead Princess is in direct competition with No One Writes Back for the best book of the Dalkey Archive / LTI Korea series, and it makes me extremely eager to see what excellent books await us next year.
Pavane is about a triad of friends: Yohan the man who can make seemingly anything into a metaphor or argument against the superficiality of the world; The handsome young man, the son of an actor who left the family for success; and "the ugliest woman in the world."
The latter two fall in love, and the rest of the book is combination of their biographies after a horrible circumstance separates them, memories of the times the three friends spent together, and conversations that go to places you would never expect (e.g. how rectum folds would become incredibly important in a world in which everyone was attractive).
As usual in Park's work, while all is gloom in the world as it exists, better possibilities are out there, and Park, in a kind of "director's cut(s)" of an ending shows how this might work.
Park's style is deft, hard-hitting, and brief, all of which makes reading Pavane quite easy despite its oftentimes grim subject matter.
Pavane for a Dead Princess is in direct competition with No One Writes Back for the best book of the Dalkey Archive / LTI Korea series, and it makes me extremely eager to see what excellent books await us next year.
December 20, 2020
Outstanding, this book took me by surprise.
I just finished it and need some time to collect my thoughts, as at this point I don't know how to articulate my impressions and emotions.
I just finished it and need some time to collect my thoughts, as at this point I don't know how to articulate my impressions and emotions.
May 23, 2021
I'd like to petition for a new "blurb" or description of this book. The current one reads:
Based on the tone of this blurb, I expected satire. What I got instead was a piercing and poignant coming-of-age love story that addresses capitalism, beauty, love, suicide, literature, and friendship... and I could not be happier about it.
Our nameless narrator starts the story nineteen years old, working as a valet of sorts for a department store in Korea in 1985. There, he meets Yohan, a strange guy who ends up becoming his best friend. It's also where he meets Her, a woman that he finds compelling, despite everyone else's perceptions of her (herself included). What follows is a quiet yet charged story between these three characters as they find and lose their places in the world and next to each other.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: books rarely make me feel that romantic love exists between characters. I know it's there, I know it's supposed to be there, it just doesn't translate for me into actual feelings. So when it happens, it's rare and, though it seems hyperbolic to say, beautiful. In all of the books where I have truly felt love between characters (cough cough The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Song of Achilles, Hunting & Gathering), friendship is the strong base on which everything else is built. Pavane for a Dead Princess is no different in this regard. The friendship between the narrator, the woman, and Yohan is at times silly, at times dark, but formed on a mutual need and understanding.
This book is existential and a little tragic and filled with yearning and insecurities and young adult angst and lofty observations about the world and pop culture references and beautiful prose.
So much of this book is saying, "The miracle isn't love itself. The miracle is that love can happen at all in a world like this, between two unremarkable people."
Park Min-gyu has been celebrated and condemned for his attacks upon what he perceives as the humorlessness of contemporary Korean literature. Pavane for a Dead Princess is his attack upon the beauty-fetish that reigns over popular culture, detailing the relationship between a man with matinee-idol good looks and "the ugliest woman of the century."
Based on the tone of this blurb, I expected satire. What I got instead was a piercing and poignant coming-of-age love story that addresses capitalism, beauty, love, suicide, literature, and friendship... and I could not be happier about it.
Our nameless narrator starts the story nineteen years old, working as a valet of sorts for a department store in Korea in 1985. There, he meets Yohan, a strange guy who ends up becoming his best friend. It's also where he meets Her, a woman that he finds compelling, despite everyone else's perceptions of her (herself included). What follows is a quiet yet charged story between these three characters as they find and lose their places in the world and next to each other.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: books rarely make me feel that romantic love exists between characters. I know it's there, I know it's supposed to be there, it just doesn't translate for me into actual feelings. So when it happens, it's rare and, though it seems hyperbolic to say, beautiful. In all of the books where I have truly felt love between characters (cough cough The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Song of Achilles, Hunting & Gathering), friendship is the strong base on which everything else is built. Pavane for a Dead Princess is no different in this regard. The friendship between the narrator, the woman, and Yohan is at times silly, at times dark, but formed on a mutual need and understanding.
This book is existential and a little tragic and filled with yearning and insecurities and young adult angst and lofty observations about the world and pop culture references and beautiful prose.
So much of this book is saying, "The miracle isn't love itself. The miracle is that love can happen at all in a world like this, between two unremarkable people."
January 1, 2016
"All love is founded on myth, the myth that you love him, that's he somehow different from other guys, that she's this type of girl, that you mean everything to him, that you understand everything about him, that she's terribly beautiful, that he'll never change, that he needs you, that he's lonely, that you'll love her forever. They're all mistaken beliefs.
Yet those who find love in spite of the ugly truth are those who have decided to believe the good rather than the bad. That was the kind of love we had."
죽은 왕녀를 위한 파반느 was published by 박민규 in 2009 and translated into English by Amber Hyun Jung Kim as part of the wonderful Dalkey Archive Library of Korean Literature.
It didn't quite work for me - perhaps because at a personal level I buy-in to the South Korean modern culture that it so bluntly critiques, and neither am I a fan of adolescent love stories - but I can appreciate why it has attracted 5* reviews from other reviewers who I respect (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
The story begins with a tearful reunion between the (unnamed) narrator and his (also unnamed) girlfriend, on his 20th birthday in 1986. The novel takes it's title from Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante défunte", which the girl offers to the narrator as a gift, although even before that he intuits that, when they embrace, "her body felt like a lifeless princess".
The meeting was both their first for many months, and their last. The bulk of the rest of the novel circles back to explain how they had come to this point, while a brief coda at the end explains why it was their last meeting (with a surprising, and for me overly melodramatic, plot twist) and then also offers an alternative's "authors cut" (again, to me overly sentimental).
As suggested above the novel functions both as an adolscent first-love story and a polemic against mid-1980s Korean culture. The following - lengthy but abridged - excerpt comes early on as scene-setting:
"In 1985, Madonna's face was everywhere. There were poster of her face staring straight ahead, her face in profile, her head tilted back, her eyes half closed, maybe with one finger coquettishly in her mouth. Of course this pattern repeated itself every year, with a different girl. Someone unspeakably beautiful - an angel, really - would come from nowhere and her very presence captured everyone's hearts. Even when the oil shock gripped the world in 1979 or when the two world wars erupted or when the Great Depression hit, even in nineteenth-century England and fifteen-century China, even in ancient Rome and Greece, the same must have occurred....1985 was also full of ugly women. Humans have always needed an ugliness they could look upon with complete contempt, and 1985 was no exception.
It was also a year average people suddenly came into money. It was the age of real estate, the stock market, and the huge bubble expanding over the economy. Suddenly, there were people scrambling around unsure what to do with their newfound wealth, people who were intensely jealous but didn't want to admit it, people who suddenly felt foolish about working for their money, people who only then realised being poor was a crime, people who waited in line all night with their bank accounts for housing applications to get a piece of the real estate pie, people who understood they were treated differently depending on the size of their car...people who woke up to the realisation that labels and brand names represented who they were, people who scrawled a Nike swoosh on their sneakers and envied those with the authentic Nikes...
Many people were forced into oblivion in the face of that new world, which feels to be like it was yesterday. I'm talking about shopkeeprs who were constantly fingering the beads on their abacus, kids who drank milk out of glass bottles with a paper cork, poor middle-aged women who looked effectively genderless, older men who biked up narrow winding slopes of their neighbourhood, families living in tiny rented rooms who were knocked unconscious by coal-gas poisoning..."
Park's focus is the middle 95%, who are neither beautiful nor rich, but not the ugly or poor either, and how they get sucked into a culture that strives to achieve both wealth and physical perfection (South Korea is famed for the high level of plastic surgery), yet ultimately chasing a moving and unattainable target, and largely to the benefit of the top 1%. Rather oddly he has chosen to make the female character part of the bottom few % - the narrator's first impression on his to-be girlfriend is that she is "extraordinarily ugly".
In betweeen anti-consumerist polemics, the love story of the novel comprises rather banal and overwrought conversation, interspersed with occassional poetic asides ("Ears are organs shaped with dizzying curves, sculptures formed by someone's whispered breath"). To be fair to Park, it does capture well the adolescent voice, but it doesn't make for great literature - another Korean novel I read this year had a similar issue (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
And at times the novel seems a bit too Murakamiesque (particularly Norwegian Wood), featuring a loner male-narrator, with a cat, a prediliction for Beatles records and a penchant for spending time in a bar.
There are some odd stylistic quirks - some of the direct speech (but not all) in a fainter font, and odd paragraph spacing - seemingly purely for effect, and Park (and I'm sure it is him, not the translator) has also included a number of gratuituous footnotes - for example when in their reunion at a restaurant the girl says "It feels like we're in Kentucky Chicken", a footnote explains "Name of the bar the two frequented", something that is pretty obvious from context and from reading on. This puzzled me throughout the book and the explanation appears to be that it's a rather clumsy hint of a meta-narrative by someone other than the ostensible narrator, foreshadowing the "author's cut".
The translation certainly reads well, although Amber Hyun Jung Kim obviously struggled with one Korean joke - when the narrator names his cat Saint-Expury, after the author of Little Prince, because it sounds like mouse (one needs to know this in Korean in 생쥐 - saeng-jui - one place a footnote might have been useful!).
All the above being said, it is a compelling read, genuinely moving (the love story) and hard-hitting (on consumerist culture, in Korea and the 1980s particularly) at the same time.
Yet those who find love in spite of the ugly truth are those who have decided to believe the good rather than the bad. That was the kind of love we had."
죽은 왕녀를 위한 파반느 was published by 박민규 in 2009 and translated into English by Amber Hyun Jung Kim as part of the wonderful Dalkey Archive Library of Korean Literature.
It didn't quite work for me - perhaps because at a personal level I buy-in to the South Korean modern culture that it so bluntly critiques, and neither am I a fan of adolescent love stories - but I can appreciate why it has attracted 5* reviews from other reviewers who I respect (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
The story begins with a tearful reunion between the (unnamed) narrator and his (also unnamed) girlfriend, on his 20th birthday in 1986. The novel takes it's title from Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante défunte", which the girl offers to the narrator as a gift, although even before that he intuits that, when they embrace, "her body felt like a lifeless princess".
The meeting was both their first for many months, and their last. The bulk of the rest of the novel circles back to explain how they had come to this point, while a brief coda at the end explains why it was their last meeting (with a surprising, and for me overly melodramatic, plot twist) and then also offers an alternative's "authors cut" (again, to me overly sentimental).
As suggested above the novel functions both as an adolscent first-love story and a polemic against mid-1980s Korean culture. The following - lengthy but abridged - excerpt comes early on as scene-setting:
"In 1985, Madonna's face was everywhere. There were poster of her face staring straight ahead, her face in profile, her head tilted back, her eyes half closed, maybe with one finger coquettishly in her mouth. Of course this pattern repeated itself every year, with a different girl. Someone unspeakably beautiful - an angel, really - would come from nowhere and her very presence captured everyone's hearts. Even when the oil shock gripped the world in 1979 or when the two world wars erupted or when the Great Depression hit, even in nineteenth-century England and fifteen-century China, even in ancient Rome and Greece, the same must have occurred....1985 was also full of ugly women. Humans have always needed an ugliness they could look upon with complete contempt, and 1985 was no exception.
It was also a year average people suddenly came into money. It was the age of real estate, the stock market, and the huge bubble expanding over the economy. Suddenly, there were people scrambling around unsure what to do with their newfound wealth, people who were intensely jealous but didn't want to admit it, people who suddenly felt foolish about working for their money, people who only then realised being poor was a crime, people who waited in line all night with their bank accounts for housing applications to get a piece of the real estate pie, people who understood they were treated differently depending on the size of their car...people who woke up to the realisation that labels and brand names represented who they were, people who scrawled a Nike swoosh on their sneakers and envied those with the authentic Nikes...
Many people were forced into oblivion in the face of that new world, which feels to be like it was yesterday. I'm talking about shopkeeprs who were constantly fingering the beads on their abacus, kids who drank milk out of glass bottles with a paper cork, poor middle-aged women who looked effectively genderless, older men who biked up narrow winding slopes of their neighbourhood, families living in tiny rented rooms who were knocked unconscious by coal-gas poisoning..."
Park's focus is the middle 95%, who are neither beautiful nor rich, but not the ugly or poor either, and how they get sucked into a culture that strives to achieve both wealth and physical perfection (South Korea is famed for the high level of plastic surgery), yet ultimately chasing a moving and unattainable target, and largely to the benefit of the top 1%. Rather oddly he has chosen to make the female character part of the bottom few % - the narrator's first impression on his to-be girlfriend is that she is "extraordinarily ugly".
In betweeen anti-consumerist polemics, the love story of the novel comprises rather banal and overwrought conversation, interspersed with occassional poetic asides ("Ears are organs shaped with dizzying curves, sculptures formed by someone's whispered breath"). To be fair to Park, it does capture well the adolescent voice, but it doesn't make for great literature - another Korean novel I read this year had a similar issue (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
And at times the novel seems a bit too Murakamiesque (particularly Norwegian Wood), featuring a loner male-narrator, with a cat, a prediliction for Beatles records and a penchant for spending time in a bar.
There are some odd stylistic quirks - some of the direct speech (but not all) in a fainter font, and odd paragraph spacing - seemingly purely for effect, and Park (and I'm sure it is him, not the translator) has also included a number of gratuituous footnotes - for example when in their reunion at a restaurant the girl says "It feels like we're in Kentucky Chicken", a footnote explains "Name of the bar the two frequented", something that is pretty obvious from context and from reading on. This puzzled me throughout the book and the explanation appears to be that it's a rather clumsy hint of a meta-narrative by someone other than the ostensible narrator, foreshadowing the "author's cut".
The translation certainly reads well, although Amber Hyun Jung Kim obviously struggled with one Korean joke - when the narrator names his cat Saint-Expury, after the author of Little Prince, because it sounds like mouse (one needs to know this in Korean in 생쥐 - saeng-jui - one place a footnote might have been useful!).
All the above being said, it is a compelling read, genuinely moving (the love story) and hard-hitting (on consumerist culture, in Korea and the 1980s particularly) at the same time.
April 28, 2019
While riding their horse, from time to time,
they dismount and turn to look back over the way they came.
This was not done to rest themselves or their horse.
It was an act of waiting for their souls to catch up to them,
as souls tread much more slowly than we do.
Only when they are sure their souls are by their side,
do they continue on their journey.
"Because their lives are so boring and because death isn't coming for them anytime soon, the Seven Dwarfs get gigs as television studio audiences, those people who cheer when a special guest is introduced in the studio and sob when the guest shares a heartfelt story of personal survival and burst out laughing when she regales them with a funny episode, with their reactions later being used as sound effects for the show. And then they'll die"
Probably the best book I've read so far this year.
they dismount and turn to look back over the way they came.
This was not done to rest themselves or their horse.
It was an act of waiting for their souls to catch up to them,
as souls tread much more slowly than we do.
Only when they are sure their souls are by their side,
do they continue on their journey.
"Because their lives are so boring and because death isn't coming for them anytime soon, the Seven Dwarfs get gigs as television studio audiences, those people who cheer when a special guest is introduced in the studio and sob when the guest shares a heartfelt story of personal survival and burst out laughing when she regales them with a funny episode, with their reactions later being used as sound effects for the show. And then they'll die"
Probably the best book I've read so far this year.
June 6, 2020
There are books that you happen to read at the perfect moment in your life. Those magical instances make you feel like as you read, another person is reading what is written in your heart right back to you. Reading this book gave me a puzzle box for all the scattered pieces of my broken heart. I still have a lot of putting back together to do, but after reading this book I feel like I have the picture on the box to guide me and a container to keep the pieces in so that they don't rattle around my life. This is all to say, this book as a mediation on what love means was what I needed to read at this moment in my life. This book made me laugh out loud and actually break down sobbing. I loved it and the characters and I can't recommend it enough.
June 19, 2021
to read this book you need to be prepared to cry and feel the characters' pain and sorrow.
A book which reveals the cruelty of a society which embrace and worship beauty.
A world where if one is beautiful is accepted, you are not you are judged, ridiculed, ostricised.
Wonderfully translated...an impossible love story. A story of two people loving and accepting each other for who they are, not how they appear.
A book which reveals the cruelty of a society which embrace and worship beauty.
A world where if one is beautiful is accepted, you are not you are judged, ridiculed, ostricised.
Wonderfully translated...an impossible love story. A story of two people loving and accepting each other for who they are, not how they appear.
Read
April 24, 2025I've been slowly making my way through all of the Library of Korean Literature books, and Pavane was one of the highly anticipated reads for me. It can be a bit dense in some sections of the novel, but I found myself really liking this one and the philosophical questions it raised about Korean society and the standards it imposes on others.
full review is on my blog: https://www.ashleyhajimirsadeghi.com/...
full review is on my blog: https://www.ashleyhajimirsadeghi.com/...
October 9, 2019
This is an utterly romantic and beautifully-written novel that exceeded my expectations. Featuring a love story between a handsome guy and an ugly woman, this book is bolstered by its illuminating commentary on capitalism, paperchase, and the demanding beauty standards in Korea. For some, it might be a little slow-paced, but this allows the reader time to ruminate on the themes addressed in the story. Poignant and nostalgic, this is the best romance novel I read this year (so far) and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good love story. I particularly found the ending tear-jerking and unforgettable.
September 10, 2022
Il y avait vraiment des réflexions très intéressantes dans ce livrebet je pense que l'œuvre originale doit valoir le détour. C'est dommage que la traduction française ne lui ai pas rendu justice... (Et ces fautes de français svp! Les "malgré que" et compagnie 😵💫😵💫). Peut-être que, pour le coup, il vaudrait mieux le lire en anglais celui-ci 😅
January 30, 2025
Very interesting book. I liked the message, but I thought the storytelling lacked subtlety and felt slightly preachy at times. By this, I just mean the amount of monologues was a little bit over-the-top compared to the pivotal plot points (if that makes sense?).
The ending was intriguing, but I don't know what to make of it yet. I definitely would like to reread this sometime.
The ending was intriguing, but I don't know what to make of it yet. I definitely would like to reread this sometime.
August 7, 2017
A love story. For much of this book, I was a little frustrated by the slow pace -- too much preaching and philosophizing. But the end was pretty great, with a series of surprises and twists. I'm glad I read it.
June 24, 2022
Wow. This novel is incredible. It struck a chord with me and found myself weeping towards the end.
Its beautiful, sincere and hearfelt. A lovestory at its core with thoughtful social commentaries about beauty and capitalism.
An unforgettable read.
Its beautiful, sincere and hearfelt. A lovestory at its core with thoughtful social commentaries about beauty and capitalism.
An unforgettable read.
October 2, 2020
This. Book. Broke. Me.
I did not foresee that ending at all.
I did not foresee that ending at all.
January 2, 2021
read for ENG 103
March 7, 2021
A little dense and brooding, but hits home by the end and raises so many feelings of angst and sadness you just can’t not love it
March 30, 2021
Incredible...one of my new favourite books
June 9, 2022
i don’t know what to do with myself now
July 27, 2022
The book is easy to follow. Makes you reflect on how society pushes you into the system, and the end...
January 6, 2023
I do not have the patience to appreciate this. It’s very… literary but trying to be hip
November 29, 2023
I don't know what to say... it is amazing but confusing. I don't know what to do. Is it up to me to interpret this ending?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2024
I am so glad this book was translated.
March 9, 2025
Ending got me
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