애쓰지 않아도

by Choi Eunyoung, 최은영, 김세희 (Illustrator)

등단 이후 줄곧 마음을 어루만지는 맑고 순한 서사, 동시에 폭력에 대한 서늘한 태도를 잃지 않는 작품을 발표해온 최은영 작가의 짧은 소설집. 앞서 발표했던 작품들에서 인물 간의 우정과 애정을 세심하게 살폈던 작가는, 이번 짧은 소설집에서도 그 시선을 여실히 드러낸다. 우리가 여리고 민감했던 시절, 몰두했던 관계를 면밀히 들여다보고 상처받아 뾰족해졌던 마음의 모서리를 쓰다듬는다.

『애쓰지 않아도』에서 돋보이는 것은 아동과 동물에 대한 폭력 등을 바라보는 최은영의 단호한 태도이다. 폭력을 보는 무심하고 게으른 시선이야말로 폭력적임을 말하기도 한다. 이와 같은 작가의 묘사를 통해, 폭력에 둔감해지지 않으려면 부단히 타인을 이해하기 위해 애쓰고 노력해야 한다는 사실을 깨닫게 된다.

232 pages, Hardcover

Published April 30, 2022

About the author

Choi Eun-young ( 최은영) is a South Korean writer. She began her literary career in 2013, when her short story “Shokoui miso” (쇼코의 미소; Shoko's Smile) was selected for the quarterly literary magazine Writer's World's New Writer's Award. With the same work, she received the 5th Munhakdongne Young Writer's Award in 2014. She was awarded the 8th Heo Gyun Writer's Award in 2016, and was awarded the 8th Munhakdongne Young Writer's award in 2017.

Reviews

[Miyeonjeong · Rating 4 out of 5]

우리는 모든 게 꼭 당연하고 영원하다고 믿는 사람들처럼 살지만 그런 건 아무것도 없다고. P. 196

[chloe —̳͟͞͞♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really enjoyed this book and flew through it so quickly!! every short story was engaging despite how the running theme of either “korean main character in foreign country” or “korean main character meets foreigner” seemed to be rampant to create a plot in almost every story (this was enjoyable at times aka the finland story and the italy based one, but the hong kong one was almooooost meaningless). each short story had a theme of missed connections and regrets, or rekindling old relationships, which i do hope was meant to be the theme of the book and not just a lack of creativity (i doubt it though bc choi eunyoung is a great author, but i do notice this repetition across her stories), anyway of course the overall theme was 애쓰지 않아도 (돼) which was sprinkled in each story with a little (“애써…”) and it was fun to find these ^^ overall quite warm and pretty engaging, i almost stopped reading at the last short story though but gave it another try and ended up enjoying it!! 💕 may be nothing much to others but as a fan of choi eunyoung’s works i enjoyed it :)

[H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the majority (~70%) of this collection by Choi Eun-yeong very quickly in June and the rest at the beginning of October. All the stories were very short (averaging 10-20 pages on my ebook) and the author has a very simple writing style that made reading the book go even more quickly. I just didn't enjoy most of the stories. They felt like character studies or blog posts rather than fully realized short stories. They would end abruptly and leave me feeling like I was waiting for the punchline to hit. The good thing about Choi Eun-yeong's stories, though, is that her characters felt very real to me, particularly the ones in first-person p.o.v. There were a lot of stories about estranged friendships and relationships, about missing people no longer in your life or missing the "good old days". There were a lot of elements that I found easily relatable. I still don't think I would be attempting any of this author's work in the future.

[Yujia Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

我小学初中时候应该会很喜欢这种类型，现在已经过了那个阶段了。