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Chapter 4 Hydrangeas (1949)
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Four Hydrangeas (1949) Han Mu-suk Han Mu-suk (also spelled Hahn Moo-Sook; 1918– 1993) came from a family belonging to Korea’s modern-educated class, which produced elites highly knowledgeable in Western thought and culture. Han’s enlightened, Western-oriented, and well-to-do family environment favorably affected her personal development from childhood into young adulthood. Given the Confucian-dominant, conservative milieu of her society, Han’s progressive and nurturing upbringing and extensive exposure to a wide variety of educational and cultural opportunities were exceptional and contributed to her later literary development into a well-informed and productive writer. Han’s artistic talent was discovered when she was young, and her parents provided her years of private lessons in Western painting. She graduated from Pusan Girls’ High School, and at age nineteen she was given the privilege of illustrating the text of Millim (The jungle, part 2; 1937–1938), a novel by Kim Mal-bong (1901–1962), which was serialized in the newspaper Tonga ilbo. However, Han’s ill health from her early years cut short her budding career as a painter and ended her formal education at the high school level. Yet during her confinement at home due to poor health, Han devoured the Western literary masterpieces of her family’s well-stocked library, reading such authors as Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, André Gide, Maksim Gorky, and Nikolay Gogol—mostly in Japanese translation. She also taught herself how to write stories. The basis of Han’s literary career—her second vocational choice—was thus fortuitously formed through her struggle against illness and even death. In 1942, during the Japanese occupation, Han, by then the mother of an infant and the daughter-in-law of an extended conservative Confucian 68 family, made her debut as an author with her first novel, written in Japanese, Tomoshibi o motsu hito (The woman carrying a lamp), which won first prize in a magazine competition.1 Her postliberation literary breakthrough came when her second novel, Yŏksa nŭn hŭrŭnda (And so flows history; 1948), won another competition.2 A long, winding saga, the novel maps out the fates of highborn Korean families intertwined with those of their lower-class servants amidst political and social turbulence from the late nineteenth century to Korean liberation. Han’s acute historical consciousness, clearly demonstrated in And So Flows History, compelled her to examine the intricate relationship between the unfolding of Korean society and the destinies of individuals and became the leitmotif of her corpus. Han’s short stories and novels often deal with characters and situations involving Korean classical or traditional aesthetics, modes of thinking, and practices—particularly as they related to women. Well-known examples are “Yusuam” (The running water hermitage; 1963), “Yi Sajong ŭi anae” (The wife of Yi Sajong; 1978), and “Saeng’in son” (The boil at the fingertip; 1981). Yet works such as her novel Sŏngnyu namujip iyagi (The tale of the house with pomegranate trees; 1964) also serve as carefully wrought and consistent testimonies to Han’s eclectic vision to accommodate elements of modern Western culture within the framework of Korean traditional culture. Spanning more than four decades, Han’s creativity flourished well into the 1980s, culminating with her last novel, Mannam (Encounter; 1986). Another family epic, involving Chŏng Yag-yong (1762–1836; pen name, Tasan) of the Chosŏn dynasty, the greatest scholar of Practical Learning, Encounter delves into the complexity and far-reaching tragic impact of the Catholic persecution of Chosŏn intellectuals in the nineteenth century. In 1992–1993, a tenvolume collection of Han’s work, ranging from novels and travelogues to essays, lectures, and interviews, was published, showcasing her lifelong literary accomplishments and versatility. It is illuminating, however, that Han Mu-suk never ceased to cultivate her first love, painting, as is evident in her three personal exhibitions in 1976, 1985, and 1990. Some of the most distinguished awards Han received include the Grand Prix of the Republic of Korea Literature Award (1986), the Samil Culture Award (1989), and the Korean Academy of Arts Prize for Literature (1991). While raising five children, Han served as president and representative of Korean literary organizations, such as the Korean Association of Women Writers and the Korean PEN Club, and also lectured on Korean literature during her extensive overseas travels later in life.3 Han Mu-suk 69 [3.236.139.73] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:34 GMT) Hydrangeas “Oh...