Lee Munyul is one of the most popular contemporary writer in Korea. He has been famous since 1980 up to now. He wrote many million sellers. His novels are not only popular but also worthy in artistic view. And his political and social movements are also very active these days, so he is a controversial topic for people.
I read "The bison" written by Lee. It was a story about the mural at cave in Altamira, Spain. The writer supposed that the mural was drawn at the Neolithic Age. The main character is the male who loves nature, art and don't have physical strength. When "he" was young, he was ignored in the group of people because they needed powerful warrior to gain the food for the group member. At that day, people lived on hunting and collecting food. But "he" became shaman with his brother named "loud voice" because the matriarch found their talent.
After time passed, "snake eye" who is the same generation with "he" and "loud voice" became the patriarch on the community with trick and artifice. And "snake eye" also wanted the agricultural settled life. "loud voice" disagreed to "snake eye" with the indignity of shaman. But "snake eye" killed "loud voice" and he made his group proceed to plain area, and escape from the cave. As time goes, "snake eye"'s monarch became more severe, and unequality of contribution of wealth occurred. And this caused the differentiation of social class. "He" lost the indignity of shaman, and became just a painter for "snake eye". One day he went away to finish his painting of bison, and he died there.
Lee is criticizing the disadvantage of capitalism and monarchism through this novel. His another famous novel "Our twisted hero" shows the negative term of monarchism. So someone may think that Lee is the advocate of reform and left wing. But Lee is the representing writer who is conservative. He is did the work for conservative "Grand nation Party" till last week. And he has trouble with advocates of left wing because he blamed the left side as illustrating them "Red Guard". But why does he criticize the capitalism and monarchism so enthusiastically? It is because of his past. His father went to north korea, so his left family had to be suffer from the autocratic government of south. That situation caused Lee's antipathy for the powerful ruler.
And I think his conservative opinion is just his mental tendency. He is negative for revolution and change. For example, he shows the change that were occurred in the novel "The bison" very negatively. But someone can accept that change positively because the change brought human-being more advanced life. And also in the novel "Our twisted hero", the main character is not only happy for the revolution.
Because he is conservative for his pure soul, I like him. In Korea, many people has conservative opinion just to keep their vested rights. But Lee is the pure and neutral conservative. He is not non-extreme and reasonable conservative. He blames extreme and corrupted conservatives as well as extreme advocates of reform He said "Grand nation party are too collapsed so they must destroy themselves." after the work for that party. Also we can find both revolutional and conservative facets in his novel. Extreme thought cannot be reasonable. I believe that Lee is the real conservative.
[references]
-Book-
Lee,Munyul.The Winter.Achimnara.1996
Lee,Munyul.Our Twisted Hero.Achimnara.1996
-Newspaper-
Nam,Jungho. "Grand Nation Party must destroy themselves".Jungang Ilbo.24 Jan. 2004. A2
Kim,Hyungbae. "Lee works for Grand Nation Party.".Korea Economy. 29 Dec. 2003. A3
-Webpages-
http://kin.naver.com/browse/db_detail.php?dir_id=110103&docid=173342
http://kin.naver.com/browse/db_detail.php?dir_id=601&docid=45398
Links to other sites on the Web
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