[책] <길 위에서>를 읽고
On the road
You seemed to have enjoyed reading 'Alchemist.' I remember that I read 'Alchemist' when I was in the elementary school. The weired thing is that now I can't remember the story at all. I would be too young to understand the meaning of the story, and the book would evaporate in the air as time went by. Some books remain in me, but some leave.
I googled Paulo Coelho and I found out that he was a wanderlust himself. Also, he was once incarcerated with the suspicion of anti-government movement in Brazil. I'm not sure if he is still a traveler and anti-government mover.
*On the road, Jack Kerouac.
It took long time to flip the last page of the book. Honestly, It was hard to read it in English. The author didn't much care about the grammar, and the letters were comparably small than other books I've read.
It's famous that Jack Kerouac wrote 'On the road' just in three weeks frantically. People call this book a symbol of Beat Generation. America was prosperous after World WarⅡ, but at the same time the young people rebelled against the standardization of society. Dean and Sal was there.
Dean and Sal didn't seem to build their future. The word 'future' would never get along with them. They just kept going forward like a runaway train. Their journey was like improvisation with drinks and sex. Dean is the most craziest guy and all people gather around Dean in the book. But for me, Sal is a more interesting character. He observes Dean at all times. I felt like Sal went on a trip for observing Dean's life in some ways. If the naive blowup is Dean's job in this novel, Sal is a rather intentional observer. Sal looked as if he wanted to undertand the meaning of life through observing Dean's life. In the last scene, Sal rejected Dean's small favor to give him a drive. It's like his goodbye to his muse, so goodbye to certain phase of his life.
The book, 'On the road' allowed me think of the correlation between people and the historical background where people go through.
When Jack wrote this book, there was suffering after war in Korea, which had something to do with America. As a result, Korea was seperated by South and North. Soldier was killing each other, lots of people desperately starved, but ironically some poets wrote the beautiful poems in that situation. I haven't read a lot of 1950s' Korea literature, but it looks empty. It was another disaster in our history and the history killed our literature as well. (Of course, there could be great books written at that time, but compared to other period, I think it is the dark ages of our literature.)
If I was in 1950s' Korea, the war would swallow my own life and I would be nothing but invisible being among invisible people. The horrible history and amoral men in power who made that tragedy owed the normal people uncountable debt. I call that normal people war generation, the most unfortunate.
I haven't experienced any war or colonization. I don't have to bleed for shouting out democracy or race equality. I don't put my destiny in serious danger. Instead, our generation has a lot to do with capitalism.
There are money's advocates who evidently desire to feed only their bellies. There are critics who's saying not to have blind faith on money but to live with comfort from money. On the other hand, there are outsiders who actually do the things to create their own lifestyle which is less materialistic and more humane, without going with the flow.
I know that the majority of our generation chase the prestigious life which the whole world implanted the idea of. But also, we live in the history where we can draw different ways of living, even though it will be a little bit lonely journey.
As a outsider-tryer myself(Yes,Tryers!), I dicided to put values on people I love, the meaning of life and death, a day and a day, justice, the things making me excited and everything. I don't know what's it like to suffer from war, hunger, dictatorship. It's not the thing now I'm going through. I was born in South Korea in 1992, and what I've seen in this world is another history from earlier one, even different places. If Jack Kerouac was on that road, what our road looks like?
The common thing between beat generation and the outsider of our modern society is that we both pursue personal freedom. Wherever we are, there's power which gnawing away at the normal people. And most people likes to follow what the power says. But whoever we are, I believe we can be rebellions. I have a right to go crazy and blow myself up.
On the road, such a nice word.
I dreamed to feel the wind in a running car with this book.
When we are on the road, we don't know actually where we are.
On the subway to work, I deam the train not to stop and go further and further.
On the way home, my thoughts flash back to my wandering.
I didn't know that I was there when I was there.
I think it's because I'm immature or it's just human nature.
But even if I forget and forget, I want to be on the road in my whole life.
So I can write my road.
*What's up Karen
Not much. getting lazy followed by cold, or just lazy. I missed crossfit today. Instead I came to Analog and I'm writing this.
I really hope that our former president, Myong Bak Lee would go to jail soon. He did the same thing like the pro-Japanese group sold our country to Japan. He privatized the citizen's taxes. While he was in the blue house, he used his power to rake in thousands of money from us. He is a monster of capitalism. His shit is unforgivable. While he has drunken money, the poor has become more poor. The poor worked more hard, but more poor. All fortunes went back to that shit president. The poor couldn't feed well their children. Less education, more burden. I can't stand his ugly smile on television.
But his shadow is all over the korea. Including Samsung, all the fluential company has supported his corruption and eaten the bread crumb around him. Bullshit. It's not easy to send that monster to where he belongs to; Jail or hell. But we have to find his money reservoir in the end and give it back to where it belongs to.
I tried to write a short novel but failed. I'm gonna keep trying till I write one.
A woman thinking and talking about the other woman's life story. They were university friends, but they made different choices in life. I don't know what's gonna happen. I just like to write about a woman's life.
Thanks for your letter and the photo of Elmo:)
I watched your utube of Elmo with Jay, he liked your video and I fell in live with Elmo. He's special.
See you again Anni.
