Yi has written novels, short stories, and Korean adaptations of classic Chinese novels. and
Our Twisted Hero and
The Old Hatter). The first aspect of this tendency has been described as an emphasis on the adverse consequences of "reckless faith in ideology, belief or theories which people often cling to in the context of history, religion and academic studies". In addition, some of his novels display a particularly high regard for poetry and art. An analysis of Yi's works by Jae-Bok Lee suggested that they encompassed several genres some of which include: "artists novels" (e.g.
The Poet,
The Golden Phoenix and
Bisson), historical depictions (e.g.
Age of Heroes and
Border), romantic love stories (e.g. ''Lette's Song
and All That Falls Has Wings
), characterizations of political views unconsciously internalized in Korean society, especially men in Korea, (e.g. Choice
), and, in Jae-Bok Lee view, an excessively political novel, Homo Ececutans''. One of Yi's best selling novels
Son of Man (approximately 2 million copies sold) is simultaneously a detective story and a treatise of his views on Jewish and Christian ideologies derived from a study of comparative religion and mythology.
Hail to the Emperor combines a farce with a realistic depiction of the suffering of the Korean people during the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. Ji-moon Suh, translator of many of his works, stated that Yi is a master of all fictional forms. He provided short descriptions of a wide selection of Yi's works that support this assertion.
Brother Anthony, who translated this work, believes that the work represents criticism of Protestant Christianity in South Korea after the Korean war. At the time, some pastors preyed on the vulnerability of their parishioners for their own economic advantage. He suggested that Yi's views may have been influenced by his upbringing which was steeped in Confucianism.
The Golden Phoenix Suh Ji-moon published a translation of Yi Munyeol's
Garuda (1981) with the title
The Golden Phoenix in 1999 as part of a collection of seven Korean short stories. In his introduction, Suh wrote that it "represented Yi's serious interest in Oriental heritage and modern applicability". It expresses the conflicting interest of a traditional calligraphy master and his technically proficient student, but one who he considered to lack the all-encompassing dedication to art that he required. The gifted disciple, Kojuk, "rebels against the teacher’s overly ethicized and ascetic principles, in preference for a more formal concept of beauty". There is a painful rift in their relationship but in the end the master left a request for Kojuk to write the banner for his coffin. The relevance of the title was noted in a plot summary by a staff writer for
Korea.net. The master had admonished his disciple that (Brother Anthony's translation): "In writing, let your spirit be like that of Garuda who cleaves the blue ocean to grab at a dragon and soars with it in his clutch, let your intelligence be as thorough and solid as that of Gandhahastin [the fragrant elephant] who splits a stream from below, then crosses it...". After their rift, Kojuk had scoffed at this idea. However, at the end of his life, while Kojuk burns his work, Yi writes: "And then Kojuk saw it. Suddenly soaring up in the midst of the flames, Garuda, vast, with brilliant golden wings, powerful in flight".
Hail to the Emperor! Hail to the Emperor! deals with the heated competition of imperial world powers around Korea at the end of the 19th century and goes on through the Japanese colonial era, the Korean War and the period of military dictatorial rule, penetrating through the modern
history of Korea. With a Don Quixote-esque protagonist, the novel adopts a rich traditional style of prose displaying a comprehensive understanding of traditional East Asian literature, and drawing readers into the narrative with powerful descriptions of the turbulent history of Korea. Michelle Tanenbaum, in a review of the influence of Cervantes' Don Quixote on Korean literature concluded that Yi's
Hail to the Emperor! was highly successful in capturing the spirit of the original novel. The protagonist, always referred to as the Emperor, "manifests a madness for excessive reading; he seeks out adventures that are directed toward the search for justice; he is accompanied by assistants who are equally mad; he inhabits the world of the past, which of course has vanished; and finally, he repeatedly commits insane acts, transforming the work into a comedy." The Emperor believes that he is ordained by heaven to found a new dynasty to replace the Yi (
Joseon) dynasty and that the new Chong dynasty will prosper for 800 years as predicted in the secret prophetic text, Chong-kam-rok, also known as
Jeonggamnok. His dream is to be a ruler who will free the kingdom of foreign domination, both military and cultural. The latter is presented as a seemingly impossible task, a struggle that would require "madness" to sustain over a lifetime. Sol Sun-bung, author of the preface to his English translation, noted that although Emperor's dream of becoming a ruler of the people failed in a practical sense, nonetheless at his death, he achieves "greater eminence by transcending all worldly preoccupations". The new teacher not only brutally thrashes the bully but also the boys who let "what was rightfully yours" be taken away. The protagonist is the only student who refuses to denounce him. After the monitor is deposed, an election for a new monitor is held. Prior to the election, the sixth grade teacher hands out copies of U.S. President Kennedy's
Profiles in Courage, a symbol of an idealized liberal democratic system. A new more democratic order is imposed, but that leads to bickering and loss in classroom achievement. In a coda, the protagonist looks back on his life. He had graduated from a prominent university, but had declined to work with one of the
chaebols, which he viewed as authoritarian, hypocritical and corrupt. He had taken a job in sales, but that job was also dependent on the chaebols. Disillusioned, he had become a private institute (
hagwon) lecturer of humble means. At that point, he learns that his fellow students have met with varying levels of success. Some have done quite well, without logical reason. As described in a scholarly review by Jini Kim Watson, he "feels as if 'I had been thrown into a cruel kingdom that ran things as it wished'. What is striking is that this 'cruel kingdom' now no longer refers to [the student monitor's] regime, nor the new teacher's violent reforms, nor even the chaebol businesses. In the coda, corruption, lack of freedom, and the arbitrary rule of hypocrites turn out to better describe the normative conditions of the postcolonial nation under globalized
post-Fordism." At the end, he chances to see the monitor being arrested as a petty crook. The protagonist cries but is unable to determine why. His confusion also leaves the reader unable to determine the appropriate allegory.
''Pilon's Pig'' ''Pilon's Pig'' also narrates a revolt against oppression. In this case, the protagonist is forced to take a troop car on his return home after being discharged from the army. He meets a fellow soldier he trained with in boot camp who was known then as Hong "Dunghead" for his simplicity and lack of formal education. The train car is taken over by a few elite marine special forces members, who begin to extort money from the ordinary soldiers. Suddenly the tables are turned, and the soldiers revolt against their oppressors and begin to beat them mercilessly. As the situation turns desperate, the protagonist slips into another car to find Hong "Dunghead" was already there. Both are thus able to avoid the aftermath when the melee is finally broken up by the military police. The last paragraph relates the legend of "Pilon's Pig". As noted in a review by Charles Montgomery, it refers to a legend about a great skeptical philosopher,
Pyrrho of Elis. The story goes that when he was caught in a storm at sea, his fellow passengers were in despair. Nevertheless, Pyrrho remained calm. When asked how he kept his composure he pointed to a pig that was happily eating as if nothing were amiss and said "that this is the unperturbed way a wise man should live in all situations" In a critique of the novel included in the afterword of the bilingual edition (Korean and English), Bak Choel-hwa considered the work an allegory depicting the dark side of Korean society and commented that if Hong is the "pig" then the protagonist is "a member of the powerless educated class, a "Pilon" who makes no attempt to stop the madness".
The Poet Yi's award-winning
The Poet and The Thief was incorporated into a larger novel,
The Poet, which is available in an English translation by Brother Anthony. It is the novelized biography of Kim Pyong-yon whose grandfather was executed as a traitor. Punishment for such a crime extended over three generations. Kim's death sentence was commuted but he and his remaining family (like Yi's family) lost the privileges of their former high status. In a story well known to Koreans, he had entered a poetry contest without acknowledging (or in other accounts without knowing) his true identity, wrote a poem critical of his grandfather and was declared the winner. However, the guilt of that betrayal led him to eventually take up the life of a wandering poet. As he went from village to village, he exchanged poems for food and shelter. In his travels, he wore a large bamboo hat as protection from sun and rain (or in some accounts as a symbol of his shame). Thus, he became known as Kim SakGat (or Kim Bamboo Hat). As depicted in this narrative, his poems, which often ridiculed the ruling elite, were a work of genius but were somehow lacking in authenticity. A chance encounter with a Taoist poet known as the Old Drunkard leads to a transformation described by Brother Anthony, as a vision that "poetry has nothing at all to do with words, techniques, or themes, but with being". Peter Lee noted that this imagery is recurrent in
Korean poetry and represents the highest praise for a poet-recluse in a Buddhist or Taoist context.
Age of Heroes In
Age of Heroes, his protagonist is the eldest son of a prominent Confucian family. Similar to Yi's own father, he has communist sympathies. He takes up the leftist cause only to be disillusioned. Caught up in his idealism, he ignores the danger to his family. His mother and wife are left to save the family. As described in a plot summary by Dong-Wook Shin, the protagonist insists the war is "for the people", but when his mother rhetorically asks, "What people are you talking about? I see no such people in the south and don't think there will be any more in the north. [Are they not] something that exists only in your words? And yet for that ghost of yours you dare to sacrifice innocent lives?"
Appointment with My Brother In
Appointment with My Brother, Yi Munyeol imagines meeting with his half brother, born to his father and a new wife in North Korea. After the protagonist learns that his father has died after a 40-year separation, he makes an appointment to meet his North Korean half-brother and discovers that, despite their ideological differences, they have strong family ties. Their bond is cemented after drinking soju, a strong Korean drink, after a makeshift ceremony to honor their father.
Frontier Between Two Empires One of Yi's most ambitious works is
Frontier Between Two Empires [also known as
Borderor
The Margins], an epic novel in 12 volumes. The title symbolizes the United States and the former Soviet Union. It is essentially a sequel to
Age of Heroes in describing the lives of a family left behind in South Korea after their father defaults to North Korea. It characterizes the hardships brought about by the Korean War and the imprint of superpower rivalry. As described in a PhD thesis by Hyebin Hong, "the novel illuminates the comprehensive implications of [Korean] political and economic subservience, reflected through a single family’s challenges".
''Lette's Song'' ''Lette's Song'' is ostensibly a love story/female coming of age story. It takes the form of a woman, Lee Hee-won, reading her diary on the day before she is to be married. While reading, she relives her past romantic affair with an older married man, Min Seung-woo. He is an artist; and she tries to emulate his commitment to art by becoming a poet.
World reception and adaptations Yi has been awarded almost every major national literary prize, and his works have been translated into 21 different languages as of 2021. In 2011, Yi Munyeol was also the first Korean fiction writer to have a story appear in
The New Yorker ("An Anonymous Island", translated by
Heinz Insu Fenkl). Many of Yi's novels have been adapted for film including:
Our Twisted Hero,
Portrait of Days of Youth,
Our Joyful Young Days,
Anonymous Island,
Son of Man, ''Lette's Song
, All That Falls Has Wings
. His novel, Fox Hunting'', was adapted for a musical play,
The Last Empress, which depicts the life of
Empress Myeongseong, who the Japanese agents referred to as a
fox spirit and their operation to assassinate her as fox hunting. The play was performed in Seoul, London and New York. ==Awards==