[ Ritual, or Rather theatrical, mask (From the walls of Brussels, 2011) . Photos of Marzia Poerio]
translation in French of Myk-Yung Choi and Jean-Noël Juttet. Saint-Amand-Montrond, Zulma, 2004
L '"invited", or better the' guest "which gives the title of this novel is Yosop Ryu, a Protestant minister North Korean immigrants in the United States at the time of Korean War and who goes for the first time in his home town in the twenty-first century, along with a group of refugees who are granted permission to review the original families, shortly after the death of his brother Ryu Yohan, the latter, organizer Christians in the first year of the war, had been guilty of crimes brutal, driving some Christians killing several armed communists in the village where he lived and had fled to the U.S. leaving behind the need for the events, his wife and newborn son, then said, in America.
The crudeness of the Korean War, which he had already struck other stories set in the same period, including the short story that we reviewed on "line cards" in the French version entitled MONSIEUR HAN, is expressed in this tragic and epic novel, whose author focuses attention on the part of civil war rather than on the threat of foreign intervention, saying how much violence has been present in the conflict between factions Korean adverse.
The reasons, in the memorial reconstruction, fragmented and deliberately told by different voices ein framed by that of the first-person narrator in third person, are made in both social and personal, included in the social composition of the time and the explosion of passion and emotional that characterized the conflict.
Among the narrative voices in a performance of magical realism, some are living, some ghosts. The author warns that the chapters, titles and subtitles, are articulated as the successive moments of a shamanistic ritual (shamanism is a religion of Korea): dall'ESORCISMO ( What remains after death ) to REBIRTH ( in Chapter seven of the twelve that make up the book, then about half), the PROCESSION OF THE ANIME (in the penultimate chapter), annual leave in the last chapter.
The fantasy element and the shamanic world of archaic traits characterize contemporary history by establishing a continuity with the ancient ritual identity. It moves beyond the conflict between Christianity and Communism, then, to go to a reunion between the dead and the living, between past and present, between the wounds inflicted by Yohan and repair offering guest's visit, the meeting remained with their families and communities hurt, the difficult conversations with relatives, and finally the burial of the remains of a body of Yohan cremated after death.
Abbiamo trovato ben costruito, storicamente presente, emotivamente coinvolgente, sospeso tra simbolo e rappresentazionme realista, tra sogno e flusso di quotidianità, queso romanzo in cui l'autore si ricollega a un tempo in cui "si uccideva per odio come pure per dimostrare agli altri la propria capacità di decisione" (p. 254), ma nel quale i fantasmi si manifestano perché "per coloro che vennero implicati nella tragedia, il tempo ha fatto il suo corso" ed "è venuto il momento del perdono" (p. 203).
[Roberto Bertoni]
