“The Leper”
by Lee Chang-dong
translated from the Korean by Heinz Insu Fenkl
from the December 30, 2024 & January 6, 2024 issue of The New Yorker
Until last year I only knew of Lee Chang-dong through his 2007 film Secret Sunshine. Then last March The New Yorker published his story “Snowy Day,” which I loved. Here we get his story “The Leper” for the final story of 2024.
The story begins with an epigraph:
. . . to survive, to hang on,
waiting for the new world to dawn,
what can you do but become a leper
nobody in the world would deign to touch?—From “Windy Evening,” by Kim Seong-dong
Then the story itself begins with a few paragraphs that do little to capture me, but I’m okay giving this story some time to get to work:
Before I knocked, I took a moment to calm my breathing. But even a couple of deep breaths did nothing to lessen my anxiety, and, to the sound of voices on the other side, I carefully pushed open the thick door.
A female clerk sat at a desk just inside. “How may I help you?” she asked. The room wasn’t as large as I’d imagined. Directly in my line of sight from the door, I could see a man in his forties sitting with his back to the window. He seemed to be the boss of this office.
“I’m here to see the prosecutor,” I said.
I hope you’re all having a nice final few weeks of 2024. If you read the story, please let us know your thoughts!
This story is difficult to understand until the author mentioned that he feels that a writer’s purpose is to represent the struggles of those who have nothing and no matter what, can’t or who are bearly able to manage or survive. Like lepers who are outcasts because of their unfortunateness and not a physical disease.
When there is political struggle between right and left in a country, it is the people who have nothing who suffer the worst, even if they are actually too busy trying to survive to support either political viewpoint.
This story presents the tragedy of this in the relationship between father and son. The son wants to move into the future but the father is too scarred by the past.
Father and son are polarized by different perspectives on what is important in life. The son wants to study literature in college and become a writer. Father feels that going to college is pointless because it doesn’t help one confront “the struggle of life.” Which is a good point because studying or writing literature as art for most people won’t be enough to help them or their families survive. Which also challenges the son’s dream.
And the father’s idea of literature is that useful literature is contained in the perspective of Maxim Gorky who mainly wrote sympathetically about the suffering Russians outcasts and unfortunates, who have nothing but still struggle to live in post czarist Russia.
So there is a debate between the main conflicting perspectives about what the purpose of writing and art should be juxtaposed with the correlative political systems that seem to more support one or the other viewpoint.
People get caught in the middle because the political viewpoints never seem to solve the struggles of a nation’s underclass. The fear of the opposition makes them persecute, detain or lock up ordinary people who are only trying to survive. And once persecuted, the struggling folks ultimately take a political stand if only to protest against their tormentors.
It is a huge tragedy that repeats itself over and over. So this is a difficult short story, but it gets one thinking not only about what is going on in South Korea or it’s future possibilities or lack thereof. But of the same as it applies to many nations all over the world including our own.