[Book Sip] Kwon Hee-cheol's Criticism Collection 'Jeonghwaed Night'

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly resonate with the reader’s heart, creating a point of connection with the book. Here, we introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from books. - Editor’s note

“Without concluding, without resolving, without proclaiming” (poet Kim Hyesoon), “reading too much, too precisely” (critic Seo Youngchae) ? critic Kwon Heecheol. The phrase that described his first book, which announced the birth of an exceptionally outstanding and reliable critic, Your Face, remains valid in his second collection of criticism, Purified Night, released after nine years. Based on a cold and clear perception of reality and literature, the stronger and deeper writings in this book allow us to witness the process of a young critic becoming a cornerstone of the Korean literary scene.

I think everyday life itself cannot become poetry. I am not saying that poetry must necessarily realize something meaningful, or move toward the transcendental, or be an intoxication with something peculiarly beautiful. What I mean is that unless one creates their own labyrinth within the seemingly boring and meaningless repetition of daily life and, while passing through that labyrinth, draws out experiences that are no longer boring and meaningless repetitions and thereby expands life, everyday life easily becomes a prison of banality, and poetry is not written within that scope. The phrase “everyday life itself can become poetry” tends to become an excuse not to pay attention to the task of labyrinth-making, and I would like to add that it easily becomes a deceptive ornament and justification for a lethargic life. _From “Meditation on Dogs” (p. 75)

Literature, the more excellent it is, is never harmless. Literature is an ‘act.’ If a slight exaggeration is allowed, literature could be called ‘violence.’ This is because literature forces us to admit that certain understandings and definitions at particular moments, when viewed against the entire movement of life, are in fact ‘falsehoods.’ New understandings and definitions are not gifts given to us but are barely obtained through arduous labor that involves facing contradictions, staying alongside the incomprehensible and strange, and carving out unknown passages that connect the strange and the familiar. Literature sometimes scolds us and shames us when we try to be exempted from such labor. It even takes away from us the new understandings and definitions we have barely obtained by calling them mere falsehoods in light of a new process of transition. _From “Ignition” (pp. 135?136)

Purified Night | Written by Kwon Heecheol | Munhakdongne | 544 pages | 22,000 KRW