Our Twisted Hero

I love this book. Yi Munyol is one of my favorite authors and this is a perfect book for someone to have a first introduction to his work. The story grabs your interest and flows. It is about a young boy who used to live in Seoul. He did well in school and was accustom to the "rules" of life and school in the big city. When his father has to transfer to a new location for work, the boy goes to his new school, expecting to find that everything is "as it should be", the same as it was in Seoul...but he is mistaken. The rest of the story shows how he adjusts, or does not adjust and what steps he takes to achieve "justice" and restore everything to the "way it should be". Interesting look into the Korean "school culture" of the past, but also has something everyone can relate to no matter what race you are or what country you are from. Good authors tell a story, great ones make you feel the story...Yi Munyol is a great author! Also check out "The Poet" by Yi Munyol

Our Twisted Hero is a fairly short novel written from the view of a small unobtrusive narrator recalling his relative helplessness within transitory reigning ideologies. Its significance lies particularly in its portrayal of the Nietzsche Last Man, characteristic of the majority of us. Though the story is portrayed in the carefree environment of adolescents, it is clear that life is not much different on the global scale. Hauntingly similar to our current neo-conservative dilemna. Don't you think?

Our Twisted Hero concerns the travails of a grade-school boy whose father's career has taken the family out of the city and into a rural area. The boy's new schoolmates seem alien to him and to make matters worse, they are ruled by a sociopathic classmate. Although the protagonist complains to his parents, none of the local adults see any problem and his parents side with them. How the boy will survive the bully's dictatorship and whether there will be any rescue are the main questions of the story. Our Twisted Hero is in part a parable of recent Korean history just as Lord of the Flies includes commententary upon twentieth century European politics and warfare. So before you read this wonderful novel, it helps to brush up a bit on your South Korean history, specifically the dictatorships of the nineteen sixties and eighties. (Wikipedia is a good start, talking with an older South Korean is even better.) Without understanding this background, Western readers could be put off by the narrator's reactions to his family's move to the country and his new country school, which he sees as provincial and backward. Americans, raised on a steady diet of Winslow Homer and Little House on the Prarie, see their pre-industrial past in idyllic terms and often dismiss those who prefer the urbane as "elitist." The history of Koreans' relationship to rural life is very different from ours and they are not as inclined to idealize it. Of course, what separates average novels from really good ones is the application of the specific to the universal. Yi does this beautifully and this book is one any intelligent reader can enjoy and relate to. Well written and well translated, Our Twisted Hero will bring you back to your own childhood struggles with authority, legitimate and otherwise. It's worth every won.

This story could well take place in a prison or a boardroom. It's written with simple grace, avoiding all the fancy tricks. With a story so powerful, it doesn't need any. I look forward to more translated works from Mr. Munyol.

One of Yi munyol's bestsellers in Korea, "Our Twisted Hero" tells a story of Um Seokdae, who plays the boss among his classmates. Even the teachers relegate all power to him on all the student matters(for convenience-remember Hobbes?). One day as a new young teacher arrives who takes care of affairs himself, Seokdae is slowly pushed away from the "unofficial" seat of power, becoming betrayed even by his most trusted "sheep". Once kicked out of power, he seems utterly forgotten(just leaving a strong impression on his friends). Tens of years later, he is on his way to his final show of dominance, hoping it will prove himself the ultimate winner. Schumpeter pointed out that there is inevitably a structure of power and obedience in human society, and Yi successfully and vividly delineates in his novel the ups and downs of that power structure. Yi, Korea's most successful novelist, wrote a series of novels touching on universal weaknesses and dilemmas that humans possess. The problem of salvation(social or religious, a serious subject in third world countries like Korea of 1970's and 1980's) in "Son of a Man", liberation of the fair sex in "The Choice", are just a few. Although he is usually conservative and so is constantly under attack by progressive thinkers of Korea, his depth of knowledge, thought and literary style make all his works worth a read.