Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
BOOK REVIEW 2nd sequel of 'Banned Book Club' explores trauma, spiritual healing, life under dictatorship
The cover of "Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit" by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada / Courtesy of Penguin Workshop
By Jon Dunbar
Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada are back with the third book in their "Banned Book Club" series, a semi-autobiographical story set in Korea's authoritarian 1980s that, in an ironic twist, has been subject to modern-day book bans in the United States. After releasing the second book in the series, "No Rules Tonight," last year, "Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit" proves the project's sizeable audience across national borders and generations.
Although the title doesn't offer quite the bold mission statements that "Banned Book Club" and "No Rules Tonight" provided, this graphic novel also takes a good, hard look at how social trust is broken down by authoritarianism, and just as importantly, how it can be regained. Anarchy, queer love and traditional Korean spirituality are all on display, but at its heart, the book is a screwball comedy with blueprints for overcoming modern-day political crises.
After a snappy, entertaining "We're putting the band back together" sequence that serves as a handy reintroduction of the main characters, the story pairs them off narratively, if not romantically. The main character, Taehee, is paired with her secret boyfriend, Kiwoo, who is working up the nerve to tell her he returns her affections.
Jin and Jee, two male characters who get dragged into the main adventure looking to prove their bravery, have the simplest story. Unlike the other characters, they're mainly here to serve the arcs of others, an example of gentle, nontoxic masculinity.
Hyun Sook and Song first appear in the story covered in paint and on the run from the cops. Hyun Sook, the main character from "Banned Book Club," is a stand-in for the author, Kim Hyun Sook. Her husband and illustrator, Ryan Estrada, gets a cameo in the book's epilogue, set in the present day.
Author Kim Hyun Sook and her husband, illustrator Ryan Estrada, appear getting out of a taxi in "Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit." Courtesy of Penguin Workshop
The most emotionally affecting story belongs to the secret couple of Suji, a lesbian, and Manhee, a trans man, whose fates are left open and uncertain. A strong parallel is drawn between deadnaming trans people and the colonial Japanese (1910-45) practice of forcing all Koreans to have Japanese names.
"These stories were important to us to include in the books to show that people still struggle for freedom and equality today," Estrada told The Korea Times in an interview earlier this year.
A preview of the art in "Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit" by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada / Courtesy of Penguin Workshop
The odd character out is an American named Ashley, who at times complains of being excluded and at other times just wants to be left alone. The Korean characters are cautious around her, as their distrust of the Chun Doo-hwan regime extends to the U.S. for its support of his anti-democratic government. Ashley provides a vehicle for exploring Korea-U.S. relations — back then and perhaps today as well — until the story pivots sharply with the revelation that Ashley is a Korean adoptee returning to her homeland, albeit somewhat against her will.
The story gathers all these characters as students at the fictional Anjeon University. Taehee's parents pressure her to bring home performers for a celebration of Daeboreum, the first full moon of the Lunar New Year. The story isolates the characters in a small, dying village, populated only by four elderly women. The four widows, each with rich inner lives, need help performing a ritual sacrifice, the details of which are left vague and potentially menacing at first, playing out slowly as the plot advances. The suspense will be heightened for readers unfamiliar with the fading traditions of Daeboreum — but if you know, you know. It reads a bit like a Scooby-Doo adventure, with promises of ghosts, shapeshifting monsters and demonic possession that never come to pass. For those who know what to expect from the holiday, there is one amusing moment of tension when a character takes shelter in a straw hut shortly before one of the old women starts pouring lighter fluid on it. Later, the book walks the characters through the holiday ritual in a cathartic sequence that makes readers feel almost as if they are participating themselves.
The use of traditional Korean spirituality provides an interesting contrast to Estrada's previous project, "Occulted," about a girl who uses banned books to escape a doomsday cult. Here, spiritualism is treated as a set of customs to be celebrated, and the ghostly superstitions serve to help the characters heal their hidden traumas.
Fictionalized as it may be, it's clear that this story, like its predecessors, comes from something real. There's strong, subtle affection for all the Daeboreum rituals and the odd little village. An afterword names the real location in Hwamok, a rural area in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province. It also contextualizes the story as set shortly before the 1987 death of Lee Han-yeol, a student who was struck in the skull by a tear gas canister. This was the last straw for many Koreans, and it led to nationwide solidarity against the authoritarian regime, which soon crumbled and gave way to democratic elections.
"Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit" works because it makes these long-ago events and the struggle for democracy feel personal — maybe that's why the contents have been so disturbing to book banners in the U.S.
The book, which Estrada says is the last in the trilogy, will be released by Penguin Workshop on Oct. 7. It is available for purchase through dbbooks.co.kr.