Author says small things matter

'Writing with Pencil' revisits social issues

By Lee Han-na

The hammer of a blacksmith is often bold and can scratch and hurt the owner. But blacksmiths keep using it without complaint, maybe because they are accustomed to the tool. Likewise, despite technological advancements, there are irreplaceable tools for artists.

For award-winning writer and culture critic Kim Hoon, pencils are the tool he could never replace with any other thing, such as a computer.

Three years after he released “While Cooking Ramyeon” (2015), the author published another prose book, titled “'Writing with Pencil” which contains his thoughts on different social issues that fill people with anger.

'Writing with Pencil' by Kim Hoon

But the author makes his intention clear ― he doesn't want his new book to divide the nation. He says he has no intention to encourage people to act in a certain way and he is only trying to reveal his thoughts about small, trivial things that people encounter daily.

Kim starts his book by describing his pencil as an important tool for his career.

He compares letters to blood giving him life, wishing his tool to age with him just as the lumberjack's axe, the blacksmith's hammer and boatman's paddle did.

Kim, now 70, said he has realized the importance of small things as he has aged, and this caused him to write about and criticize different social problems and issues, such as the Sewol ferry disaster, unfair treatment of delivery men and the greed and arrogance of lawmakers.

The author portrays the sadness of those who lost their loved ones and best friends in the tragic Sewol ferry incident which took the lives of over 300 passengers in 2014.

“Ye-seul liked her mother's high heels. She would invite her classmates to her home and walk around in high heels before them…. In the classroom, her best friend Hye-jung's letter is placed on her desk. It reads, 'My dear friend Ye-seul, I am sad because I can no longer hear your pleasantly noisy footsteps that I heard when you walked around in your mom's high heels,'” the book reads.

The author's tone is indirect but lively. “The voice ― that laughed and sang ― of the long-gone child, daughter's long black hair that fell like a waterfall of sunshine and the lips that laughed when applying lipstick for the first time, and the sweat of a son after playing football in the village. All these little things, I have only realized how important they are from the mothers who lost them,” his book reads.

The book also contains the author's thoughts on every little fragment of life and things people come across every day with Kim trying to be confident in his hope and grief, and happiness and sadness from his own prejudice and favoritism.

Kim Hoon, also a journalist and cyclist, is a novelist and culture critic with more than 100 books, three of which have been adapted as movies. The author also has several bestseller books: “Song of the Sword,” “Song of the Strings” and “Hwajang (Cremation)” in 2004 and “Namhan Sanseong” (The Fortress) in 2007. He won several literary awards for his works. Among others, his bestseller “Song of the Sword,” a fictional tale about Admiral Yi Sun-shin, won him the Dongin Literary Award in 2001.

Lee Han-na is a Korea Times intern.