By Han Sang-hee
Staff Reporter
Yi Munyol, one of Korea's favorite and most prominent writers, expressed his opinion regarding the recent candlelit vigil by saying that it was a ``victory of digital populism.''
His comments came during a press conference for the final volume of his decade-long work ``Cho Han ji.''
``I'm not being sarcastic. The essence of it is great, but at the same time, it's a terrible (type of) digital populism. It's great because it's something hard to accomplish, but is terrible because other important issues may be solved this way too,'' said Yi.
``Cho Han ji'' dates back to BC 218 and illustrates the deadly competition, strategies and leadership of the Han Dynasty's Liu Bang and Chin Dynasty's Xiang Yu who both wished to reunite China. The novel continues until Liu Bang finally succeeds in BC 202.
Unlike Yi's other works, such as ``Romance of the Three Kingdoms,'' ``Cho Han ji'' is not based on an original text. The author wrote his version based on ``Records on the Grand Historian,'' by Chinese scholar Sima Qian, and used other ancient books and scripts for additional information.
``It's a historic novel, so it's not all fiction. I had to look up historical information to illustrate certain events in the novel,'' the 60-year-old Yi said at a press conference Wednesday.
The author explained by giving an example of a war scene. Considering the location and the time of the event, Yi needed to confirm the weather.
``I was trying to depict a fight in winter, and I wanted to know if it really got cold enough to freeze the lakes. The ancient books said the fight was carried out in October, and I wasn't sure of the exact weather in the area,'' said Yi.
Thus, the author reached out to the Harvard-Yenchin Institute at Harvard University for help and discovered that weather in the area was indeed cold enough for lakes to freeze during October.
Liu Bang and Xiang Yu's drastically different war strategies and tactics are an interesting feature of the book. According to history, Liu Bang was laid back and composed, while Xiang Yu was as strong as an ox, but also arrogant.
``The leadership is what readers should focus on when reading. They both have very different personalities and leadership strategies, so comparing the two is interesting,'' said Yi.
When asked about his next project, the author laughed and said that he had had enough of Chinese history.
``I think I've spent enough time on the subject. I have several ideas in my mind, but I haven't made any decisions'' he said.
Yi has been writing from 1979 and many of his works have become both bestsellers and steady sellers including ``Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' which he finished in 2002.