Lemon: A Novel by Kwon Yeo-sun (2019), translated from the Korean by Janet Hong (2021)
Lemon: A Novel by Kwon Yeo-sun (2019), translated from the Korean by Janet Hong (2021)
Shorts, 2002
Life has no special meaning. Not his, not my sister’s, not even mine. Even if you try desperately to find it, to contrive some kind of meaning, what’s not there isn’t there. Life begins without reason and ends without reason (3).
Lemon, 2010
My sister’s name was originally Hye-eun. It had been my mother who had come up with the name and my dad had gone along with it, but when she suffered from severe postpartum sickness, my sister’s birth registration was delayed by a month. During that time, my dad, who was originally from Gyeongsang Province, kept calling my sister Hae-on in his provincial accent, to the point that my mom started thinking it wasn’t so bad a name, possibly better than Hye-eun. Even if they were to go ahead with the original name, he would keep mispronouncing it anyway, so perhaps it’d be better if they just called her Hae-on from the start. That’s how my sister ended up with her name.
If her name hadn’t been changed, I might have been Da-eun. I don’t know which is better-Da-eun or Da-on. It hardly mattered for me, but in my sister’s case, it made a big difference. After she died, Mother began to obsess over the name Hye-eun. She seemed to think my sister’s life had gone wrong because of the name change. In the end, my dead sister returned to my mother as Hye-eun. This isn’t a metaphor; it’s a fact. Ten years after my sister’s death, my mother held in her arms a live baby named Hye-eun. This baby was my gift to her (48-9).
It was a blessing he didn’t have to cope with her death. He used to break the first cigarette by accident as he plucked it out from a new pack. Whenever this would happen, he would become red in the face and lose his temper. After living a mundane, dull life, where a trivial incident like this was cause enough for him to become angry, he died.
Before my sister entered elementary school-so when she was six years old and I was four-my dad died in a car accident on a business trip. His colleague had been behind the wheel and my dad had been in the passenger seat, just like my sister, who’d been in the passenger seat of Shin Jeongjun’s car. They waited for the left-turn signal at the bottom of a T-intersection, and started to turn left when the signal turned green. At that instant, a truck barreled toward them from the right. Unable to slow down, it rammed into their car, breaking it in two, just like all the cigarettes my dad had snapped by mistake. Because the passenger-side door was badly bent, it took a long time to extricate him from the car. He died before they could pull him out of the wreck. Death by cranial injury, due to a violent blow on the head. His cause of death was the same as my sister’s (50-1).
Once when I woke up, I found my mother sitting by my side, peering intently at me, her face set in a grimace. I didn’t know how long she’d been in that position. Though I was awake now, she continued to stare at me, with no change in her look. She was wearing the kind of expression you might see on someone whose hangnail had torn off. I realized she was searching not for me but another. She was longing for another face, as if wondering, Where is the face I loved? Why is this face here instead?
If there was an opposite of how my mother’s eyes had once blazed with pride and hope as she gazed at my sister, it was how she gazed at me in that moment. I realized then that we hadn’t returned to reality. In fact, we would never return, unless we adjusted our course drastically. What awaited us was a lifetime of twitches and convulsions, of endlessly performing and aborting and repeating actions, just as some patients with anxiety disorders shake and blink and are unable to sit still, out of fear of losing themselves.
Powerless to change herself, my mother had resorted to changing my sister’s name. Similarly, because I couldn’t change a thing about my sister, I decided to change myself. Even if my mother had tried to stop me, I would have still gone ahead, but she didn’t try. If anything, she encouraged it, offering me the money for the surgery, despite having been rather stingy all her life. I inquired at different clinics. I started with my eyes and lips, followed by my forehead and nose. In the end, I received three sessions of facial contouring surgery on my cheekbones, chin, and lower jaw. The pain was like a drug. While the splint was taped over my nose, while tears ran down my swollen cheeks, I was finally at peace, just as my sister had once been (61-3).
For a very long time, I hadn’t thought anything was lovely. I recalled all of a sudden how I had asked Sanghui eonni if she was still writing poetry when I’d run into her a few years ago. Lemon…The brilliant yellow of the yolk was making me want to write poetry once more. For now, as long as I was gazing at the yolk nestled next to the white, I didn’t feel lonely. I felt no pain. I was at peace, like a baby in a cradle. I felt my consciousness open its eyes and stretch lazily, as if waking from a winter’s sleep. Ha-an-man-u-u-u… (67-8)
Knees, 2010
Like a child, I rubbed my eyes with my fists, fully aware that I was smearing my makeup. Look up laws about employment for those with disabilities. Find businesses that provide special employment opportunities. Despite being drunk, these were the thoughts I had. I couldn’t let him watch television all day and then disappear. I needed to find a way for him to earn some money.
Some lives are unfair for no apparent reason, but we carry on, completely unaware, like miserable vermin. As I had half suspected, their mother, who worked in a restaurant kitchen, had dwarfism. She was very small, as if Seonu had been shrunken down much more severely. For some strange reason, when I saw their mother, it became very clear where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do. Even my direction in life became certain. First of all, I could no longer live with my mother. In no way could she ever become involved. But I’d go back to her one day. One day I would be back (105).
God, 2015
Fine then, I won’t hold back, Doctor. So someone who’s cold-blooded…What I want to say about that is, people like that make you feel like they’re not really listening to you. They’re listening, but it’s like talking to a brick wall, as if your words are just bouncing off. Do you know that feeling, Doctor? Also…I can’t remember, now that I’m trying to talk about it…Ah, yes, they can never admit they’re wrong! Yes, I’ve noticed that about them. They do something wrong, and then they deny everything and say it wasn’t their fault. Anyone would say it’s a hundred percent their fault, but they keep insisting they did nothing wrong, but what’s more unbelievable is that they say it’s your fault and try to pin everything on you. That will really drive you crazy. I tell you, these people can be so irrational I sometimes wonder if they’re actually nuts. But what’s more horrible is that they think girls are their playthings, dolls they can use and control, and if you don’t do what they want, they look at you in the most horrible, atrocious way. It’s torture. They’re perfectly fine, since they have no emotions, and I’m the one who’s going crazy over here, those bastards. And when they fool around, it’s with young girls, nineteen-, twenty-year-olds, always around the same age as that girl… (114-15)
Sarcoma, 2017
“It’s natural to feel confused by things you can’t change,” Da-on said like a wise sage.
“You think?” I murmured vaguely.
“Death carves a clear line between the dead and the living,” she said in a solemn tone. “The dead are over there and the rest of us are over here. When someone dies, no matter how great they were, it’s like drawing a permanent line between that person and the rest of humanity. If birth means begging to join the side of the living, then death has the power to kick everyone out. That’s why I think death, with its power to sever things forever, is far more objective, more dignified, than birth, which is the starting point of everything.” Da-on spoke calmly, as if she were reading from a book.
Da-on had walked this path for a long time. She had mulled over these thoughts until no rough edges remained, to the extent that her views on death seemed more terrifying, more resigned, than ones held by those on death’s doorstep.
“Death turns us into junk. In the blink of an eye, we become meaningless, like scraps.”
As soon as I heard this, I thought of Hae-on. When I recalled her beauty, which had turned us into scraps in an instant, a beauty so staggering I found myself wondering if it had actually existed, my heart surged (129).
Dusk, 2019
I still can’t help but wonder, do our lives truly hold no meaning? Even if you try desperately to find it, to contrive some kind of meaning, is it true that what’s not there isn’t there? Does life leave only misery behind? Could the fact that we’re alive-the fact that we’re in this life where joy and terror and peace and danger mingle-couldn’t that itself be the meaning of life? Hadn’t Han Manu, with an iron in one hand and a crutch wedged under his other arm, been more alive than anyone in this world, more alive than the cancer cells that had spread to his lungs? Hadn’t my sister Hae-on-as she sat with her feet on the sofa or car seat, her knees spread with not a thought in her head, with absolutely no clue as to the inappropriateness of her actions-been warm and exquisitely alive, just like a bird about to take flight? Couldn’t each moment we’re living now be the meaning of life (145)?
Shorts, 2002
Life has no special meaning. Not his, not my sister’s, not even mine. Even if you try desperately to find it, to contrive some kind of meaning, what’s not there isn’t there. Life begins without reason and ends without reason (3).
Lemon, 2010
My sister’s name was originally Hye-eun. It had been my mother who had come up with the name and my dad had gone along with it, but when she suffered from severe postpartum sickness, my sister’s birth registration was delayed by a month. During that time, my dad, who was originally from Gyeongsang Province, kept calling my sister Hae-on in his provincial accent, to the point that my mom started thinking it wasn’t so bad a name, possibly better than Hye-eun. Even if they were to go ahead with the original name, he would keep mispronouncing it anyway, so perhaps it’d be better if they just called her Hae-on from the start. That’s how my sister ended up with her name.
If her name hadn’t been changed, I might have been Da-eun. I don’t know which is better-Da-eun or Da-on. It hardly mattered for me, but in my sister’s case, it made a big difference. After she died, Mother began to obsess over the name Hye-eun. She seemed to think my sister’s life had gone wrong because of the name change. In the end, my dead sister returned to my mother as Hye-eun. This isn’t a metaphor; it’s a fact. Ten years after my sister’s death, my mother held in her arms a live baby named Hye-eun. This baby was my gift to her (48-9).
It was a blessing he didn’t have to cope with her death. He used to break the first cigarette by accident as he plucked it out from a new pack. Whenever this would happen, he would become red in the face and lose his temper. After living a mundane, dull life, where a trivial incident like this was cause enough for him to become angry, he died.
Before my sister entered elementary school-so when she was six years old and I was four-my dad died in a car accident on a business trip. His colleague had been behind the wheel and my dad had been in the passenger seat, just like my sister, who’d been in the passenger seat of Shin Jeongjun’s car. They waited for the left-turn signal at the bottom of a T-intersection, and started to turn left when the signal turned green. At that instant, a truck barreled toward them from the right. Unable to slow down, it rammed into their car, breaking it in two, just like all the cigarettes my dad had snapped by mistake. Because the passenger-side door was badly bent, it took a long time to extricate him from the car. He died before they could pull him out of the wreck. Death by cranial injury, due to a violent blow on the head. His cause of death was the same as my sister’s (50-1).
Once when I woke up, I found my mother sitting by my side, peering intently at me, her face set in a grimace. I didn’t know how long she’d been in that position. Though I was awake now, she continued to stare at me, with no change in her look. She was wearing the kind of expression you might see on someone whose hangnail had torn off. I realized she was searching not for me but another. She was longing for another face, as if wondering, Where is the face I loved? Why is this face here instead?
If there was an opposite of how my mother’s eyes had once blazed with pride and hope as she gazed at my sister, it was how she gazed at me in that moment. I realized then that we hadn’t returned to reality. In fact, we would never return, unless we adjusted our course drastically. What awaited us was a lifetime of twitches and convulsions, of endlessly performing and aborting and repeating actions, just as some patients with anxiety disorders shake and blink and are unable to sit still, out of fear of losing themselves.
Powerless to change herself, my mother had resorted to changing my sister’s name. Similarly, because I couldn’t change a thing about my sister, I decided to change myself. Even if my mother had tried to stop me, I would have still gone ahead, but she didn’t try. If anything, she encouraged it, offering me the money for the surgery, despite having been rather stingy all her life. I inquired at different clinics. I started with my eyes and lips, followed by my forehead and nose. In the end, I received three sessions of facial contouring surgery on my cheekbones, chin, and lower jaw. The pain was like a drug. While the splint was taped over my nose, while tears ran down my swollen cheeks, I was finally at peace, just as my sister had once been (61-3).
For a very long time, I hadn’t thought anything was lovely. I recalled all of a sudden how I had asked Sanghui eonni if she was still writing poetry when I’d run into her a few years ago. Lemon…The brilliant yellow of the yolk was making me want to write poetry once more. For now, as long as I was gazing at the yolk nestled next to the white, I didn’t feel lonely. I felt no pain. I was at peace, like a baby in a cradle. I felt my consciousness open its eyes and stretch lazily, as if waking from a winter’s sleep. Ha-an-man-u-u-u… (67-8)
Knees, 2010
Like a child, I rubbed my eyes with my fists, fully aware that I was smearing my makeup. Look up laws about employment for those with disabilities. Find businesses that provide special employment opportunities. Despite being drunk, these were the thoughts I had. I couldn’t let him watch television all day and then disappear. I needed to find a way for him to earn some money.
Some lives are unfair for no apparent reason, but we carry on, completely unaware, like miserable vermin. As I had half suspected, their mother, who worked in a restaurant kitchen, had dwarfism. She was very small, as if Seonu had been shrunken down much more severely. For some strange reason, when I saw their mother, it became very clear where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do. Even my direction in life became certain. First of all, I could no longer live with my mother. In no way could she ever become involved. But I’d go back to her one day. One day I would be back (105).
God, 2015
Fine then, I won’t hold back, Doctor. So someone who’s cold-blooded…What I want to say about that is, people like that make you feel like they’re not really listening to you. They’re listening, but it’s like talking to a brick wall, as if your words are just bouncing off. Do you know that feeling, Doctor? Also…I can’t remember, now that I’m trying to talk about it…Ah, yes, they can never admit they’re wrong! Yes, I’ve noticed that about them. They do something wrong, and then they deny everything and say it wasn’t their fault. Anyone would say it’s a hundred percent their fault, but they keep insisting they did nothing wrong, but what’s more unbelievable is that they say it’s your fault and try to pin everything on you. That will really drive you crazy. I tell you, these people can be so irrational I sometimes wonder if they’re actually nuts. But what’s more horrible is that they think girls are their playthings, dolls they can use and control, and if you don’t do what they want, they look at you in the most horrible, atrocious way. It’s torture. They’re perfectly fine, since they have no emotions, and I’m the one who’s going crazy over here, those bastards. And when they fool around, it’s with young girls, nineteen-, twenty-year-olds, always around the same age as that girl… (114-15)
Sarcoma, 2017
“It’s natural to feel confused by things you can’t change,” Da-on said like a wise sage.
“You think?” I murmured vaguely.
“Death carves a clear line between the dead and the living,” she said in a solemn tone. “The dead are over there and the rest of us are over here. When someone dies, no matter how great they were, it’s like drawing a permanent line between that person and the rest of humanity. If birth means begging to join the side of the living, then death has the power to kick everyone out. That’s why I think death, with its power to sever things forever, is far more objective, more dignified, than birth, which is the starting point of everything.” Da-on spoke calmly, as if she were reading from a book.
Da-on had walked this path for a long time. She had mulled over these thoughts until no rough edges remained, to the extent that her views on death seemed more terrifying, more resigned, than ones held by those on death’s doorstep.
“Death turns us into junk. In the blink of an eye, we become meaningless, like scraps.”
As soon as I heard this, I thought of Hae-on. When I recalled her beauty, which had turned us into scraps in an instant, a beauty so staggering I found myself wondering if it had actually existed, my heart surged (129).
Dusk, 2019
I still can’t help but wonder, do our lives truly hold no meaning? Even if you try desperately to find it, to contrive some kind of meaning, is it true that what’s not there isn’t there? Does life leave only misery behind? Could the fact that we’re alive-the fact that we’re in this life where joy and terror and peace and danger mingle-couldn’t that itself be the meaning of life? Hadn’t Han Manu, with an iron in one hand and a crutch wedged under his other arm, been more alive than anyone in this world, more alive than the cancer cells that had spread to his lungs? Hadn’t my sister Hae-on-as she sat with her feet on the sofa or car seat, her knees spread with not a thought in her head, with absolutely no clue as to the inappropriateness of her actions-been warm and exquisitely alive, just like a bird about to take flight? Couldn’t each moment we’re living now be the meaning of life (145)?