[One Sip of a Book] The World You Want to See

Editor's NoteSome sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly resonate with the reader’s heart, creating a connection with the book. We excerpt and introduce such meaningful sentences from books.

This is a new short story collection by author Jang Kangmyeong, who has posed sharp issues to our society. The title story, "The World You Want to See," won the Simhun Literary Award with a review stating it “confirms how to question in this era, why to question, and what to be concerned about.” The collection includes a total of seven stories, including "Eichmann in Alaska," which was nominated for the overseas short story category of Japan’s prestigious Seiun Award for science fiction. Having published writings on SF since the 1990s and operated a monthly SF webzine until 2001, the author openly reveals his affection and knowledge of SF. He self-designates the genre of this collection as ‘STS (Science, Technology and Society) SF.’ STS is an academic field exploring how science and technology influence and are influenced by society. The author states that since science and technology “cause existential crises in various areas of our society,” “literature must and can respond to this.”

“Anyway, everyone lives in a subjective reality. And everyone has objective facts, big or small, that they do not want to accept. For us, that was the result of the last presidential election. Some people denied the election results themselves, spreading conspiracy theories about fraudulent votes and vote manipulation. They tried to fight objective facts with subjective reality. I did not want to do that. The election result seemed like a joke, so I decided to just enjoy it as a joke.” - The World You Want to See, p. 17

“Even before augmented reality technology, many people lived in dreams. No, all humans do to some extent. We create our own complex worlds every moment and live within them.” - The World You Want to See, p. 24

“We need a subject who stays on Venus, feeling loneliness, joy, desire, and making decisions. An actor and initial screenwriter who solves such dilemmas in a human way, aligned with human time.” - You Are on a Hot Star, p. 65

Imagine a situation where you cannot expect any help from those around you and struggle alone for a long time. Especially imagine when that help is absolutely necessary for you but trivial to others. Eventually, everyone feels themselves as a desperately abandoned being. And they calculate the distance between themselves and the person closest to them who can help. - You Are on a Hot Star, p. 97

Dr. Einstein said, “The mind of others is farther away from us than the moon.” (…) What would happen if we could experience another person’s joy and pain exactly as they feel it? “Individual lives, group rules, politics and social policies, culture would all change, and furthermore, the entire civilization would transform,” Dr. Einstein emphasized. - Eichmann in Alaska, pp. 126?127

The World You Want to See | Written by Jang Kangmyeong | Munhakdongne | 404 pages | 17,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.