[Book Sip] "Living as Naro is boring, but I want to talk about myself"

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This is a collection of essays based on the podcast "Ilgitteolgi" run by SF novelist Cheon Seon-ran, essayist Yoon Hye-eun, and editor Yoon So-jin. As seniors and juniors in creative writing, they selected stories from the podcast that deserved deeper discussion and reworked them around the themes of "Me and Life," "Us and Relationships," and "Hobbies and Preferences." Leaving behind their tumultuous twenties, the three declare that they will "not focus excessively on a single self" and discuss their thirties' perspectives on life, encounters and farewells, and wedding day dreams. The three, living as a novelist, essayist, and editor, also share their individual ways of caring for their current lives more meaningfully.

I spent days working day and night without even remembering what kind of twenties I had dreamed of, going to the hospital every day, and enduring became more important than the future or dreams. I went around on Line 2 for tutoring and crossed Line 7 to go to work. I did not achieve any of what I dreamed of. In the first year, first day, first minute of my twenties when I vowed to make it wonderful, I sadly became someone who said that twenties are the worst time of life everywhere. Even the novelist I wanted to become had faded away and disappeared without a trace, and rather than feeling regret, it felt like a luxury. Perhaps I thought it was fortunate that my dreams drifted away. - p.24

I am someone who says I am tired of being myself but cannot stop talking about myself. - p.26

An island is simply a place suitable for longing for someone. I realized that it is a place where we live again while longing for others. And perhaps life is a process of moving from one longing to another. - p.43

To me, who was depressed and didn’t want to live, to me who secretly decided to die, my mother handed me soju. Looking back, it was probably water. It was bland without any bitterness. But at that time, I really thought it was soju, and when I said it wasn’t bitter at all, my mother said, “That means your life is bitter right now. You’re really struggling.” After that, I endured until adulthood with that strength. I am a minor who is so tough that soju tastes sweet. - p.94

For a very long time, even in idle wishes, I have never wished for anything other than my mother’s health. - p.96

Actually, being single doesn’t mean you won’t get married or that you must be lonely. - p.126

This time, I decided to think only about bread. About its nature of being soft and hot, then becoming cold and hard to the point of being unrecognizable. But once I started baking, I found myself thinking a lot about my current work. I recently realized one thing through baking: making books and making bread are not different at all. And both books and bread leave traces of even the smallest mistakes, so no excuses are accepted. - p.165

As always, mistakes happen in the parts that were wavering, like answers on a test paper corrected at the last minute, and often in the parts that were painstakingly fixed. - p.166

All humans are lonely. All humans are solitary. This is my prejudice and definition about humans. I believe humans are lonely because they can imagine and dream. There is a gap between imagination and reality, and in that gap, we become hollow. I also believe that humans who find more joy in reality and can see the beauty of reality are less lonely than those who dream. But one thing is certain: humans are beings who can dream, and there is not a single person who does not dream. So everyone is lonely. - p.213

Living Messily but Earnestly | Written by Cheon Seon-ran, Yoon Hye-eun, Yoon So-jin | Hankyoreh Publishing | 236 pages | 16,800 KRW

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