Yo Mun-yol's Twofold Song

Another read picked up from the library based on its length - all of 112 pages, inclusive of illustrations, Korean text, literary critic's and book producer's words. I've to admit this may have been a mistake, where the reader does not measure up. The last time such a thing happened, it had my head spinning for days. Blame it on Gao Xingjian's Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather, a short story written in a theatrical form.

Similarly, Twofold Song by Yi Mun-yol is artistic and abstract. It depicts the last rendezvous of a pair of forlorn lovers in a hotel. As they make love, illusions and visions flash by, time goes back to the very beginning of mankind, as their world overflows with a primordial life force, where Adam and Eve first set eyes on each other.

The concept of dualism, or twofoldness (I'm groping in the dark here) was brought in with the first line:"Life is loneliness. Or it is not loneliness." The two-foldness of love was thereby portrayed in depth, like the man's loneliness that the woman first saw it as "the scent of jasmine, which can only come from a noble and honest soul," yet to the man, it is only "the smell of twisted desire."

I swear that half the time, I don't know what I am talking about here. I guess this will be my last Korean-translated read for some time.