I usually enjoy reading Kim Ji-soo's Interstellar column in the Chosun Ilbo. The writing style is subtle and the embellishments are elaborate, but nonetheless, there is depth and savory in the interview. It was through Interstellar that I saw Lee Eoryong's interview. But that interview, even longer, even more detailed, spanning several days, became a whole book. I waited eagerly for the new book to be released.
 
Lee Eoryong was born in 1933 and gained fame for his book and his proposal to have the "Rolling Boy" appear in the 1988 Olympics. In the 1990s, he served as Minister of Culture. When I heard that he had been diagnosed with cancer, I felt despair. This was because he had already lost his daughter, a pastor, to cancer. I understand that he had not believed in God until then, but after her death, he found religion and faith.
 
In fact, this book can be said to be all about the discourse of death. The subject of is death. As I myself, who thought I would never grow old, am now approaching forty, I am increasingly seeing, hearing, and thinking about death. In the midst of all this, his thoughtful words pierced my heart like shards of a broken mirror, making me look back on my past. It also gave me a glimpse of the present and the future.

 
“People who write always lose. I've been KO'd every time. That's why I wrote again. If it had been perfect and I had thought, 'This is it,' I wouldn't have been able to write anymore. Richard Bach, who wrote , wrote about Jonathan's life and then threw his typewriter into the sea. He said he was done with it.”
 
As a writer myself, I fully understood the feelings with which he was speaking. There are people who, knowing they will always lose, knowing they will never be complete, are still forced to spew out the words that well up within them. As a reader, I felt like Kim Ji-soo, who took on the interview, and I was desperately trying to digest the words that he had spewed out. Why is it that his simplest utterances become something that I can chew on for a long time?

 
“If your destiny is 7, then you have 3 of your own. Those 3 are your free will. Taking the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, where everything is provided, is an act of free will, even if it is foolish. You could have lived comfortably at your father's house, but like the prodigal son, who left home and suffered and then returned... Even though you were destined to return home, the prodigal son before he left and the prodigal son after he returned are completely different people. It is by throwing yourself into it and realizing it that you become yourself, whether you are good or bad. You understand? Humans are beings who must experience all kinds of joys and tragedies with their own free will before they are satisfied.”
 
Thanks to the vividness of it being as if I were eavesdropping right beside him, I thought about death for a while with this book. The saying that death is at the very heart of life is now commonplace, but lately, I often feel my heart sink when I think that death is really just a flip of a coin away. I think that death notices will only become more frequent in the future, so I was glad to take the time to think about how to deal with death and how to live my life, even if it was through this book.
 
In any case, it seems that Mr. Lee Eoryong will willingly create an example of how to age well and how to die well. I hope that his remaining days will be peaceful, and I hope that someday, the deaths of those around me, and my own, will be peaceful as well.
 
 
※ This review was written honestly after reading the book provided by the Naver cafe Culturebloom https://cafe.naver.com/culturebloom/1377302.