INTERVIEW

• The Man Who Loved Moebius: Novelist Choi Jae-hoon Vol.23 Spring 2014

  Truth and falsity, fiction and reality, stories inside stories, and stories outside stories all meet and are reconstructed in Choi Jae-hoon’s work. It is both “stranger than fiction” and a smorgasbord of “too strange to be false”-reality, storytelling, and imagination that goes beyond even the wildest fiction.   - Suh Heewon, “To sleep is to die, and to dream”   ∞ Prologue All types of love exist in the world. There are even people that are in love with shoes, stockings, corpses, and baseball bats. Love operates in mysterious ways, so it’s not surprising to meet a man in love with Moebius. Or more accurately, a man in love with the Moebius strip. Enthralled by the curious ribbon that is both many and one, one and many (try cutting the strip laterally), Choi Jae-hoon’s writing resembles the object of his love. That is to say, it is twisted. Suh Heewon: You didn’t become a novelist right away. You majored in business administration, but went on to study creative writing after graduation, rather than work at a company. Then afterwards, you worked at your alma mater on the administrative staff. Fast forward a few years, you quit your job to devote more time to writing and then got your first book published a year later. How did you come back to literature from the brink of worldly success? Choi Jae-hoon: I wasn’t very interested in fulfilling my own desires. I thought, isn’t it enough to let life take its natural course? I could’ve just been someone who liked reading, but my military service changed me. I became more realistic about what I wanted to do, so to speak. Living a highly controlled and disciplined lifestyle made me look back at my life and desires. When I went back to school, I started reading more than ever, mostly classics. I would make lists of books to read and kept my own notes on them. Suh: There’s a saying in Korea, “One becomes a man when he goes to the army.” Going to the army is thought of as the first step to entering the real world. You’ve said that you first experienced society in the army and spent the time there reflecting on yourself. This must be the kind of perspective that differentiates an artist. As someone who got his start in art through voracious reading, what books made an impression on you in your youth? Choi: Like most people, I was strictly a reader at first. I thought that writing was for people with a special gift. The book that first made me think that I too could write was J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. I think there’s a kind of trigger in that book that brings something out in the reader. I later learned that the book is a favorite among assassins. I thought that was a striking coincidence. You could say that that book assassinated my other self, the me that was living peacefully, and the person I am now survived to write books. Suh: How did you begin your life as a writer? Choi: I began learning about fiction and started writing in earnest when I entered the creative writing department. But I had very different ideas about writing from what we were taught. I was an oddball. Remember, that was the era of Shin Kyung-sook, Jo Kyung-ran, Ha Seong-nan. It was all about the descriptive novel, and that was how we were told to write. I was more interested in the fiction of writers like Baek Min-seok. When I quit my job, I looked at my bank account and decided I could do nothing but write and still live off my savings for two years. So for one year, I just wrote. The next year, I began writing to submit. “Baron Quirval’s Castle,” the first story I ever published, was the first one I wrote after quitting my job. That was when I wrote stories like “The Hidden Cases of Sherlock Holmes,” “Her Knot,” and “Maria, You Know What, Maria.”   Writer Choi Jae-hoon and critic Suh Heewon   Suh: Since becoming an author, you’ve published a collection of short stories and two novels. The reception you’ve received from readers and critics has afforded you such prolificacy. You don’t describe the psychological or situational in your writing, but rely on the narrative at all costs, and this narrative has a geometrical structure, or as you’ve call it, “odd.” How do you plan your novels and work out your thought process? Choi: I don’t have any special method, nothing very different. When I have an idea I don’t write it up immediately. I keep it in mind and turn it around in my head as much as I can. I twist the narrative in different ways, do research, and focus my thoughts. Sometimes I’ll cut everything up according to character and narrative thread. I line up everything in my head and then put it all together again in a completely different way. I only write after I’ve exhausted those possibilities. Suh: You say it takes genius to immediately hash out a story from an idea and that you’re hopelessly lazy and talentless. But is there only one kind of genius? If there is such a thing as genius by inspiration, then there must be such a thing as genius by planning. Inspiration appears and vanishes like a muse, but planning must look like a person who is dead set on working through everything without fail. What kind of blueprint do you use in your planning, then? Choi: If I had to name a blueprint I would have to say, I saw the etchings of Maurits Cornelis Escher when I was very young. Then in university, I learned his name and was able to properly view his works. What I saw was the static space that was constantly in movement, the way life moves endlessly only to come full circle, both perpetual motion and motion that converges to nothingness. I’ve read that Escher worked in a mathematical way to achieve this kind of space. So do I. The critic Nam Jin-woo once wrote about me, “He paradoxically creates chaos through the play of pushing the intellect.” That’s the kind of world I want to depict. Chaos in differential calculus, chaos in equilibrium, the infinite flickering of nature. All of my characters stand in an Escherian space, so to speak. Suh: Escherian space. The progress of a novel depends on the narrative. Can there be a narrative of chaos, a labyrinth without an exit? One of the greatest mazes known to man, the labyrinth of Daedalus, was designed to imprison the half-man, half-bull Minotaur. Ariadne ties a string to her lover, Theseus, however, and helps him escape safely. Ariadne’s thread is an excellent metaphor for narrative. Without narrative, the sentences of a novel turn into a labyrinth. The reader is lost and forgets what they have been reading. In that sense, there can be fiction that is like a maze, but not fiction that is a maze in itself. What is it that you want to achieve with fiction? Choi: I don’t think about conveying meaning through fiction. When I was a child, I wanted to be an artist. I gave up that dream when I realized that dreams and talent aren’t the same thing. What I’m doing is painting a kind of picture out of the narrative and the sentences. I want to show the reader a picture of the chaos that’s the result of my thoughts. Suh: A Moebius band-like narrative, multi-layered plot, multiple personalities, and closed circuit-like mazes are all elements that characterize your fiction and also reflect your experience as a Korean writer. Korea is the soil that nourished the boy that was impressed by Escher and turned him into the writer Choi Jae-hoon. What are your thoughts about being labeled a Korean writer who writes from a Korean perspective? Choi: Korea moved towards a modern, democratic, capitalistic society in a very compressed time frame. The subsequent societal changes have been dramatic and cutthroat competition has become the norm. If things like our strength in IT or the Korean Wave are the positive manifestations of that energy, then the negative manifestations of that energy are how barren our inner emotional lives are, our mindless pursuit of trends, our humanitarian crisis. We didn’t have the time to acclimate to such change, to assign meaning to it. I think we should keep an eye on how this will play out in the future. Korea could be the poster child for a future society where speed is everything.   1. Baron Quirval’s CastleChoi Jae-hoonMoonji Publishing Co., Ltd.2010, 304p, ISBN 9788932020525 2. From the Sleep of BabesChoi Jae-hoonMoonji Publishing Co., Ltd.2013, 372p, ISBN 9788932024578 3. Seven Cat EyesChoi Jae-hoonJaeum &Moeum Publishing Co.2011, 378p, ISBN 9788957075418 4. Sept yeux de chats Choi Jae-hoonEditions Philippe Picquier2014, 326p, ISBN 9782809709810 ​   Suh: You count Seven Cat Eyes as your favorite work. It’s a novel composed of four connected stories, the writing is equally eclectic. Can you tell me about it? Choi: When I wrote Seven Cat Eyes, my intent was to express everything that I had in my writing. To put my whole self into the blender, turn it on, and see what happens. The result is 100 percent Choi Jae-hoon juice, so to speak. (Laughs) People don’t believe it when I say so, but I didn’t have a particular message when writing this novel. I was more concerned with the feeling. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the title as well. I think, or rather, what I feel, is that the number three means balance. Three cats, six eyes. What’s the other eye, then? That eye is the eye of balance, an outside perspective, or the perspective of the unconscious. I looked at myself and my thoughts through that perspective. Now I’d like to write about something that gets under my skin from the outside, not something that comes out of me. Suh: I was intrigued by the last scene of your latest work, From the Sleep of Babes. The narrative is divided into dreams and reality; the character driving both narratives embarks on a journey to solve a mystery, but the end waiting for him is his own sudden death rather than a solution. Like Detective Erik Lönnrot in the Borges story “Death and the Compass,” the protagonist of From the Sleep of Babes rushes to the scene to solve a murder mystery only to become the victim of a premeditated crime. What was it that you wanted to say with this ending? Choi: For me, the death itself was not important. I wanted to offer it as a kind of salvation, so I had the main character get hit by a car and crucified, formulaic as that is. My goal was to create a kind of portrait of the modern person. People are beings that deviate from the balance of nature. Man made God to compensate for the freedom and loneliness that comes with that deviation. Religion is a gym for the soul, comfort for humans who don’t have anything else to turn to. From the Sleep of Babes is the culmination of my thoughts on these ideas written in narrative form. Did you enjoy reading it?   ∞ Epilogue Did I enjoy it? Before answering, I should elaborate on “Death and the Compass” by Borges. In the story, Detective Erik Lönnrot chases Red Scharlach, a criminal who has sworn to kill him. The brilliant Lönnrot interprets signs left by the killer, following crime scenes to get closer to the man committing the murders. Lönnrot figures out that the three murders were committed in times and places that correspond to a perfect triangle, and rushes to the scene of the last crime. There he meets a waiting Scharlach and realizes that he has fallen into a trap. Sensing that the end is near, Lönnrot asks Scharlach to build him a different kind of labyrinth, should he ever hunt him again. The last sentence of the story is worth quoting: "The next time I kill you," said Scharlach "I promise you the labyrinth made of the single straight line which is invisible and everlasting." Choi Jae-hoon is a Scharlach of our times. As the criminal genius promised, his labyrinth is made with a straight line: an invisible, everlasting labyrinth. The man’s love affair with the Moebius strip, that simplest yet most philosophical of complex mazes, appears to be here to stay. The pain of his struggles, however, is no doubt a blessing for his readers. 

FICTION

• The Castle of the Baron de Curval Vol.31 Spring 2016

  Chapter One: The Castle of the Baron de Curval   9 June 1993. K University, Seoul, Korea. Paek Chŏngin, Lecturer. Course Title: Women in Cinema.   Okay, let’s get going. By the way, where is everyone? We have so many empty seats. It must be the gigs for extras. Well, I’ll let them be for today. You weren’t half bad in the acting lab. Let’s close the window over there. It’s rather loud outside. It’s not too hot, is it? …Why on earth are you putting on a jacket? And you go on about the heat. Today, we’re going to discuss Edward Fischer’s 1953 film, The Castle of Baron Curval. The title’s got a nice and chilling gothic-horror feel to it, hasn’t it? The film is based on a 1932 novel of the same title by the French author Michel Perrault. The ending is, however, quite different. Fischer himself wrote the script, and it is, I think, his second or third feature film. Fischer was an unknown at the time, but the film itself became the talk of the town for casting Jessica Hayward, a Hollywood megastar of the 1950s. Who has seen the film? Let me have a show of hands. …A staggering three. How about anyone who’s read the novel? …Hmm, no one as expected. This is sad. There was no point in giving you the syllabus at the beginning of the semester. I repeat myself, but please do watch the films before coming to class. We’re supposed to be having a discussion, but I end up talking alone for two hours straight when none of you even have a clue about the plot. You all look as if that’s how it’s supposed to be. In the final exam, I’ll test you on the mise-en-scène. In The Castle of Baron Curval, how does the baron wear his hair? Number one, slicked back. Number two, bobbed… I kid you not. At any rate, the baron’s castle in the film can be seen as a symbol of interiority where all kinds of human desires are housed. As a matter of fact, practically every narrative text, be it a film or a novel, deals with desire. The point in question is the ways in which desire develops in a work. This film is unlike any other that came before it in this regard, which makes it quite a significant piece in film history. Prior to this one—though nothing much has changed since then—the horror genre portrayed women generally in a couple of different ways. Any guesses? Forget the things like feminist film theories, and just think back on the movies you’ve seen. Like the Dracula series or Basic Instinct that opened last year. …Remember anything other than the leg crossing scene? Women are either the object of desire or the object of fear. The bloody victim is always a hottie, or you have the femme fatale, the dangerous woman. Consider Dracula, for instance. It’s always a beautiful woman with long locks of hair who sleeps with her white neck exposed. Then the vampire comes along, says thank you, and sinks his teeth in. As if the blood tastes better the better looking you are. Even your blood gets discriminated against when you’re not as pretty. Good grief. A woman like me won’t have anything happen to her even if she roomed and boarded in Dracula’s castle, except perhaps for mosquito bites. Ah, I saw you nodding over there. See when you get your grade. Alternatively, when women are portrayed as evil or monstrous, we can say that it reveals men’s unconscious aversion to and fear of femininity. Julia Kristeva calls this abjection, the womb of horror that is cut off in order to enter the symbolic order. You don’t need to take notes on this. It’s probably all Greek to you, don’t bother. Sexuality, in any case, is equally important for the femmes fatale. Do you think you’d have the same story in Basic Instinct if Sharon Stone wasn’t sexy? She’s got to catch her prey before she can kill it or let it go. At the end of the day, the horror film objectifies woman as the Other, whether she is an object of desire or of fear. Laura Mulvey argues that the logic of the patriarchal unconscious in the male gaze is encoded into the language of classical Hollywood cinema itself as such. …Goodness, you gentlemen make a face the minute you hear the word patriarchy. Relax, it’s not about you. Anyway, although The Castle of Baron Curval did not really attract much attention in its day, it is still worth thinking about the character of Camilla Harper, the female protagonist, in the context of the 1950s cinema. That is, she appears as an active subject in the narrative without conforming to the conventional image of the screaming damsels in distress in horror pictures. She’s like a foremother of Sigourney Weaver, the woman warrior in Alien, or Linda Hamilton in The Terminator. …You’re all spacing out. What a sight. What’s all this yakety-yak about? You don’t know because you haven’t watched the film. Oh well, let’s do a quick review of the plot. The Harpers who run a ranch in Texas have a hard time making ends meet and are about to go bankrupt. Then Camilla remembers her sister who married Baron Curval and moved to France ten yeas ago and sends her a letter to ask for help. Her brother-in-law is rolling in the dough, why not borrow some? Camilla’s sister writes her back saying that she’d be more than happy to help and invites the Harpers to France. With a sigh of relief, Camilla and her husband take their daughter, Catherine, across the Atlantic Ocean to receive the money and, while they’re at it, take a vacation. After a long voyage, the Harpers finally arrive at the castle of Baron Curval in Creully, France.   9 June 1932. New York, New York. The Writer Michel Perrault and His Editor   “Granny used to gather us children and tell us stories every evening. The rhythm of her creaky rocking chair, the flames swaying to and fro in the fireplace, and the slow and gentle cadence of her voice… We were always spellbound by her wonderland stories. The cat talked, the one-eyed giant lost his bag of gold, Bluebeard killed his wives, the fairy helped the knight marry the princess… Everything is still so vivid. The world created by Granny’s voice was more real and exciting than the one that I lived in. Actually, I borrowed a motif from one of her stories called ‘Courageous Jean and Baron Curval’ to write this novel.” “Your grandmother left you a treasure for an inheritance.” The editor nudged his plate of steak aside and ordered coffee. “Without a doubt. The stories also came in handy for Mother. She had only to say, ‘Michel, be a good boy or we’ll leave you alone in the castle of Baron Curval.’ And, lo and behold, I’ll be as meek as a lamb. Granny’s tales were much more than simple amusement for me. I believed in them, as if all of the creatures and characters were living their lives somewhere, as if I could go see them someday. Take Baron Curval, for instance. He simply leapt out of the story and has long been hovering about in my mind’s world. I wonder why. It’s only a short fairytale after all. I still see him every now and then in my dreams. His face is, however, always different. Anyone I dislike or fear never fails to appear as Baron Curval in a dream. I’ve, in fact, had the pleasure of seeing you as the baron a few times—you always asked for my manuscripts.” Perrault broke into a smile as he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “I wrote this novel to give a shape to the baron, the ghost that roams about the cave of my unconscious. And, you know what, as I continued writing, the baron’s face gradually became that of mine. I was hardly surprised. He’d been feeding off all the dregs of emotions that I refuse to face myself. He must be more like me than I am—yes, more than myself… You know what I think? I wonder if Baron Curval had been around since long ago, somewhere far away, like in Granny’s stories and if I’m only a mirror that reflects a small part of the man… Look, are you listening?” “What? Oh, yes, I am.” “What are you looking at so intently?” “Over there, in the churchyard. See that man grabbing someone by the collar at the soup kitchen line? His name is Wilson, used to be an up-and-coming stockbroker. I’ve met the guy a few times at Buchanan’s parties. A bit cocky, but he was a lot of fun and everyone liked him all right. He used to be a smart dresser, too—had all his suits cut in London. Good heavens! He’s all rags and tatters now.” “There is not a shortage of others like him. It must be a temporary thing.” “Well, I hope so. The depression has been dragging on and on. Publishers are closing down all over the place.” “Oh, stop it already. We’ve had a depression before. It’s only expected in a capitalist economy. Things will pick up soon. By the way, have you read the manuscript?” “Of course, I’ve finished it already. It looks good. Adding elements of fantasy breathed a new life into your writing. It is good, but how about if you cut the beginning a little? The part where Camilla visits her sister and spends time at the baron’s castle reads a bit slowly. It lacks suspense compared to how the plot develops from there, and it makes the entire narrative rather unbalanced.” Perrault sipped his coffee and stroked his beard thoughtfully. His burly eyebrows wiggled awkwardly like a couple of caterpillars fallen on a marble floor. “Yes, quite so, quite so… But it is very important to describe Camilla’s psychology right early on. Readers will find the latter half of the story persuasive only if they can identify with her to begin with. Right from day one, Camilla feels distant from her sister even before she has a chance to enjoy the reunion. Her sister, for one thing, has not changed a bit from ten years ago. She also sees herself in the mirror looking much more aged than her sister what with the rough ranch work and all that. She begins to harbor fear beyond remorse before the existence called time. The noble and dignified bearing of Baron Curval, the rare dishes that she had never laid her eyes on before, and the servants who do everything for them so they can eat, drink and be merry… The story must show the stark contrast between the riches of the castle at her disposal and her inner world that only grows darker as time goes on. It is not simply what you would call jealousy or envy. It is rather that there is no sense of reality, as if her sister no longer belonged to this world in her mind. Yet, one day, the situation turns upside down. Her sister promises a sum of money large enough to buy two or three ranches and proposes that she adopts Catherine. Guess what, it’s not so easy for her to turn this down. And, mind you, Catherine is the dearest thing in the world to her! She basically draws an ace in a game she almost gave up on. She can’t help but feel pleased, however secretly, at the sight of her childless sister who seemed to have it all. She no longer feels so distant from her sister and is now free to envy and feel jealous, and even admire her sister to her heart’s content. Don’t we all begin like this whether we mean well or ill? ‘I want to be like that, I can be like that.’”   9 June 2004. Tokyo, Japan. Interview with Filmmaker Nakazawa Satoshi, Kinema Junpō   Q: The Castle of Baron Tōsen, your last film before your move to Hollywood, is a remake of Edward Fischer’s The Castle of Baron Curval. This came as a bit of a surprise for many. Have the prospects of moving to Hollywood had any hand in making this decision? S: Yes and no. If I had been preoccupied with moving to Hollywood, I would not have taken the pains to pick the least popular piece from Fischer’s extensive filmography. (Chuckles) The Castle of Baron Curval holds a special place in my heart. I began dreaming of becoming a filmmaker after watching it at fifteen. Working on the remake, like changing the setting to Japan and reinterpreting the original, reminded me of my humble beginnings. It is also a gift from me to my fans in Japan, a token of my appreciation for their faithful support. Please consider it a stamp of resolution that I will not lose my own filmmaking philosophy and touch as I continue making movies in Hollywood. Q:Why were you so drawn to The Castle of Baron Curval? S:I think I was rather fascinated by its ambiguity and lack of narrative balance, the very things that it is criticized for. And I find new things every time I watch it. It does a great job of detailing each character without conforming to genre conventions. I was also impressed by how it handles the psychology of fear that seeps in from such a bright and glamorous setting. It contrasts starkly with most of the popular Dracula movies of the time that channeled fear by creating dark and sinister atmosphere throughout. The film also captures the subtle nuances of anxiety and obsession borne out of the encounter with an unfamiliar side of that which always has been familiar, making one unable to tell reality from fantasy shaped by one’s own desires. When, for instance, Camilla is troubled after her sister offers to adopt Catherine, she senses a glimpse of evil in her daughter’s eyes and strikes her for no good reason. She also imagines the baron violating her whenever she helps herself to the mysterious blue drink and falls into a stupor at the baron’s parties. Q:You always have ventured to go against and play with classical film language ever since you directed your first film. What kind of changes did you make in The Castle of Baron Tōsen? S: I kept my “destruction for the sake of creation” to a minimum partly because I meant to pay homage to Fischer. That said, however, I worked hard to incorporate my own perspectives. The biggest difference would be the ending though I shan’t tell you the particulars. If I did, I’d lose the audience. (Laughs) In The Castle of Baron Tōsen, I brought back the original’s original, namely, the ending in the novel by Michel Perrault that Fischer had changed. Fischer is considered the father of cult movies, but, in his films, characters rise above rather than give in to their desires even in the worst of situations. I think this is why he changed the ending from the novel. After watching the film, I went to great lengths to find the book, which has a grotesque appeal that the film more or less lacks. The novel was published in 1932 when the United States was caught in the maelstrom of the Great Depression. To Michel Perrault, capitalism that had expanded wildly before it finally exploded must have seemed like a dark tunnel without an exit. Perrault presents capitalism, which must reproduce desire in order to sustain itself, in the form of the castle of Baron Curval. Fear has different faces, but, at its core, it varies little. Is there anything more terrifying than the moment when you realize that the shadowy figure that slowly reaches for your neck is nothing but your own? The mute girl with a sad face who roams about the outskirts of the castle where extravagant banquets take place day after day signifies the ragged spirit of the modern man who has lost language. In this regard, the novel’s ending comes across to me as more modern than that of the film. Q:What are your plans in Hollywood? S:I’m currently working on a scenario with Universal Pictures. My first film will be a Japan-US co-production. It’s about a Japanese exorcist who is rushed to New York when a Japanese-speaking ghost turns up at a state-of-the-art, high-rise building in the city. I plan to stage a bout of wildness, mixing up time and space in the film. It’s definitely going to be a lot of fun. Once casting is completed in Japan, I’ll fly over to America and get on with pre-production. This opportunity to work in Hollywood has been made possible all thanks to my loyal fans. Please look forward to my films with your continued love and support.   9 June 2006. A Naver Blog. Cult Girl (cult666)   The Castle of Baron Tōsen Japanese Cult Film Festival, CineCube, Gwanghwamun   The Castle of Baron Tōsen is Nakazawa Satoshi’s Japanese-style remake of the 1953 film The Castle of Baron Curval. This is the one that was put in the spotlight out of the blue last year after the case of the psycho couple in Atlanta. Was it in 2002? I remembered watching The Castle of Baron Curval at an Edward Fischer retrospective and got a ticket right away. There were only eight people in the theater including me. (Two of them left, grumbling, in the middle of the film.) The original film is set against the backdrop of Neuschwanstein Castle, the one that is famous as the model of Disney’s Cinderella Castle. It looks like the film beat Disney to it since Disneyland opened in 1955. The castle was filmed, however, only from outside while the majority of the movie was shot at a studio in Hollywood (no wonder the interior looks really crappy). The atmosphere of Neu Castle (I keep making typos) in the film is quite something that takes you right into the movie at first sight. It shows off its beauty, rather romantic like in a book of fairytales, especially when it glows under the daylight at the beginning of the film. The castle slowly turns dark and eerie, however, as the plot thickens. One day, Camilla who is torn between money and her child happens to see one of the village women coming up to the castle, wailing loudly, to ask for her daughter back. Camilla slides quietly out of the castle and follows the woman and learns that the woman had recently sold her daughter to the baron as a maidservant. It is dusk by the time she returns to the castle after wandering around for hours trying to find her way out of the unfamiliar village. The overbearing silhouette she sees above the bluff is, however, not of the same romantic castle that she had seen earlier in the day. The once-splendid spires now look as menacing as the horns of the devil, and the blazing torches at the watchtower glare at her as if to devour her. It is from this moment on that the castle reveals its grotesque face against the darkness of the night. A castle for Cinderella by day and for Frankenstein by night. I wonder if the director chose this castle in the remote highlands of Germany for its Janus-like face despite the fact that the film is set in France. Ludwig II of Bavaria, the “Mad King Ludwig,” who built Neu Castle is well known for his keen artistic sensibilities as well as for his love of the arts and architecture. In fact, he loved the arts so much that he could not care any less about running the kingdom and was locked away for madness as he kept building ritzy castles here and there for a hobby. In the end, he was found dead in a lake, the cause of his death unknown, before he ever got to see the completion of Neu Castle that he was so fond of. After having spared no expense at the cost of bankrupting the Bavarian public funds over the span of seventeen years, he only got to spend a mere hundred days at the castle. It’s small wonder that the castle turned ghastly as if his ghost is lurking about. He is said to have asked the castle to be torn down after he died. He didn’t want his dear castle to be turned into a public spectacle. No one, of course, took this outrageous will seriously. Today, Neu Castle is responsible for most of the tourist income in the state of Bavaria. When all’s said and done, this extravagant hobby of the “mad king” is putting food on the tables of his descendents to this day. The Castle of Baron Tōsen is set against the backdrop of Okayama Castle in Japan. The way its roofs surround all four sides of the castle in layers of “^” lends it a delicate sort of beauty unlike the majestic castles in Europe. This film also has the same scene in which Kamiko (Camilla in the original) returns to the castle at night—same but different since this dainty castle cannot recreate the terror of Neu Castle. The elegant lines of Okayama Castle instead make one picture a mysterious woman beckoning with a smile. A simple glance in the direction of the castle alone will make you feel the urge to rush in and solve the mystery! Okayama Castle is also called Crow Castle because of its black exterior. Himeji Castle, or Egret Castle, located in a neighboring prefecture is another one that is considered one of the most beautiful in Japan but is painted white, hence the name. Supposedly, the lord of Okayama Castle painted it black because he was so self-conscious about how his castle compared to the one next door. (Gimme a break.) It is worth noting that Neuschwanstein Castle means a “new white swan castle,” which makes this film a transformation of a White Swan Castle into a Crow Castle. (Did Nakazawa Satoshi suffer the same inferiority complex?)  Both Neuschwanstein Castle and Okayama Castle play a hand in creating a unique atmosphere in each film. Personally, I would like to give more points to Neuschwanstein Castle in the original film for producing an extraordinary contrast in the setting between day and night. Cult movie fans will enjoy seeing how these films produced fifty years apart compare with the images of the castles from the East and the West.   9 June 1952. Miami, Florida. Jessica Hayward, an Actress, and Thomas Browning, a Film Producer   …Yes, Tommy, I’m fine. You know what the audience wants. Of course, it would’ve been nice to have more viewers and better reviews, but I don’t really mind. What is important to me above all else is my performance in each film I act for. …Yes, I want to remain in the minds of the audience as a true actress for a long time to come. You know very well that I can’t stand you-know-who, the upstart who is always on the look out for a rich man to marry. …Yes, great. We have beautiful weather here. Well, it’s a bit warm even for Miami.…The hotel is fine and I’m happy with my room. I just wish there weren’t so many reporters everywhere I go. …I’m not sure. It’s scheduled for the 11th. What date is it today? …Oh, is it already? I think I’ll stay for a few more days. …Right, I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to get away like this. …I received the script. …Sure, I’ve finished reading. The Baron of Castle Curval—it’s a page turner. …Hmm, it’s not bad at all. It’s got a strong, really absorbing narrative. …Naturally. I, too, need to choose my next film carefully. You know how people love to gossip about an actress who fails at the box-office twice in a row. …True, I do need fresh inspiration at this point though I feel rather uneasy about the young director. By the way, Tommy, what do you think about changing the script a bit? …No, the story itself is fine. It’s got a strong plot. But don’t you think the role of Camilla is too weak? …No, I don’t think so. I rather think that it’d be much more natural for this film to have Camilla come to the fore and lead the story. For the film to work, we must play up the love of the mother who will do anything to protect her daughter. …Tommy, listen to me first. Who did you say is the rookie who got the role of Bill, the husband? …That’s right, Herbert. …I know him all right! Robert or Herbert, the Texas hillbilly! Wait a sec, let me light my cigarette. Hooooo… Look here, Tomas. I have no intention of appearing as a half-witted woman screaming and shrieking next to that understudy. Absolutely not. I, too, am taking a big risk in working with a novice director and a novice actor. I need some motivation here. Besides, I’m speaking for the film as well. …Tommy, what’s so difficult? I think we just have to change a few things from where Camilla returns from the village. Wait, where’s my script? …That’s right. It is as simple as swapping the roles of the husband and the wife starting right here. Instead of bawling and telling her husband what she’d heard in the village, she can tackle the mystery of the baron herself. She will snitch the key to the secret chamber in the basement and find the baron’s portrait and his letters, and then she can follow a servant to a shed and dig up the ground there. …I can practice shoveling. …For goodness’ sake, it’s not going to take any time at all. We just have to change “Bill” to “Camilla” in the script. …The duel scene? Why not? You don’t have to fist fight to have a duel. A woman can do it as thrillingly as a man. Haven’t I told you? I struck down a tosspot with a bottle of Wild Turkey when he tried to hit on me at a party. Ha, ha! Tommy, try to change your thinking. Just try. The audience wants new things. …If I don’t get to play a larger role, I’m afraid I’d have to find another film.   9 June 1952. Los Angeles, California. Actor Robert Hudson and His Girlfriend Elizabeth   “Camilla, pack your bags. We’ve got to get out of here. Catherine! Where is Catherine?” “Bill, what’s the matter? What happened?” “Oh, good God! This place is a devil’s den!” “Calm down, honey. What on earth do you mean? Why, Bill! You’re bleeding!” “I’m fine. This is Jacque’s blood. You know, one of the servants. We were fighting in the barn just now, and I killed him.” “What do you mean, honey? You killed Jacque?” “I had no choice. Jacque would’ve done me in if I hadn’t. Can you guess what I just found in the barn? Human bones! Children’s bones, and not just a few! They are all buried in the ground in the barn.” “Children’s… bones?” “The things that have been going on in this castle are simply unspeakable. Take a look at this. I found this in the secret chamber in the basement where the baron disappears from time to time.” “It’s the baron’s portrait.” “See the year it was painted. It’s 1697. That makes him more than two hundred years old now.” “This can’t be… It must be an ancestor who looks like him.” “His name is written on the back there. Donatien Alphonse Francois de Curval. It’s the baron’s name all right. There’s more. I found a terrifying secret of his in the chamber.” “Bill, slow down. You’re not making any sense.” “This is not the time for all this. I’ll tell you all about it as we get out of here. We must find Catherine first. Catherine! Catherine!” “Wait, wait. Robbie, I think you got too excited with your lines there. Shouldn’t you control your emotions a bit more and look steady and dependable?” “Should I?” “Sure, I think the male lead should keep calm. How can he protect his family when he’s so worked up?” Robert flung himself on the bed. “Ah, how can I not get excited? I got the lead role. You know how long I’ve been waiting for this. I still can’t believe it.” Elizabeth snuggled into his arm and stroked his whiskers with her fingers. “You’re not by any chance excited because you’d be working with Jessica Hayward, are you?” “Well, perhaps I am.” Elizabeth pinched his nipple gently. Robert, all smiles, leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Just wait, Mrs. Hudson. You’ll soon find yourself in a mansion in Beverly Hills with at least three maids in the house.” The phone rang when Robert began unbuttoning her blouse with his face buried between the mounds of her breasts. He turned around immediately and picked up the telephone. “Ah, Mr. Browning. I’ve been waiting for your call. …Certainly, I already began rehearsing my lines. I’m practically Bill Harper now, ha-ha!” Robert winked at Elizabeth. She undid his belt as she kissed his navel. “When do we start filming? …Hmm, is that so? So the script is going to be revised a trifle, right?”   9 June 2005. Korea. MBC News Desk Shocking news from Atlanta, garamond-premier-pro. A couple in their fifties have been arrested for the kidnap and murder of their seven-year-old niece. The remains of the victim are also said to have been consumed by the couple who have confessed to having modeled their crime after a film they had watched at a local theater. MBC’s Kim Sŏkki reporting from Atlanta. ----------The seven-year-old girl who was reported missing in Atlanta, garamond-premier-pro, was found dead. The police charged the McCarthys, the uncle and the aunt of the victim, who reside in a neighboring town. The investigators discovered a part of the remains of the victim’s severed body in a heavy-duty refrigerator which was kept in their basement. The McCarthys confessed to having killed their niece in the basement after kidnapping her after school and taking her back to their home in their car on the day of her disappearance. Americans across the country are expressing shock and grief as they learn that the McCarthys have frozen and used the victim’s body for daily cooking.   Jonathan McClain (Atlanta Police) This is the most horrendous crime I have ever come across in my twenty-eight years of service on the police force. We found the victim’s body in a leftover stew, and the cooking utensils in the kitchen also tested positive for the victim’s blood. Much of the victim’s body seems to have been consumed already.   John Cooper (District Prosecutor, Fulton County) I will charge the defendants with first-degree murder and see to it that they pay for this crime. Their attorney claims mental illness, but it is obvious that the defendants had a clear purpose and calculated their moves very carefully. This could very well have turned into a case of serial murders had the arrest not been made. ----------The investigators have reported that the McCarthys committed the crime in order to consume human flesh after watching a recently released film. This film, a Japanese remake of a Hollywood classic, is about an aristocratic couple who purchase the children of tenant farmers as servants for their grand castle to be killed and dined on all in the pursuit of eternal youth. This atrocious crime similarly appears to have been motivated by a distorted desire for youth and beauty. The McCarthys have spared nothing in their efforts to stay young including using growth hormones and expensive cosmetics, visiting the doctor’s office, and even drinking their own urine. A number of child protective service agencies have requested an injunction to ban the film, resparking the age-old debate across America surrounding the issues of media influence on crime and the freedom of expression.   Rachel Flint (Atlanta Resident) Movies, cartoons, and games that encourage extreme violence and sexual perversion are sickening our society. I fear for my children. Is it impossible to make movies without resorting to such extreme representations that promote crime? Think about the victim’s parents. Would anyone dare to talk to them about the freedom of expression?   Jake Powell (Atlanta Resident) The whole controversy is most anachronistic, backward. Can you fire a gun just by pulling the trigger when it’s not loaded? It’s absurd to blame movies for depicting violence before even considering the violent tendencies in us. This reminds me of a line from a movie. If one walks on water but drowns and dies, is the Bible to blame? ----------The film is gaining much attention amidst the controversy and is currently shown in more than three hundred theaters nationwide, a dramatic increase from the initial twenty five. Kim Sŏkki, MBC News, Atlanta, garamond-premier-pro. 

• Seven Cat Eyes Vol.23 Spring 2014

  Recipe for Revenge 1 Schubert: String Quartet No.14 in D Minor, D.810, “Death and the Maiden.” The Munch painting of the same name graces the cover of the CD. The naked maiden and the skeleton man kissing as they embrace each other. The maiden’s flesh glows pink. Red tresses cascade down the supple curves of her back and shoulders. Her demurely closed eyes seem to be fluttering. The wan skeleton man looks pitifully frail next to the buxom maiden. His bony claws can barely contain her sturdy waist. He tries to retreat, pushing his hips awkwardly backward. The maiden has thrown her sleek arms around his neck, however, and shows no sign of letting go. Her plump breasts press firmly against his bony ribcage. The man flips the CD over to examine the back. He adds up the time of all the movements, checking each carefully with a latex-gloved fingertip. 38 minutes 28 seconds. He glances at his watch and turns to look out the window. The clouds have just parted to show the pale face of the crescent moon. That’s a bit long…The man turns around, fanning himself with the CD. Another man is lying down on the single bed pushed against the wall. His posture is as unnatural as that of a corpse on a slab, lying straight on his back facing the ceiling. A briefcase lies ajar next to the pillow, showing the portable respiratory equipment crammed inside. The tube connected to the aluminum oxygen tank coils over the man’s chest and disappears inside his open mouth. The fluorescent light glints in his pupils, drooping eyelids giving them the appearance of being sliced in half. “You like Schubert?” The man slides the disk inside the portable CD player on the desk without bothering to wait for an answer. He presses play and the air fills with the sound of faint static. Majestic cello strains signal the beginning of the first movement. The man stands with his hands behind his back, listening to the string quartet. He taps his left finger smartly in time with the music. “There was also a movie called Death and the Maiden, perhaps you’ve heard of it? A Roman Polanski movie starring Sigourney Weaver. I think they called it The Truth in Korea. Supposedly it was better for the box office that way. What kind of title is that, though? …Stupid, really. No death, no maiden, just the truth.” The man comes over and plops down on the bed next to the prone figure. The movement sends a tremor through the other man’s body like a raft rocked by the waves. “The movie is set in some South American country that just became a democracy after years under a fascist regime. The main character used to be a student activist and she has post traumatic stress disorder now from all the torture she suffered. While blindfolded, she was raped and subjected to electric shocks over and over again by this torturer. He always put on Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” while he was doing it. They really did that in South America, you know. The victims could never bear that music afterwards, all their lives. Pavlovian reaction.” The man fixes his eyes on the dark mildew stains in the corner where two of the walls and the ceiling met. “The regime was finally overthrown and she gets married to another activist, a lawyer. Except she’s not over what happened to her. She’s afraid to go anywhere and lives like a recluse in this lonely house by the sea. I guess it would be surprising if she was okay after all that. Anyway. There’s this terrible storm one day, and her husband gets a ride home from this doctor because his car broke down. The husband invites him in for a drink and she’s in the bedroom, listening to them talking. You see where this is going? Yes, she’s positive this doctor is the same guy who tortured her. She never saw his face, but she recognizes his voice, the way he talks, the sound of his laugh. What really cinches it is a tape of “Death and the Maiden” in his car. Time for revenge. I never miss a movie about revenge if I can help it.” The speakers play on, the melody of the two violins zipping across the small room as nimbly as a pond skater on water. “She waits until he falls asleep to tie him up, and now it’s her turn to interrogate him. Holding a gun to his head. She just wants one thing: his confession. So poetic. But the doctor refuses to acknowledge he did anything. He insists that he had nothing to do with the military regime, that he was living abroad at the time. The husband doesn’t know who to believe either, because he knows his wife has a history of hysteria. So who’s telling the truth? The “trial” goes on all night, but the doctor won’t admit doing anything. She finally tells him he’s getting the death penalty anyway and drags him to this cliff on the seaside. The doctor is staring down at the waves crashing on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The sun is coming up when he finally confesses the truth. All of the atrocious things he did, the sweet taste of power in the torture chamber, how much he missed it all. Now we’re just waiting to see if she carries out the sentence. She doesn’t say anything, just…lets him go. “I don’t like this ending at all. The truth, what does that change? I’m not saying it’s useless. I’m just saying it’s like a painting in the museum. Like the "Mona Lisa," "Starry Night," "The Kiss"…It’s a beautiful thing, for sure. You go to see it and experience the aura. Experience a little uplifting of the soul. Of course it’s going to be plunged in the gutter as soon as you exit the museum, but still. But scars are different. Scars are just for you. They’re there to remind you to never forget how you got this scar. She should have pushed the doctor off that cliff. It’s the only thing to do. The only decent thing you can do for an old friend like a scar.” The man twists his head to look down at the other man lying in a frozen position. A reflection of his face appears in the dry pupils under half-open eyelids. “You can’t move a muscle, can you? Or close your eyes. Don’t worry. You’ve just had an injection of a muscle relaxant. It’s used in surgery with anesthesia to cut the muscles off from the nervous system. Much easier to cut and slice and dig around the human body when the muscles are relaxed. You’re still conscious, though, aren’t you? You can hear well, too. Why don’t you just relax and enjoy the Schubert? I’m going to push you off the cliff anyway when this masterpiece is over.” After a short pause, the second movement starts. A doleful tune oozes over the floor and wraps itself around the man’s ankles. “Andante con moto. Slowly, but with motion. 26 minutes, 58 seconds to go. In the meantime, let me tell you about myself. I assume you want to know something about the person who’s going to kill you, am I right? Don’t worry; I shan’t waste your time with all the boring details.” The man rolls up his left sleeve and shoves his arm in front of the captive’s face. A long, jagged scar runs across it. “See this? I’m just going to tell you about this scar.” He rolls his sleeve back down and buttons the cuff. “I was nine when I had my first seizure. I was thumbing through The Brothers Karamazov at the bookstore. Dostoyevsky. I was always a precocious child. Now that I think back, that precociousness was my body setting up a defense mechanism of sorts. I had to learn how the world works earlier than others. Anyway, I was holding that book in my hand when I lost consciousness, and when I woke up I was in the emergency room. They said the ambulance crew brought me there because I suddenly collapsed and was having a seizure. I had nine stitches above my right eyebrow where I fell and banged my head on the corner of the bookcase. I was still in a daze. The confusing part was my mother’s reaction. She didn’t say a word, not when we were listening to the doctor’s explanation, not on the way home while she held me by the hand. I remember I was touching the bandage on my forehead, and I looked up and saw the sad lines around her mouth. “I learned the reason that evening. Mother sat me and my younger sister down and explained what had happened to Father. He choked to death on his own vomit because he had an epileptic attack when he was home alone. Not because of carbon monoxide poisoning from a coal heating briquette, like she had told us before. We just nodded. It didn’t change the fact that he was dead, anyway. But we kept quiet because Mother was being so serious. There were no funny questions when she started giving first-aid instructions. Lay him on his side so the spittle doesn’t go down his throat, clear the area of any dangerous objects, loosen any buttons or belts or tight clothing, stay by his side until the seizures stop, etc., etc. And she made my sister promise to never leave my side when she wasn’t home to watch me. My sister just pouted. Mother was away almost every day because she cleaned houses. “Actually it’s quite rare to die of an epileptic attack. That’s exactly what happened to Mother with Father, though, so it’s understandable that she was so vigilant about it. The sight of me must have been a living reminder of her husband left alone in his room, choking to death, and all the guilt she carried afterwards for that. Which became my sister’s to carry from then on. Once she came home from work early and found me alone in the house. It was bad luck that my sister had chosen that day to go play with her friends. Mother used the bamboo duster on her calves until they were black and blue and kicked her out of the house. On a snowy day, without any proper clothes. I lay on my stomach reading Notes from Underground and I heard her crying from outside the window. Mommy, I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, Mommy… “My sister and I are fraternal twins, born on the same day to the hour. But we were different from each other. A lot different. She was always laughing, good with people—she and Mother could be fighting one minute and she could have her laughing the next—she was passionate about the normal teenage things, like boy bands, and she would always try out new things even if she didn’t have the patience to finish them…She was born to light up a room wherever she went. It helped that she was a beauty, unlike me. Grandmother Samshin must have had a cataract in one eye when she was blessing us. She gave all the good stuff to my sister, and all the crappy stuff to me. Stuff like epilepsy.” The man taps his foot in time with the rhythm of the music, checks the digital screen of the player for the time elapsed. “Mother’s first-aid lesson turned out to be handy. For some reason, I was always having seizures when it was just the two of us at home. It made her quite protective of me. I could be eating dinner, watching TV, having a bath…and I’d go out like a light, just like that. Like a fuse blowing out. And when I came to my senses there she would be, looking down at me with her clear eyes. She’d smile and say, "Hi there." Those words were like a message of rebirth to me. That I had a new fuse, that it wasn’t my time yet. She looked like a saint to me, with the halo of the fluorescent lamp hanging on the ceiling above her head. She was so dazzling it hurt my eyes to look at her. I would be lying there on the ground, twitching like a bug somebody stepped on, and she would be sitting there quietly, watching her other half foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling back into his head, limbs flailing, shitting his pants when he lost control of his sphincter. I wonder what she thought of it all? “I’m sure she must have had her share of complaints. She was just a kid who should’ve been hanging out with her friends, and she was stuck at home all day because of me. My guardian angel from the day we were born. I was thankful for her, and I felt sorry for her. But there was always something dark and sticky lurking under the surface of my human feelings. Spreading like some cancerous growth, taking over my entire body…Oh, I knew him well. The man gazes at the cover of the CD. The maiden’s arm seems to tighten around the skeleton man’s neck, choking him. A glimpse of fear wells up in his dark, empty sockets. [……]  AUTHOR'S PROFILE Choi Jae-hoon (b.1973) made his literary debut when he won the new writer’s award from Literature and Society in 2007. His works include Baron Quirval’s Castle, Seven Cat Eyes, and From the Sleep of Babes.

REVIEWS

• [Spanish] A Collection of Fictions Wrapped in Fiction Vol. 49 Autumn 2020

• The Origin and Inheritance of Imagination: The Castle of the Baron de Curval by Choi Jae-hoon Vol.34 Winter 2016

• Welcome to a 5-Dimensional World: Baron Quirval’s Castle by Choi Jae-hoon Vol.11 Spring 2011

• Stories that Morph and Mingle: Seven Cat Eyes by Choi Jae-hoon Vol.14 Winter 2011

BOOKS