When eight fairies distract a promising young Buddhist monk, the Temple Master, frustrated by his behavior, punishes him. Not only does he send him to the underworld, but he also sends him to his next life as a mere peasant. However, the life of this young man, who is reborn both handsome and naturally cultured, doesn’t feel like a punishment at all!

  Never having read a Korean classic before, I was skeptical about how a Westerner could get into the spirit of such a text as The Nine Cloud Dream. However when I started reading it, page by page, I discovered a fantasy world and realized that Kim Man-jung had written a story far ahead of his time—unless his time was already ahead, though to us it seems backwards—and I was just lost in his enchanting narrative. The adventures of the young villager, whose life was destined to be glorious, could have been a Shakespearean tale; when someone peeks behind the veil of this amazing story, they notice that it’s a romantic comedy hiding the great message about life that Kim Man-jung meant to share with his work.

  The ordinary peasant becomes a scholar and manages to obtain higher positions, but also becomes an imperial groom. This is nothing more than a Romeo with eight Juliets and a happy ending; a Benedict with eight Beatrices, to be walked around, worshiped and challenged by them and a colorful bunch, enjoying poetic battles, dancing and equestrian archery. If one did not know that the text was written in the seventeenth century, dealing with the story of a charismatic young man living in the ninth century during the Chinese Tang Dynasty, they would be confused by the author’s fresh and lively writing.

  I’ll be honest with you; there were many times that I caught myself thinking that some of the scenes could easily be from a Marvel movie! Because it has it all: mythical creatures, battles, scheming, the necessary comic relief, but also a hero who, in the end, is confronted with a truth that honestly surprised me. That was a plot twist I didn’t expect.

  One might think that this is another book teaching us about life and how one should live virtuously in order to, at some point, stop reincarnating and reach nirvana, as Buddhism teaches. In the first pages, you might get such a vibe, but that’s not the point. To begin with the author gives hints not only of Buddhism, but also of Daoism and Confucianism. Although, it is neither a religious or historical text, several people and events from the history and mythology of the Chinese dynasties are mentioned.

  If we were to remove the heroes and the event, one question would rise: is the life we ​​live real or a dream? What if, after all, reality were our dreams and not the thing we call ‘life’? Centuries after Kim Man-jug’s masterpiece was written, even Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) in the film The Matrix had to deal with such “reality.”

  The Nine Cloud Dream is taught, as I have been informed, in South Korean high schools. Now that I have read it too, I would really like it to be taught in schools worldwide.

  Finally, I read the book in its Greek translation, published by Lemvos Publications, but I hope that one day I will be able to read it in Korean as well, in order to experience the greatness of Kim Man-jung’s writing.

Elissavet Kyritsi

Journalist/Writer