Knife Song Korea , livre ebook

State University of New York Press - Richard Selzer

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151 pages

English

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Award-Winning Finalist in the Fiction & Literature: Literary Fiction category of the "Best Books 2010" Awards sponsored by USA Book News
2009 Editor's Choice Award for Fiction presented by Foreword Magazine

Knife Song Korea chronicles a tumultuous year in the life of Sloane, a young surgeon in the Korean War. Drafted into the army and assigned to an artillery unit in a remote rural area on the edges of the war, Sloane must cope with harsh living conditions, a brutal workload, and intense feelings of personal isolation. The only doctor for miles, he is called upon to treat not only U.S. military personnel but also the local Korean population, for whom he feels both revulsion and pity. As the strain mounts and the war moves closer, he comes face to face with questions of identity, nationality, and personal honor. Originally written during and shortly after Richard Selzer's own tour of duty in Korea, Knife Song Korea offers a poetic portrayal of a man stretched to his limits and beyond, and the tragic toll war takes on the human psyche.

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War

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Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	25 mars 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781438427720
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	15 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0998€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Richard Selzer Knife Song Korea a novel

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Knife Song Korea

ee excelsioreditions AN IMPRINT OF STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Knife Song Korea

a novel

Richard Selzer

Published by state university of new york press, albany

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

Production and book design, Laurie Searl Marketing, Fran Keneston

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Selzer, Richard, 1928– Knife song Korea : a novel / Richard Selzer. p. cm. ISBN 9781438427614 (alk. paper) I. Title. PS3569.E585K56 2009 813'.54—dc22 2008055625

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

part i

Land of the Morning Calm

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chapter one

He kept his head bowed all the way up the steep path. It was April and the Korean hillsides, having persevered all winter, complaining under the snow, were suddenly extravagant with pink jindala that broke out on their thick brown hides like a rash. It was cold as he neared the summit. He drew into himself, less of a target to the wind. The ground was flat where he stood on a small plateau. On one side he could see the vast valley from which he had mounted, on the other he looked down upon the Yellow Sea. A misnomer, he thought, it’s the Gray Sea, gray as a timberwolf and rabid, lying on its side, flanks heaving with forced respiration and the spume of the waves like spittle bubbling from its jaws. Someone had carved a great stone Buddha on the sum mit. Sloane walked to it, leaned against the granite pedestal and lit a cigarette.Until the East Sea’s waves are drywent “Augukka,” the Korean national anthem, but the Buddha gazed out over the sea with an expression of nausea, as though even the sight of that ocean made him seasick. The faint grimace, the lowered lids, seemed to be a suppression of gastric distress. Like me, Sloane thought. Korea. With his entry into this country he had begun the ordeal that would lead him to his manhood, or death—or both. Everything that had gone before—his decision to be a

doctor, medical school, surgical training—had taken place in a kind of nursery. He had been called Doctor there, had got ten married, performed operations, delivered babies, but he had only been dressed in his father’s clothesplayinggrown up,playingdoctor. “Why do you want to be a doctor?” the chairman of the admissions committee had asked him. Sloane had looked at the center of his polkadot tie, the little knot like the head of a kingpin in the man’s neck which, if pulled, would cause that crewcut, razorlipped, smalleyed head to roll across the table like the yield of a guillotine. Who would wear such a tie at a time like this? Or such a ridiculous white mustache, pencil thin? With a straight face he had said, “I find the material interesting.” He had calculated it well in advance, knowing they would be looking for the slightest sign of frailty, softness, pity. He wouldn’t be caught there. Nor could he have told the simple truth. “To swim in the very stream, sir, not walk alongside of it.” No, he knew who they wanted him to be. Pure objective. Man of science. No faggotry. Be crisp and let them see you in a laboratory titrating body fluids,notholding a hand, help ing mankind, anchoring a heart to courage. No wit either. Risk being a bit of a bore. “I find the material interesting.” And he was accepted. He had crossed the water on a troop transport along with twelve other doctors and the backbone of Medical Company 102 of the Seventh Division Artillery. From Japan it was eastward until there was no more east. They had docked at midnight, were unloaded at Pusan by three in the morning. It was January and cold in the darkness of an anemic moon with flashlights curtly waving them on to a comfortless beginning. Loaded into the open back of a twoton truck with thirty others of his kind, he was treated to his first Korean roads, so pitted and rutted as to be felt in every cell. Pressed close together, the men in the truck did not huddle for warmth, they did not even talk. It was a sober enactment

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