Rave reviews from France for Hot Blooded
"WARM BLOOD" WITHOUT RESTRAINT
By Claire Devarrieux- January 10, 2020 at 5:06 p.m.
The black Busan of Korean Kim Un-su, populated by caïds and small strikes
Beach in Busan, South Korea. Photo Seong Joon Cho. Bloomberg. Getty Images
Two translations gave us an idea of the universe of Korean Kim Un-su. It is true that he did not write so many books, four in all. News from Jab! (Serge Safran, 2018) are populated by poor, surly and insolent boys, who know the taste of humiliation, something that never goes completely. Bad memories of adolescence, absurd or even Kafkaesque situations, existential dead ends: the author's imagination and his violent humor come to the end in Jab! of despair lurking in the background, in the destiny reserved for the characters. Previously, the Aube editions, in 2016, had published the Planners, a detective novel whose web closely resembles that of Sang chaud.This title inaugurates the new house of Pierre Bisiou (the Feathered Serpent having ceased its activities), Matin calme, dedicated to Korean thrillers.
In Planners, assassinations are planned from a library. Members of the parent company, the top secret, the planners, care about their sanity and never open a book. But the hero, one of the boss's two adopted sons, learned to live by reading. The hero is a killer, fanatically attached to a job well done and to the values of the environment. In Warm Blood, as in the Planners, it is about filial respect - in Korea we respect the elders in general - and betrayal, old-fashioned work and new management methods. Young generations are not always steeped in principle. Widespread carnage ensues.
"Temperature".The difference between the two novels is that this time Kim Un-su is directly inspired by his life. This was not the case either in the Placard (Gingko, 2013), which was not a thriller and was closer to the fantastic tone of some news from Jab !. The writer explained this in an interview with Korean Culture, the magazine of the Korean Cultural Center in Paris. He was born in 1972 in Busan, like his hero, Huisu. Warm blood takes place between spring and summer 1993.“The background happened to be the port city in which I grew up, so much so that I lived in my memories all the time of writing this novel. The manuscript was 3,000 pages long. And during these 3,000 pages, I had to stay in this world that I had tried to flee with all my might when I was a kid. I realized it was not such a dreadful place after all. It was a little sad, a little poignant, a little endearing, a little pitiful. Maybe I have just aged? Each sentence reminded me of the exact temperature of these damp alleys. It was an incredible reconciliation with my past. ”
The city of Busan, with the war, increased from 200,000 inhabitants to 4 million. Inside this “sprawling harbor”, Kim Un-su cut out a fictitious district, which he named Guam. As much as the gangs in the other zones, partly made up of foreigners, are in contact with the Russian mafia and the Japanese yakuza for large-scale affairs, as much in Guam, we keep a low profile. Incipit: “In Guam, thugs do not wear pants.” Guam, populated by thugs born in the area, belongs to four or five toothless pensioners who spend their lives drinking beef broth in the bars they own. The one who oversees the port, financial and commercial operations, is called Father Sohn:“Since the businesses in the neighborhood are mostly illegal, we cannot count on the police or the justice system to settle disputes; Father Sohn therefore plays the role of mediator. ” Huisu, 40, is his right arm. It is with him that we negotiate a parasol selling on the beach, and the contents of the wok, chicken or seafood. OK, chicken.
The ambitious suits in suits would like to sprinkle Busan with vodka, because the Chivas is old-fashioned, soju and beer, let's not talk about it. If Huisu, who lives in a hotel and has no future, wants to make a fortune, he can just leave Father Sohn and go into the adult playrooms. Father Sohn, on the other hand, just works on sesame oil and pretends to be Chinese pepper for Korean pepper. A bit of luxury smuggling on occasion. Guam is his kingdom, his dolphins are the reliable Huisu and the harmful nephew that a sister left him before disappearing. He does not touch arms, or drugs:“This business is sweet on the surface, but it's poisonous on the inside. At first it will seem profitable, but it will not last. The little ones will start to cam, incidents will break out here and there and the atmosphere will quickly spoil. ”
Mill.Not only is the atmosphere spoiled in Warm Blood, but it turns into war. "Listen to me carefully," said Father Sohn again, never stingy with maxims. War is dirty, miserable, infamous and cruel. And do you know who loses every time? The one who, like you, seeks to remain elegant. ”Father Sohn has never planted a sashimi knife in anyone's belly. He plays games of go with himself while drinking tea. The dirty work is reserved for Huisu, who tends to delegate but can still get his hands dirty. A small weakness: he no longer eats halibut; these farmed fish are fed with debris passed through the grinder, which sometimes breaks down due to the hair. The corpses we put in do not disappear as quickly as we think.
Who orchestrated the trap into which Huisu, despite his calm and prudence, feels he has fallen? Increasingly bloody, the novel soon forgets the stomach ache of its hero to confront him with fears and desires. Will he have to sacrifice a childhood friend? Does he have the right to a home, a family life? Are aging prostitutes and thugs doomed to misery? Huisu is Korean in his manners, in his deference and the satisfaction of being in his turn a “big brother” who is greeted by bending the bust at right angles. But he joined the international of the characters of black novels, those who resemble writers."Then winter will come. Huisu loves the winter sea. The winter sea does not stick. Without tourists coming and going, the winter sea is a cold, lonely and melancholy state. ”
Claire Devarrieux
Kim Un-su Warm blood Translated from the Korean by Kyungran Choi and Lise Charrin. Calm morning, 470 pp., € 22.