The Shadow of Arms

I just finished Suk-young Hwang’s The Shadow of Arms (1985) where the author (a renowned South Korean writer) presents a story of South Korean involvement in the Vietnam War through a Korean army officer who tracks down the black market, the point of convergence for the U.S. army, the Korean army, the South Vietnamese army, and even the NFL. It was really good. I can’t vouch for the English translation (since I haven’t looked at it), but an English translation has been issued by Cornell UP. I had decided to read this and another Korean author’s work on Vietnam (Hyun-suk Bang’s two short stories in Time to Eat Lobsters) after hearing a professor’s talk on comparing the U.S. and Japanese and Korean representations of the Vietnam War a couple of months ago. Finally got around to it this winter. Here’s a good article on Hwang’s novel at Japan Focus if you’re interested. I think the article does a persuasive reading of the (im)possibility of a revolutionary subject in the ascending order of the postwar empire which fosters neocolonialism and subimperialism.

I’m a little heavy hearted since I haven’t yet started on the first chapter yet. But I’ll get around to it. Soon. I’m also grading an undergraduate class on law and literature this semester. It’s taught by someone on my committee and the class partly speaks to my dissertation interests, so it’ll be good.