The idea came to me while I w...

The idea came to me while I was going through my divorce.
I was forty-seven and overweight. I had no child who would occupy my lone, silent days. I wasn‘t one of those independent modern women who decided not to have babies early on. I wanted to have one but my husband couldn‘t - due to his oligospermia, he told me. I wanted to try IVF treatment but he refused, saying the whole process felt too demeaning to him. I was furious later when I learned that he had already signed up to a famous fertility clinic in Gangnam with that new girl, twelve years his junior, a month before our divorce was finalized. For weeks I had the occasional dream of hammering him to death. In reality, of course, I possessed neither the courage nor the penchant for violence to do it. Yet I did imagine myself bursting into his office in Gwanghwamun,
like an angry ajumma in Korean Morning Drama might do to attack her cheating husband, hands busy filling the air with leaflets that detail his treacherous deeds, all the while shouting the list of his sins in front of his coworkers, who would ostracize him for what he‘d done. Of course I never executed this fantasy: submitting to such a hysterical course of action would be too demeaning to my dignity. Entertaining the thought of it, though, was quite thrilling. - P2

˝You got blood all over your ...

"You got blood all over your arse." - P24

She had taken off her shoes to walk on the window carpet. You could see the rosy plump cushions of her heels through her stockings, and when she stretched you saw the back of her knee through the slit in her skirt. Above that was a wide but shapely behind and the line of her panties or girdle. - P25

Stockings and underwear, even clean female underwear, had a faint, private smell that was both appealing and disgusting. - P25

Words that were once as pleasant to hear as the tinkle of dimes and nickels had now turned slyly shaming. - P26

A weight hitting dark water, far down. - P26

Colonel Box would be there—in fact, they could already hear the wheeze he made, the long-drawn-out aftereffects of his asthmatic laughter. - P26

Run the gauntlet. - P27

"GLOMERULONEPHRITIS," Enid wrote in her notebook. - P31

The fact was that Mrs. Quinn’s kidneys were failing, and nothing could be done about it. Her kidneys were drying up and turning into hard and useless granular lumps. Her urine at present was scanty and had a smoky look, and the smell that came out on her breath and through her skin was acrid and ominous. And there was another, fainter smell, like rotted fruit, that seemed to Enid related to the pale-lavender-brown stains appearing on her body. Her legs twitched in spasms of sudden pain and her skin was subject to a violent itching, so that Enid had to rub her with ice. She wrapped the ice in towels and pressed the packs to the spots in torment. - P31

Her name was Mrs. Green. Olive Green. (It had never occurred to her how that would sound, she said, until she got married and all of a sudden everybody was laughing at it.) - P31

[오늘의 한문장] 검은 사슴

그녀는 햇빛과 정을 통했다.
달아오른 옥상 한가운데 웅크려앉은 의선이 햇빛과 정을 통하는 것을 명윤은 잠자코 바라보고 있었다. 명윤이 책상다리를 하고 앉은 곳은 나지막한 콘크리트 난간이 만들어준 옹색한 응달로, 그 다세대 건물의 삼십오 평 옥상에서 햇빛을 피할 수 있는 유일한 곳이었다.

-알라딘 eBook <검은 사슴> (한강 지음) 중에서 - P33

‘Sister’, Yeong-hye said, her...

‘Sister’, Yeong-hye said, her voice low and calm as if intending to comfort her. Yeong-hye‘s old black sweater gave off the faint scent of mothballs. When In-hye didn‘t answer, Yeong-hye whispered one more time. ‘Sister... all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters.‘ - P144

She raises her head again. The ambulance is rounding the last bend in the road, leaving Mount Ch‘ukseong. She sees a black bird flying up towards the dark clouds. The summer sunlight dazzles her eyes, makes them sting, and her gaze cannot follow the bird‘s flight any more.
Quietly, she breathes in. The trees by the side of the road are blazing, green fire undulating like the rippling flanks of a massive animal, wild and savage. In-hye stares fiercely at the trees. As if waiting for an answer. As if protesting against something. The look in her eyes is dark and insistent. - P183

언니. ・・・・・・ 세상의 나무들은 모두 형제 같아.

언니. ・・・・・・ 세상의 나무들은 모두 형제 같아. - P175

언니.
영혜의 낡은 검은 스웨터에서 희미한 나프탈렌 냄새가 났다.
그녀가 대답하지 않자, 영혜는 한번 더 언니, 하고 속삭였다.
언니....... 세상의 나무들은 모두 형제 같아. - P175

꿈속에선, 꿈이 전부인 것 같잖아. 하지만 깨고 나면 그게 전부가 아니란 걸 알지...... 그러니까, 언젠가 우리가 깨어나면, 그때는......
그녀는 고개를 든다. 구급차는 축성산을 벗어나는 마지막 굽잇길을 달려나가고 있다. 솔개로 보이는 검은 새가 먹구름장을 향해 날아오르는 것이 보인다. 쏘는 듯한 여름햇살이 눈을 찔러, 그녀의 시선은 그 날갯짓을 더 따라가지 못한다.
조용히, 그녀는 숨을 들이마신다. 활활 타오르는 도로변의 나무들을, 무수한 짐승들처럼 몸을 일으켜 일렁이는 초록빛의 불꽃들을 쏘아본다. 대답을 기다리듯, 아니, 무엇인가에 항의하듯 그녀의 눈길은 어둡고 끈질기다. - P221

마치 위로하듯 평온하고 낮은 목소리로 영혜는 그녀를 불렀다.
언니.
영혜의 낡은 검은 스웨터에서 희미한 나프탈렌 냄새가 났다.
그녀가 대답하지 않자, 영혜는 한번 더 언니, 하고 속삭였다.
언니.. 세상의 나무들은 모두 형제 같아. - P175