회화적 추상과 소설의 형식 - 최인훈의 <하늘의 다리> -

Abstract

This study presents Legs in the Sky, a medium-length novel by Choi In-hoon, reread from the perspective of "novel theory written with novels." Choi exhibits the typical features of a kind of meta-narrative writing, analytically reflecting upon the definition of novel and creating a story through constant theoretical searches for literature while writing one. Legs in the Sky is especially noteworthy, intensively revealing his fierce consciousness of problems and logic regarding the ways literature and art exist. Choi explores if pictorial abstraction can be a form of novels by comparing the images of visual hallucinations of "legs in the sky" with Cezanne's "apple" paintings. In his paintings, Cezanne makes the depth and nature of "actual presence" of objects abstract, graduating from realism that paints objects in the way of reproduction. Choi understood novels from the perspective of semi-realistic "fantasy," in which sense his novel theory shares similar veins with Cezanne's paintings. However, Legs in the Sky shows a converting perception that novels should be implemented in the context of reality that leads to historical imagination instead of subjective fantasy or pictorial abstraction. What is worth noting here is that Choi's thinking of historical philosophy. Emphasizing the definite need to restore the past history that has been lost and provide explanations about it from the viewpoint of civilization criticism, he reaches a self-reflective perception that exploring history between "primitive state" and "civilization" should be the form and content of novels. That is the ultimate message he sends to himself through Legs in the Sky that is his "novel theory written with novels."