Trees on a Slope by Hwang Sun-Won

A novel about the Korean War in two parts. The first part follows soldier Tong-Ho and his two comrades Hyun-tae and Yun-gu in the midst of the Korean War. Tong-ho tries to retain his innocence through the brutality of the war. While Hyun-tae and Yun-gu frequent prostitutes, Hyun-tae stays back and repeatedly returns to memories of Sugi, the woman he loves. He is unfit for war--nicknamed "the Poet"--he is passive and "feminine" while Hyun-tae is ruthless and in his element as a soldier. (Hwang writes in the hint of a homosexual relationship between the two.) The first and only murder of an individual--I want to distinguish this from an unfeeling massacre of a nameless crowd--occurs when Hyun-tae does away with a woman who stays behind in her village with her baby while the villagers had already fled.

The novel occurs through a series of episodes, and through their encounters with the trio, Hwang introduces a set of affecting and memorable portraits of men and women in the thick of the absurd war. Tong-ho changes as the war goes on; he becomes defiled and takes his own life, overwhelmed by the contradictions of war. "Are we the victims or the victimizers?" he asks.

The war ends and part two begins. How do soldiers adjust back to civilian life? I read this part with 오발탄 (Aimless Bullet), a classic work of Korean cinema about the same period, in mind. There is a sense of misalignment between soldiers and a stagnant Korean society. Trees on a Slope ends with a pregnancy, but this is one without the hopes of a separation from the traumatic past.

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