Korean Literature Review – Three Days in That Autumn
The opening pages of Pak Wanseo’s Three Days in That Autumn offer up an elaborate description of a chair that has sat in the same corner of the narrator’s gynecology surgery for the better part of thirty years. A relic of the abandoned photographer’s studio that had occupied the space prior to the War, the chair has somehow survived numerous renovations and the obvious distain of its de facto owner. Though garish in the extreme, unsightliness alone cannot account for its prominence in these early pages. Clearly the chair represents something else. That something, we later learn, is none other than the narrator’s tormented soul.
As a young female physician (unaccompanied by either father or husband), the narrator’s arrival in a shabby district on the outskirts of Seoul raises more than a few eyebrows. Indeed, the doctor immediately falls beneath the scrutiny of her new neighbors – a scrutiny that only intensifies when she declares that her practice is to be a ‘woman’s clinic’. As we come to discover, ‘woman’s clinic’ is medical parlance for the type of surgery that specializes in abortions and the treatment of STDs.
As the tale progresses, it comes to light that a deep and lasting trauma resides in the doctor’s past. Like many of the clients who arrive at her clinic, she, too, endured a violent rape that saddled her with an unwanted pregnancy. Despite her intention to perform terminations for women who find themselves in a similar position, her first call is to oversee the delivery of her landlord’s grandson. What ought to be a joyous event is deemed a scandal by virtue of the fact that the landlord’s daughter is unmarried. Before departing, the doctor is persuaded to consent to a scheme that will allow her landlord to pass the child off as a foundling he’s agreed to adopt.
For much of the book, this event seems little more than an aside in a narrative dedicated to the slow unveiling of the doctor’s misery. However, its true stature comes to the fore later on when, in a moment of insight, the doctor sees the path taken by the landlord’s daughter as a life-affirming alternative to her own. As her retirement approaches, the doctor is overcome by a desire to once again deliver a healthy, living baby. Her wish appears to have been granted when, on the final day of her practice, a heavily pregnant young woman arrives looking for assistance. Redemption, however, proves elusive, and the ensuing events serve as a powerful reminder that life is notoriously stingy when it comes to doling out second chances.
Much like the portrait in The Picture of Dorian Gray, the ancient photographer’s chair reflects the condition of the narrator’s soul. While once a bright forest green, the velvet upholstery has long since faded to grey. The doctor realizes, too late, that her decision to renounce a normal emotional life has insulated her not only from pain but also from hope and joy.