Flamenco Journey to Spain 2

                                      I. Preface

 

 

    *- translator makes a remark-

 

      

 ' Deep Song' in Korean , a book of poetic prose Gohk wrote was published 

in June ,2007 at Seoul, South Korea. It was several months before Gohk

the writer of it, made his one-month trip to Russia. 'Deep song' was almost

the same in content with this book of 'Flamenco Journey to Spain' in English.

In a meaning, it is right to say that half of this literary book is made of

the translation of Deep Song, and the other half his new creative work.

 

Last year in Autumn Gohk made a very important trip to Portland 

to  meet flamenco dancers and a guitarist there for the flamenco

performances which he hoped to put on the stage in his hometown.

But he has not seen since. The reason is that he made a long stay

in seclusion at a seaside hamlet by the coast of the South Sea.

Unfortunately he relapsed into the lung consumption he had suffered

4 years in his twenties. He is now nursing himself at the hamlet.

 

Earlier, he had travelled several times throughout North America

as well as  many cities of  several European nations, expecting to

get  a good way to create imaginative poetic proses , a kind of

literary essay through which he might be proud of himself as a writer.

He once said  to me that whenever he pondered about  it, he was

reminded of the anecdotes of  a writer and a musical composer:

Charles Lamb of Essays of Elia, an English essayist and

Franz Schubert, the world-wide composer of Der Lindenbaum .

 

It is well known that the former, who wanted to write great novels, 

could only be good at his ingenious personal essay style. and

the latter ,who tried in vain to compose grand symphonies , did better

in composing music to lyric songs or pretty string musics.

 

 Singing the pain,

 The pain gets forgotten.

 

Gohk once said that he loved to recite the above part of Solea',

a song form of flamenco, conscious of  a pain in his heart. 

The pain seemed to be something for him never to get free of.

He said that it was what he should keep to himself , sharing with

nobody. So he tried to get it forgotten through his own way,

that is, by writing.

 

 For him to travel was to go beyond the sealine to the remote, exotic lands. He has had a vague yearning to be a traveller getting 'the juice insider of the grape', not a tourist fed only with the 'skin of the grape. He seemed to be often put under an irresistible temptation to drag him out of the humdrum daily routine ,to snatch him away from the comfort and  to separate him from his native language.

 

 

 He would wander alone anywhere far from home, be it Portland, New York, or Paris with no other particular purpose with the exception of his simple desire to be free on the road of the exotic lands. once he stayed in Portland as a house keeper for a hostel. Another time He was tramping around Andalusian cities, particularly in Granada over peeping in the caves of gypsies in Sacromonte, one of the heartland of Gypsy flamenco.

 

 

  Staying  home or free on the road, he was in the habit of murmuring to himself :"Can I write novels?  No. A dramatist ?  No.  If so, what  genre is it where I can do well?" As a personal experience of flamenco, the Spainish Gypsy's culture, this book has such questions hidden between lines.

 

 

 The keynote of this book is made up of the emails which Gohk has exchanged for more than 8 years with Lau, an American flamenco bailaora. So I suggested to Gohk that this book be published as a semi non-fiction with two names of  co-writers on it. 

 

 

 Having the original book in Korean of 'a flamenco story'  published in Seoul Gohk never failed to write in it  his deep gratitude for Lau and her friends in Portland - Mark, Rubina, Marcos, Oscar- saying that without these, the book would not exist.

 

 

 At his request  I, as a translator and  an old friend of his, take the lead in having it published ,by translating the parts in Korean of manuscripts into English , by assorting the emails in his Yahoo mailbox. And sometimes I helped him to pigeonhole data in need.

 

 

 Joining Gohk for this work, I have been caught by a cantaora's word he would often recite alone : 'When I sing as I please, I taste blood in my mouth.'

 

                                                                                                  Acting for Gohk Ma,

 

 

 

                                                                                                    J.    H.    K.