rv hosteller 2- seawards

                 1. Seawards

    

 ? where to attach it?

                                      2.

 

 

What he wrote in poetic prose was inseparably interwoven with the inspiration

which came from his journey. He made backpack travels alone across oceans

to cities. He did it, not for the journey's own sake, but for the purpose of writing.

A city he visited, with no relations with writing subjects, could not captivated him,

in spite of its traditional peculiarity or cultural attractions, This was similar

to the case of Monet's journey to Venice. During his stay in Venice,

The French impressionist painter tried to research for places for

the subject matter for his painting. He was indifferent to anything but

painting.

 

There is a book in his study which he has kept for 20 years and more.

He bought it by an exit of subway in London in 1990, which was laid

on the roadside stand. It is 'Café Society'-Bohemian life from Swift

to Bob Dylan-' by Steve Bradshaw, a radio program writer in London.

He translated it into Korean and published the Korean version. 

He is happy reflecting on the day and nights when he wrestled with

the book.He loved Cafe Society, a collection of literary essays

on artists and café life. There has remained in his memory a phrase,

below, in the book, with its meaning not easily understood for a while:

 

"The cabalistic spirit is the true destination. Plotting doubles his resources,

enlarge his faculties. Compare the tone of a formal social gathering, its moral,

stilted, languishing jargon, with the tone of these same people united in a cabal;

they will appear transformed to you ; you will admire their terseness, their animation,

the quick play of ideas, the alertness of action, of decision....."

 

And after encountering a passage below in the book ,he came to love it more.

It was quoted it from  a diary of an American traveler who loved cafes in Paris: 

 

"Ever since I have come to New York, I realized even more the value and beauty

of café life.The home and studio were private. No-one visited during the day.

The day was preserved for work. Very often we did not even know

where an artist lived or worked. But one was sure never to be lonely ,

for in the evening , after work, one could always walk into certain cafes and

find friends gathered there. There was an element of surprise.

One never who would be there , or who would come with a new friend, a visitor,

or a disciple. If there were a party somewhere, one would hear about it at the café,

and would go in a group. Or if a need of intimate talk was felt ,one left the group

and walked to some small, unknown café. It was unplanned ,free, casual.

It was not difficult to meet an artist one admired. one sat at the café

with a group of friends. Sooner or later someone would introduce one to the other

and the groups would mingle."

 

​On reading Cafe Society, he whispered to himself:

 I want to know how I can write.

 Do you love words, sentences?

 Yes, I love words,
 I love writtenｅxpressions in sentences more than anything else.
I wish to write. A word on the paper is much more significant

than one hundred ideas in your mind.

Let a word grow by itself only on the paper.

You had better let your ideas be transformed into words and sentences 

on the paper.You can do it because you love sentences.
To write is to transform into words what is floating in you.

 

 You had better catch something personal about yourself

by writing it on the paper.

Let others write about other things on social and political affairs.

 

Most of all he added a postscript written by himself to its Korean version ,

rather as a personal essay of his own than as an impression of the original book,

On reflection the postscript turned out a meaningful practice for the long process

of his writing. For, with it a starting point, he began to write what to express.

He had a ardent hope of getting hold of two visions lingering about

in his mind's eye by writing them on the paper. One of the two was

the little sea lost In his boyhood.