[Kim Seong-kon] Plays on words demonstrate the value of literature

Often witty headlines in the media or twisted book titles amuse us with their double meanings and parodies. For example, we can laugh about the funny book title, “Even God is Single, So Stop Giving Me a Hard Time.” Apparently, the witty title implores your family members and relatives not to urge you to marry or ask questions about why you remain single.

Another humorous book title, “Since You Are Leaving Anyway, Take out the Trash,” reflects a woman’s spiteful emotions when her boyfriend or husband breaks up with her. The trash also seems to refer to the leaving man as well. This is quite the opposite of the Korean sentiment beautifully rendered by the poet Kim So-wol’s much-chanted poem, “Azaleas”: “When you leave/ Weary of me/ Without a word I shall gently let you go./ ... I shall gather armfuls of azaleas/And scatter them on your way.”

Recently, Time magazine featured an article on the future of North Korea after the death of Kim Jong-il. It carried a photo of Kim Jong-un saluting his father’s hearse and had the hilarious title, “The Son Also Rises.” The title is, of course, a twist of Hemingway’s famous novel, “The Sun Also Rises,” which the celebrated writer borrowed from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to his place where he arose.”

The title is a nice parody of the North Korean political system of bequeathing the throne from father to son; Kim Jong-un remarkably resembles his deceased but seemingly “immortal” grandfather Kim Il-sung, who is compared to the sun in North Korea. Furthermore, this year North Koreans will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Kim’s birthday nationwide, calling it the Sun Festival.

There are many more clever newspaper headlines and article titles. I remember when a summit talk was held for the reduction of armaments, a newspaper carried the headline: “A Farewell to Arms,” using the title of another one of Hemingway’s popular novels. William Faulkner’s novel, “The Sound and the Fury,” is also frequently used as a title to depict chaotic situations full of sound and fury, such as the activities of national assemblies in underdeveloped countries. Faulkner borrowed the title from “Macbeth” Act V, Scene 5: “Out, out, brief candle!/ Life’s but a walking shadow. . ./ It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing.”

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” too, is frequently used to describe a situation in which an innocent person is unjustly blamed. In this novel, a “mockingbird” symbolizes good people who are alienated due to our prejudices against ethnic minorities, the poor, widows, and those who are different from us. When we see a newspaper or magazine article headline that says, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ therefore, we can understand the underlying meaning.

J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” is another title that journalists and writers are fond of. By “the catcher in the rye,” Salinger meant the protector of innocent, vulnerable children. If someone protects or rescues children from danger, therefore, he can be called “the catcher in the rye.”

There are also parody novels such as “Barry Trotter” or “Bored of the Rings.” The former is Michael Gerber’s parody of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter,” and the latter is a parody of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” written by the founders of National Lampoon, Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney, in 1969. People have also amusingly twisted one of the books in the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Philosophers’ Stone” to “Happy Potter and the Philosophers Stoned,” as well as “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” to “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Victoria’s Secret.”

Another parody novel is “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” written by Seth-Graham Smith and published by Quirk Books in 2009. A parody of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” it mixed Austen’s 1813 classic novel with modern day zombie horror fiction. In the same year, the same publishing company published Ben Winter’s “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters,” which is a parody of Jane Austen’s 1811 novel, “Sense and Sensibility.”

Oftentimes, we can render the present predicament rather metaphorically and humorously, using appropriate book titles or movie titles. Reporting on a California ex-convict who was required to put up a warning sign on his car window, “I’m an ex-sex criminal,” a newspaper released an article on his situation entitled “The Scarlet Letter,” borrowing from the same title of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous novel. Telling the story of someone who had lost everything due to a fire, another newspaper used the famous title, “Gone with the Wind.”

If we are not familiar with classic literature and films, we will end up missing so many insights and connotations. But if we immerse ourselves in celebrated works, life will be much more enriched, not only because of the great works themselves, but because of the various parodies, puns, and jokes we can understand, share and even create ourselves.

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon, a professor of English at Seoul National University, is editor of the literary quarterly “21st Century Literature.” ― Ed.