We read many books in our lives. Most of the novels available in Korea are in Korean, Japanese, and English. Masterpieces that have won several literary awards are sometimes read regardless of the country. As an example of this, Milan Kundera’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ is a Czech novel that is familiar to us. Well-read Czech novels including this book have an history-based background, such as oppression, exile and World War II in the Czech Republic in the 1960s. ‘Too Loud A Solitude’ is a book recommended by a friend who majored in philosophy.
This book is about a man named Hanta. He had been compressing waste paper for 35 years, regarding his labor as vocation. He would sometimes find books written by philosophers and appreciate its meaning. Later, after his retirement, he was planning to buy the compressors he would use to compress the books he thought were valuable at home. The warden was displeased because Hanta lacks efficiency thinking about other things. His daily life changed a lot when he saw a new compressor in the city of Boovni. Boovni aims to expedite the compressing process without thinking about the value of the book. Hanta was shocked that had had to agonize over his work. He was once again scolded by the warden and worked mechanically, ignoring the shining books like any other city workers. However, he felt skeptical about himself, conflicts with his beliefs, and then crushes himself into a compressor and chooses to commit suicide.
Hanta and workers first reminded me of ‘the Modern Times.’, which is a black-and-white film starring Charlie Chaplin, showing mechanized laborers during the industrialization period. Such a directing as if the worker had become a part of the clockwork machine seems to overlap with the workers in the novel. On the other hand, Hanta seeks value and happiness in his work like a traditional craftsman. Being unable to adapt to industrialization, Hanta is overthrown. It makes me wary about what kind of life I should live in. That life is obsessed with mechanical work. We have to be alert the humanity buried by mechanical work while being the minority when not adapting to such a trend.
Life in POSTECH only shows how society, schools, and the surrounding environment let students become scientists, developers, or engineers. When I talk about the career with my friends, most of them answer “get a job in the industry,” and “go to graduate school and get a degree.” I entered university and now I am in my sophomore year. After a little over two years of school life, I had a lot of work and met various people, and I was thinking about my career and work. Isn’t my dream of becoming a researcher going along the path that the school guides me along with the flow of my surroundings? When I realized this, my usual school life felt a little strange.
Perception leads to change. I tried to find things that I could do with my will in school life. I joined the student education council (SCOPE) and started studying the painting and design. Since there is still a lot of time left before graduation, I want to take advantage of various opportunities such as taking a gap year and studying abroad for a short time to experience. Books can also make life a difference by giving any lessons like this. I hope the people who will read this column will have a turning point in their lives reading various books as well.
