Nine clouds and an illusion

The Nine Cloud Dream (Kuunmong)
Penguin Classics 2019
Fiction 288 pages
Kim Man-jung
Heinz Insu Fenkl (Editor, Introduction, Translator)

Serious spoiler alert. The cheapest writer’s trick ever is telling a tale and then revealing it to was all a dream. Yet the author gets away with it by using reincarnation to obscure his intention.  Toward the end of the novel he introduces the sage who dreamt he was a butterfly and wakes wondering if he is now a butterfly dreaming it is a sage. One questions what is real and what is illusion. The story is fantastical. A master sends a young monk to Hell and then the reborn monk sets off as a poor scholar. Along the way he finds good luck and meets women he promises to reunite with. Eventually he becomes an adopted prince and takes those nine women as wives and concubines. Then in his mature years he becomes disillusioned and seeks an ancient master for instruction. He must now confront the realization that what appears real is actually illusion.

As the hero woos women with poetry and engages in fantastic feats of warfare and diplomacy the reader eagerly comes along. This rags to riches story entices readers until their “suspension of disbelief” hits the inevitable surprise promised by the title.  This drives home the point that we are all victims of the illusions we experience.

Kim Man-jung’s story, Kuunmong, takes place in Chinese and is written in Chinese. Author, Kim Man-jung himself resided in Korea and was active in the royal court. Some scholars believe the Kuunmong was published in 1789, though other scholars question that date.