This afternoon, the publisher’s lawyer told me that the contract you signed allowed only the parties to the contract to exercise its rights. Since the publishers have died, the contract is now terminated. However, for works already published, the heirs can continue to exercise the rights. They will probably notify you of this in writing. Still, I thought you should know beforehand, in case there is something you need to decide regarding the proposal from the publisher you mentioned.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
Grandes hurriedly drew on his cigarette, threw the butt to the ground, gave a gentle smile, and stood up. Then he tapped my shoulder with his palm and walked away toward Princesa Street.
“Detective?” I called.
Grandes stopped and turned around.
“Are you perhaps thinking…”
The detective showed a weary smile.
“Be careful, Martin.”
(The Angel’s Game, p. 265)
When I read novels, scenes like this often appear. They come up frequently, whether in recent novels or older ones. When I read scenes that pass by with something subtly hinted, I feel as if I am simply moving on without knowing what they mean. A weary smile? Be careful? I am not saying these parts are wrong. I am saying that when I read them, I do not really know what they are trying to imply. It seems as if the writer is trying to create a meaningful atmosphere, but it does not feel meaningful to me at all. I only wonder what was said in such a meaningful way. So I pretend not to know and keep reading, and later think, “So that was what it meant.”
Eventually it appears later anyway, but if such a part was meant to plant foreshadowing, then for me that foreshadowing is practically nonexistent. I used to think I probably did not understand because I had not read enough of the book yet, that there must be implicit rules shared among novels, and that someday, once I knew the cliches of foreshadowing, it would become easier to understand. But even now, past forty, I still do not know. Even in the passage quoted above, I cannot tell whether the detective says it with goodwill or as a warning. A weary smile. It is not as if one can gather only such passages into a big-data database and analyze them. Rather, if a rule emerged, writers would keep trying to escape banality by breaking that very rule.
Original Korean article: 숨겨진 의미