A reluctant biographer becomes engrossed in the life of South Korean novelist Bak Bugil and I guarantee you will too. This is not an easy read as it includes not only the thoughts of the unnamed writer but also his interviews with Bak and excerpts from Bak's novels and autobiographical writings (one of which is named 'The Reverse Side of Life!). The effort to keep up with Lee is well worthwhile though: as long as you remember that his novelist's motto is 'expose in order to conceal' so that when he writes of himself as Oedipus or compares himself to a Dostoyevskyan hero can the reader believe it?
