I will read the article to you. Cover Story The Odyssey of Books Part 1 – Time Buried in Books Books from different eras, different countries, written by different authors, with different contents arrived in Korea through different paths, carrying long and ancient stories. Books that lived together in ‘one place’ without being conscious of each other for a long time met for the first time last summer in a worn and faded state. Senior Reporter Kim Jin-soo [email protected] Stories that do not fall apart have no stories to spill. The stories of human time are imprinted with the stories of folding, tearing, and leaving marks on paper that turn into trees, books, and garbage that are discarded. These stories, from creation to deletion, cannot be read in the digital library where not a speck of dust settles. When you unfold a piece of paper that breaks even with a slight touch, the stories travel through time and space and pour into the present. We traced the time of ‘paper books’ that are engraved in the body of the author, reader, and era, getting old, fading, and disappearing. It was written three times. The first story began in Milan, Italy, over 530 years ago. ‘Da Vinci’s Notes’ and the Engineer’s Signature “A person drinking, puts down the cup and turns his head towards the person speaking.” Around 1495, a painter was sketching on paper. The Last Supper, a masterpiece of the Renaissance period, was a sketch for the Last Supper, completed in 1498 on the walls of a Milan cathedral, based on a sketch. Twenty-one years later, on May 2, 1519, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) closed his eyes in France. He left behind a will written nine days earlier. The note was addressed to Francesco Melchi. Leonardo da Vinci was the most creative figure that humanity finally gave birth to after overcoming an era where every question fell silent in front of the word ‘God’s will.’ He relied on records for his talent. He produced numerous memos (the current existing volume is over 7,000 pages) by grasping the flash of lightning in his head that asks questions. Ideas that surpass painting, sculpture, architecture, anatomy, botany, geology, optics, astronomy, and aerodynamics unfolded boundlessly. Da Vinci inherited a lifetime of manuscripts, including sketches of the Last Supper and notes, to his student and artistic successor. John Piernak, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, published the first edition of the Da Vinci Notes edited by Edward McCurdy in 1938, and signed the inside cover shortly after the publication. He passed away in 1943. John was born in 1886, the year before the Polish-born Aleks Pernak, who was born in 1886, was born in Russia, Germany, and Austria. These were the times when the Poles were divided and occupied (1772-1918). A year before Aleks was born, the first German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, expelled the Poles from his country’s territory and occupied areas. The Poles who were forcibly emigrated on a large scale (from 1899 to 1931 to the United States alone) flocked to Chicago, the center of the slaughterhouse industry. The Polish immigrants in Chicago supported the slaughter and meat packaging industries. Sometime later, Aleks also crossed to Illinois. He met and married a Polish woman named Anna and had two sons. When the Federal Census Bureau visited in 1940, the Pernak family was living in Detroit, Michigan. Michigan was also one of the major settlement areas for Polish immigrants in the United States. The couple raised their children while running a grocery store that sold meat and vegetables. John, the oldest son, was born the year after World War I began in 1914. He grew up to be an engineer. He graduated from Wayne State University in Michigan with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1939. In 1940, he entered the graduate program at Michigan State University. He also joined the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and was active as a student member. He was 23 years old when McCurdy’s version of the Da Vinci Notes was published. From that year until 1943, at some point, John purchased a book to seek the wisdom of Da Vinci, the original inventor, and inventor, who was a champion of free trade through the ‘Review’ and other works until his death. The Da Vinci Notes, which preserved his dreams, crossed the Pacific for some reason half a century later. The long and ancient story of tangled paths of the painter’s writing and drawing, the editor’s version, and the reader’s short life reached the eastern end of Asia in 1996. It was Korea. From England to Hong Kong, back to the United States, and… One of Da Vinci’s handwritten copies that flowed from Melchi’s son was touched by a bishop, painter, and others’ hands. The last person was Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice. In 1759, when Smith’s property was sold, the existence of this copy also disappeared from official records. The copy disappeared, and 33 years later, in Smith’s country, England, John Boring (1792-1872) was born. That year, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was born, and his book ‘Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation’ was born. Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism and proposer of the panopticon, had a significant influence on Boring’s life. In 1824, when Bentham founded the ‘Westminster Review,’ he appointed Boring as a co-editor. By the time Bentham breathed his last breath in 1832, Boring was the 4th Governor of Hong Kong (appointed in 1854) when Britain was fighting the Second Opium War following the Arrow Incident (1856). John Pernak, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, signed the inside cover of Edward McCurdy’s edited version of the Da Vinci Notes (1938) just after it was published. He passed away in 1943. John’s name appeared in the 50th issue of the Michigan Alumni News published in 1944. He was listed in the ‘Obituary.’ The obituary announced that he passed away on September 3, 1943. The cause of death was not mentioned. He was 28 years old, too young. The Da Vinci Notes, which preserved his dreams, for some reason crossed the Pacific half a century later. The story of the painter’s writing and drawing, the editor’s version, and the reader’s short life reached the eastern end of Asia in 1996. It was Korea. Under the support of the British government, Boring demanded compensation from Qing China for the seizure of ships and approved the bombardment of Guangdong, dissatisfied with the results of the First Opium War (opening of 5 ports).
Then, on January 15, 1857, three months later.
In Hong Kong, hundreds of European residents collapsed with abdominal pain after eating bread baked at the same bakery (‘Essing Bakery’). Arsenic was detected in the bread, and the Chinese owner was arrested on suspicion of poisoning (acquitted at trial). The cause was never fully revealed, but elections were in full swing in Britain. The then Prime Minister (Henry John Temple) used the incident to emphasize the legitimacy of the Second Opium War and ultimately emerged victorious.
Three people died from arsenic poisoning. Boring’s wife was among them. Weakened, his wife breathed her last in September 1858, and Boring himself resigned as governor a year later.
The same year Boring assumed office as Governor of Hong Kong, he published a book in Britain. ‘The decimal system in numbers, coins and accounts’ (untranslated). He was an advocate of the decimal system. In April 1847, he highlighted the advantages of the decimal system in the British Parliament, urging for a revision of currency units. He exuded the belief that the decimal system (officially adopted by the UK in 1971) is the most natural form of measurement for humans, starting from the first sentence of his book.
“Men, women, children, and even the most primitive people in the world have been equipped with a ‘decimal machine’ in the shape of fingers and toes for calculation since childhood.”
A first edition of this book published in London made its way to the United States in someone’s hands. The final destination was the ‘Young Men’s Hebrew Association’ headquartered in New York. The association engraved its acronym (YMHA) inside the cover of the book while placing it on the shelf.
The association was founded two years after Boring’s death (1874). It was established for the purpose of promoting religious, social, and cultural exchanges as well as welfare enhancement within the American Jewish community. In 1900, they built a new building on 92 Lexington Avenue in New York. In 1972, they changed their brand name to ’92NY’ derived from their address and transformed into a large-scale cultural arts center. They hosted readings by famous poets and writers of the time such as T. S. Eliot and Langston Hughes.
In October of last year, 92NY unilaterally canceled an event for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel ‘The Sympathizer’ (adapted into an HBO drama by director Park Chan-wook). The event was set to feature the author, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and the bold writer of ‘Pachinko’, Min Jin Lee. Nguyen’s event was canceled because he signed a statement with 750 other writers urging for a halt to the bombing of Gaza by Israel. Nguyen visited Korea next month after the event was canceled and received the 3rd Bucheon Diaspora Literature Award. In the same year that YMHA changed its name to 92NY, that book by Boring also arrived in Korea.
“Good!… A fairytale-like story!”
Two months after Boring resigned as Governor of Hong Kong (November 24, 1859), Charles Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’. Evolutionary theory was a revolutionary idea that pulled the truth of creationism, considered as ‘truth’, down to the level of ‘myth’ by a ‘graduate theologian (1831) from Christ’s College, Cambridge.’
The theologian Frederick Robert Tennant (1866-1957) also studied and taught at Cambridge. Three years after Darwin’s death (1882), he enrolled in Gonville and Caius College at his university to study physics and biology. From 1913 onwards, he lectured on theology at Trinity College. When Tennant was buried 75 years after Darwin, his tombstone bore traces of Darwin.
“He was an indefatigable explorer of philosophical theology and tried to prove the existence of God through harmony between human and the world.”
Tennant was one of the first scholars to integrate evolutionary theory into a theological context. He viewed evolution not as a product of chance but as part of God’s plan through natural laws, while still affirming Darwin. Tennant published ‘Philosophy of The Sciences’ summarizing his Trinity College lectures in 1932 by the University Press. He wrote, “Theology cannot be independent of knowledge” and “science provides a basis for rational theology.”
A young man (30 years old at the time of publication) in Los Angeles, United States, found and read the first edition of this book. He was a very active reader. Seemingly closer to evolution than Tennant, he underlined passages, expressing agreement or rebuttal.
“Good.”
In response to the sentence “Man is part of nature and a product of universal evolution,” he reacted with a single word. To the next sentence stating, “(The previous sentence is) half-truth,” he added a question mark (?) to express doubt. When Tennant mentioned “discontinuity that cannot be solved by science in our current state of knowledge” and referred to “soul” as a link between disruptions, he wrote only one word. “Fairytale.”
This reader, known as ‘Beuk’ among friends, was Alexander Jonas Shaffer (1902-1981). He was so sharp that he received a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University at the age of 21 (the youngest in the school’s history). Shaffer was a respected pediatrician. His research into widespread malnutrition among urban children in 1968 contributed to the significant expansion of the free lunch program in New York City (published on May 24, 1981 in the ‘Baltimore Sun’).
Spending most of his life in Baltimore, Maryland, he had once worked in Los Angeles, California. During his time there, Shaffer stamped his name and address inside the cover of Tennant’s book. He also affixed a bookmark adorned with a unique drawing. The fate of this book was confirmed in Korea in 1993.
One year after Tennant’s book was published (1932), a monk in Joseon passed away.
It was Heo Gwang (1862-1933), the head priest of Haein Temple. He was a prominent pro-Japanese figure in the Buddhist community during the Japanese colonial period, known for advocating the merger of Korean Buddhism with Japanese Buddhism under the auspices of the pro-Japanese organization ‘Wonjong’ (established in 1908). Referred to as the ‘Yiwan Yong of Buddhism’ and listed in the ‘Pro-Japanese Biographical Dictionary’ and the ‘Report on the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Anti-National Acts.’ He was granted the title of head priest of Haein Temple by the 1911 ‘Temple Order.’ The Japanese controlled Korean Buddhism under the Governor-General’s supervision and consolidated all temples nationwide into ’30 Bonzan’ (designating 30 ‘main temples’ and classifying surrounding temples as ‘branch temples’). Heo Gwang also served as the inaugural Chairman of the 30 Bonzan Head Priests’ Assembly.
‘朝鮮諸宗敎’ (Joseon Religions), listing the Temple Order and the names of the 30 Bonzan head priests, was published in 1922. Compiled by the Japanese official Kilcheon Mun Taerang (Yoshikawa Buntaro) of the Education Bureau, it summarized the religious status of Joseon (mixed with Korean and Chinese characters). Following the impact of the March 1st Movement, the Government-General began to pay attention to religious leaders in Joseon and established a Religious Division within the Education Bureau. ‘Joseon Religions’ provided an overview of the dissemination and teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, Catholicism, and Christianity in Korea, categorizing Cheondoism, Sicheonism, and Daejongism as ‘unique Korean religions.’