... and at last fall asleep. This was his hope; but in the meantime there was a languid battle with insomnia and inordinate time that he, from his "exalt... ...d inordinate time that he, from his "exalted tomb," disdainfully sullied. A god watching the cookie wrappers that he was emptying into his mouth from... ...ng into his mouth from the upper coffin glided downward like the leaves of a deciduous tree; he was remembering happier times and in this confined spa... ...window at the tussling shadows of trees and their counterparts, the light, on the rich verdant fields and on the rough and uneven wooden strips of the... ...ar car he was in would hit those coupled metallic bumps of the rails while on this incessant trip to Nongkhai, moving faster than both the train and t... ...or numb as he was he had that much awareness lying there with head propped on a pillow. The crumbs on the blanket and the flimsy mat were merely a nom... ...e was not all that different from the previous night when with beer in his system and insecurity at being chased by the 4 and 0 which were almost as t... ...atter how many insects he trod on, or how many micro- organisms his immune system killed while he was doing so. Telling the dog to stay, he went a kil... ...ing to elude predators. The whole thing seemed an ineffective and barbaric system of incongruous, animate bits seeking some means to barely coexist, a...

...This is the continuation of Nawin's story. Now a famous prostitute painter suffering a midlife crisis, he abandons supercilious makings of wealth for a train trip ride to Laos where he repudiates and ventures onto something new...

... Book One: Sang Huin "It is probable, then, that if a man should arrive in our city, so clever as to be able to assume a... ...assume any character and imitate any object, and should propose to make a public display of his talents and his productions, we shall pay hi... ...splay of his talents and his productions, we shall pay him reverence as a sacred, admirable, and charming personage, but we shall tell him ... ... woman and would not let it go. After five minutes of waiting alone, sitting on those steps and letting a cigarette dangle limp in a frown, Sang Huin ... ...was God. It was definitely something that was not wanted. It stayed with him on the bus. On a ride from the Nambu Bus Terminal to Chongju, Sang Huin's... ...had swung a golf club into her eye and the blood had splattered everywhere. On that day, as a boy, he had thought nothing could happen worse than tha... ... in a sense. If he had been less temerarious perhaps to not have the support system of this whole chain--family, city, state, nation, and racial ident... ...t was to follow his former friend to the ends of the earth on the public bus system and to harass him in the bus by making him feel miserable for his ... ...d heat exhaustion a week earlier and had to be put on an IV to replenish his system. He pulled out some bottled water and crackers for countering any ...

...This work is about a Korean American teaching in his homeland, feeling lost in Korean culture and that his own life is an outlier to this conservative society. As he lives there, making his living as an English teacher, he writes of Gabriele, ...