This literary work of non-fiction is based on the author's personal journeys alone like the flow of a long river. He journeyed afar sometimes meditating on writing. He journeyed alone to England, France and Germany for the first time since his 40s. Those three countries were familiar to him through books even before he went there.
He was very attracted to the street flamenco performance in Portland for the first time during his trip to the United States and went back to that city. With the sole purpose of meeting a flamenco dancer. Siberia was a place he had always wanted to visit since his youth.
For him, the journey was a source of inspiration and writing began by journeying. In a sense, writing was a kind of journey for him. This creative nonfiction does not have a traditional dramatic novel structure, but consists of the flow of a consistent organic structure. He began by writing for himself. He started to record memories, stories, and items he has heard here or there, and stirred them all together to have a structure of creative non-fiction. Finding his voice, differentiating it from everyone else’s, he wrote his own style down. Little by little he made his own path. He strived to take his own journey into writing, stirred it with himself, and wrote with his unique voice.
This creative nonfiction does not consist of a traditional novel structure, but However, the flow of the entire text is consistent and organic. So, whether you may take it as a creative non-fiction or as a collection of f personal essays. it’s up to you.
It is made up of 7 chapters as a whole. Beginning with Chapter 1 of ‘A bunch of airline tickets to Europe’, ‘Korean song fits Spanish steps’, ‘Flamenco researcher’, ‘Helen dances flamenco in Masan, Korea’, ‘Deep song of Andalusian gypsies’, and ‘Siberian landscapes’. And ‘An inner journey through reading pictures’
Chapter 1 shows a writer’s personal experiences of staying in London, Paris, and Germany, after wandering along the three coasts of Korea, his country. He flies to London, Paris and Germany under only one desire: Journey with literary writing in his mind. He is indifferent to everything else. In Chapter 2, he meets Helen, a dancer in Portland, USA, and participates in her performance. He is deeply fascinated by flamenco.
In Chapter 3, the writer returns to his hometown after journeying to the United States and studies flamenco alone through books and CDs. And he happens to know that a local painter has danced flamenco, so he persuades her to dance flamenco at the GIFT (Gae Chang International Festival Theater held yearly in Korea). In particular, this chapter shows you that Helen flies to Masan, Korea, the author's hometown, to have two flamenco performances. In Chapter 4, the writer journeys to Andalusia, Spain, the birthplace of flamenco. He visits several flamenco cities, such as Granada, Cadiz, Jerez, etc., and gets deeply intoxicated by the sound, dance, and guitar rhythm. In Chapter 5 and 6, he flies to Moscow in order to look at the scenery of Siberia from the train running through the writer's eyes.
Lastly, in Chapter 7, he makes his own inner journey with picture books of modern art. He added here that A few words of advice from Rilke below were an invisible guide for this writing journey. but it's a pity that he can't remember the name of the book: “To write one line of poetry, you have to meet many cities, many people, and many books. And you should be able to recall the night of your journey that vanishes fleetingly with the twinkling stars “
I didn't know how and what to write until I reached my late age. In the meantime, by chance I learned how to write and what to write from painters I had never met. They were the expressionist painter Georges Rouault and the impressionist painter Camille Pissarro. Someone said to Rouault, 'What is art? ' 'Art is an ardent confession,' replied the painter. And someone asked Pissarro, “Why do you paint? He replied, "I paint to heal wounds. To me, writing is a passionate confession. And I write to heal myself. By the way, as for 'inspiration', I pondered what Pacasso said: The light of inspiration comes from far away. I understood the meaning of the word arbitrarily as follows: ‘The light comes when you are absorbed in one thing, that is, when you are indifferent to everything else’