CH5 - Simon Carver

Ronald Reagan. 

The 40th President of the United States. 

He won the presidential election held in November 1980, ousting Democratic President Jimmy Carter and planting the Republican flag in the White House. 

He pursued an aggressive foreign policy based on strength, seemingly to compensate for America's past mistakes, and many Americans were thrilled by his staunch anti-communism. 

He led neoliberalism along with UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and significantly contributed to the end of the Cold War. 

In the future I knew, many Americans still remembered him as the great president of the 1980s who restored the plummeting pride of America. 

I wanted to evaluate Reagan this way: 

'Not without faults, but certainly a popular president.' 

Competing for the top spots in popularity rankings among U.S. presidents with John F. Kennedy. 

Due to various diplomatic and economic failures of the incumbent President Jimmy Carter, everyone expected Reagan's election. However, the Democratic Party did not step back easily. 

The Los Angeles Times did not officially endorse Carter but clearly wrote biased articles. I wasn't much interested in politics, but I agreed with this statement: elections are about calming fervent supporters and gathering moderate votes. 

However, the actions of the Los Angeles Times essentially caused the Carter administration to lose support. 

'They overdid their defence.' 

The counterbalance that emerged was Torrance New Media.

They continued to show support for Reagan, but the issue was the already large public support for Reagan. 

Residents of California cancelled subscriptions to the Los Angeles Times, which seemed to collude with the Carter administration and moved to Torrance New Media. 

Choosing Torrance New Media as my debut venue was a highly rational decision. 

'After all, a newspaper column is just a side dish.' 

In the case of genre fiction magazines, they are naturally bought by readers interested in that magazine. 

But newspapers were different. 

Those who subscribe to newspapers might skim the fiction in the cultural section if they have time after reading other articles. 

Therefore, the size of the newspaper mattered. 

The more subscribers a newspaper had, the more people would read the novels published in the cultural section. 

In other words, the more fun people found my novel, the more likely it was to spread by word of mouth. 

'Now that I've returned to the past, I must use everything I can.' 

Once I had decided where to try serializing, all that was left was to write the novel. 

I decided to write my debut work showing the colours of my cultural sphere, East Asia, which was both atonement and a challenge for the compromises I hadn't made in my previous life. 

While continuing my ordinary sixteen-year-old life after returning to the 1980s, I naturally came up with an idea and gradually developed it into a horror novel. 

I chose horror as the genre for several reasons, but one was to capture the essence of "East Asia" while appealing to readers of various races living in this era. 

American novelist and racist H.P. Lovecraft once said, 

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

Throughout his life, he never tried to understand other races, instead treating them as unknown entities. He unravelled his paranoid fears to create a grand worldview known as the Cthulhu Mythos, thereby establishing himself as the father of the cosmic horror genre. The general American sentiment towards the cultural region known as East Asia perfectly matched his perspective. At the current time, their perception of East Asians is divided into three main categories.

One was a physical image. To their eyes, small eyes or yellow faces, etc.

Another was a cultural image represented by Bruce Lee or the films of director Akira Kurosawa. To them, the East was a world that still retained its ancient traditions. Indeed, Koreans to other East Asians, showed that they followed the traditions of their homelands even after immigrating to America.

The last one was a modern image created through jobs like running laundromats or markets. All these combined, Americans saw East Asians as people with slanted eyes who stuck together and diligently ran laundromats. Of course, this was not everything.

I planned to bring up the cultural image among these. Yin and Yang, mysterious ritualistic ceremonies, and the belief that one's ancestors look after them. All of this appeared as 'the unknown' to the average modern American.

If we stop here, we create a 'Fu Manchu,' infused with excellent racist nuances. However, I certainly did not intend to stop there. I planned to draw readers in by including the colours of the East I knew and experienced, while also adding a character known as 'me' to it.

A second-generation immigrant. Never having visited the land of their ancestors, raised amidst Eastern culture, but with thoughts nearly identical to the average American. I would make such a character the protagonist to engage the readers.

All these thoughts were momentarily set aside as I seriously began to plan the writing. Such thematic consciousness in genre fiction was, likewise, just an adjunct.

'Ultimately, it has to be entertaining.' 

I recalled the 'unknown' I had seen and experienced. Students who were wary of each other. The feelings when becoming the weakest among them and being left alone. The incomprehensible hymns I heard while attending a Korean church with my mother. My ears hurt and I was confused. It was a slight emotion, but I amplified it.

And the people I met when I arrived at the Korean church. 

'Until the time I attended the service.' 

I viewed the Korean church strictly from the perspective of an 'outsider.' It was possible. This might have been because I could think differently, thanks to something.

I, who had returned from a far future, found the Korean church awkward at this time. I felt I could not fit in. I thought they were different from me. To me, they seemed like characters in a ridiculous puppet show.

'What if I hadn't gone there of my own will?'

Who could be the person who forced that upon me? There was obviously only one person. 

My mother, Jin Soon-bok. 

Of course, there was no bad blood between my mother and me. 

The reason I went to the Korean church was for her because I wanted to support her determination to persevere in the Korean community. 

Despite this, I greatly amplified some small emotions within me.

'What if my mother had forced me to go to church, and what if that church was quite twisted? Or no, what if it was just my mother who was twisted?' 

Various possibilities were envisioned, and among them, I chose the most appealing material. 

Like a blacksmith hammering iron in a forge, I wrote my novel. 

Emotions, small at times and magnified at others, were forged into a 'sword.'

I quietly smiled. 'Interesting.'

A five-part novel series, each part consisting of 500 words. 

I laughed throughout the planning and writing process. 

To an author, a novel was a sword, a tool to fight the world. 

However, if not used properly, that sword could only end up stabbing oneself. 

The self is denied, and the author gets wounded. 

'I had been like that.'

In my past life, the novel, which was a tool for revealing oneself, ended up being used for compromising with reality. 

Disappointed in myself, I was fortunate to have another chance. 

Wealth, fame, and self—I methodically forged a sword to gain all these things.

*******

Torrance, located right next to Los Angeles, was like the moon to a city. 

Newspaper journalist Simon Carver usually explained it that way. 

It wasn't a story told with any particular romance. 

The city had a population of 120,000, which, compared to Los Angeles's 3 million, he thought was about the size difference between the Earth and the moon.

'Torrance New Media,' published in such a region, was a politically right-leaning newspaper, much smaller in scale compared to the centrist-left, giant newspaper company, the Los Angeles Times. 

Perhaps it is still alive today because it had taken a politically opposing position.

The culture section in such a newspaper was kind of like popcorn. 

Not the popcorn of movie theatres, but the popcorn of a course meal. 

Someone might eat it if they weren't full enough, especially lately. 

The presidential election in November was just around the corner.

Regardless of individual journalists' political leanings, Torrance New Media harshly criticized the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter in an effort to maximize newspaper sales, while attempting to contribute even slightly to the victory of Republican candidate Ronald Reagan.

Simon thought it was still just 'Torrance New Media,' but the boss thought differently. 

In one of the three regular meetings held daily, particularly the morning meeting, he applied absurd logic to his journalists: 'Reagan was once the Governor of California, so if he becomes President, he'll look out for Torrance New Media who helped him!' and demanded fighting spirit from them.

The journalists each responded like this:

"Reagan is already super popular. You've seen how Carter screwed up."

"Why don't we join forces with the Los Angeles Times instead?"

"I heard the LA Times is planning to select their newspaper colour soon."

"Wow, really? I should subscribe to the LA Times too."

These were words situated somewhere between defeatism and nihilism.

Hearing this, the boss shivered his divided moustache and shouted,

"Go out and dig up something to hit the Democrats with!! A sex scandal! A drug scandal! Even if it's about Jimmy Carter's dog getting the neighbour's dog pregnant, it's fine!"

That's how the long meeting ended.

Simon Carver, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the meeting room, leisurely drew two cups of coffee from a machine bought with company money, gave one to Miss Brown in accounting, chatted for a while, and then returned to his desk.

"Pff."

And he sighed.

Torrance is a small city, and within it, a small newspaper. In it, he was someone politically sidelined, just checking and proofreading writers' manuscripts and passing them on to the typesetter in time every day.

Could he really call himself a journalist?

He wasn't ambitious about journalism, but it was boring.

"It's not like I have the guts to engage in political fights."

Simon knew his limits well.

If it weren't for the 'side income' from passing some decent manuscripts to a nearby publisher, he would have gone mad long ago with the meager journalist salary.

He thought about changing the game with a big hit work but was a realistic journalist who couldn't actively step forward. That was Simon Carver.

He looked out the window.

Torrance New Media was located in the largest building in this small city. That was somewhat comforting. He might not know the vastness of the sea from this narrow well, but he could live looking at the beautiful stars.

Sipping his coffee and spending the morning, Simon checked the manuscripts that arrived via fax.

"Shit."

He frowned.

The manuscript for 'Golden Quest' hadn't arrived yet.

He was already worried because there was only one episode left in reserve, and now a real problem had occurred.

Simon immediately returned to his desk and called Andrew Smith, a writer living in Torrance.

Tring, tring.

[Hello?]

"Ah, Mr. Smith. This is Simon Carver. Is it a good time to talk?"

[…Mr. Smith isn't here right now.]

"But you are Mr. Smith."

[No, I'm his son.]

"You have a son who's two years old."

[Damn it.]

"When will you deliver the manuscript?"

[It's almost done.]

"When exactly? We've used up all our reserves. It's been 10 days since you haven't submitted a manuscript."

'Golden Quest' is a novel about an ordinary protagonist who one day discovers a map drawn on his adventurer grandfather's glasses and sets off on an adventure to find gold. It was planned to conclude in 25 episodes and was approaching its climax, but Andrew was making no progress.

Simon spoke calmly.

"Is there any problem?"

As the sole journalist responsible for the culture section, Simon also had the role of managing writers. Among his headaches, the most troublesome was dealing with situations like this where progress on manuscripts was stalled.

[…the protagonist eventually finds the gold after a battle with the Indians, right?]

"That's right."

[And falls in love with an Indian woman.]

"It's a great story."

[But I'm wondering if gold as the final reward of the quest makes for a good ending. Considering all the events the protagonist has gone through and his actions up to this point, it seems better to gain a greater 'lesson' than just material wealth at the end, but I'm struggling with how to develop that.]

Simon muttered 'Here we go.'

Wanting to do something but lacking good writers. Simon, placed in such a situation, discovered an envelope on his desk that seemed to have been there for who knows how long.

A letter from 'Shin Han' in Los Angeles.

At that moment, he did not know that the contents of this letter would greatly change his career as a journalist.