초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Hong Ying has received mixed reviews from critics on her 1999 novel, K whether it is an art work or pornographic novel. The aim of this paper is to examine the artistic nature of K based on valid criteria for a novel to be artistic. The Arabian Nights, a masterpiece fulfills several requirements to be an art work while using the motif of sexuality as an axis along with the motif of storytelling. Before Queen Scheherazade tells King Shahryar a story, they always make love. There are one thousand tales framed in the novel that Scheherazade presents to the king. Its author employs the motif of storytelling around the motif of sexuality into a piece of art. Hong Ying’s K shares similar artistic traits to The Arabian Nights where she uses the motif of sexuality along with the motifs of loneliness and storytelling to make it artistic. It is also a frame story where Julian and Lin serve as an author and a reader to each other. Hong Ying narrates the novel through an unfamiliar western man to achieve ‘defamiliarization’ and keeps her aesthetic distance from her characters in the novel. These literary attributes transcend K from a mere pornography to a work of artistry.
