Name: To the Warm Horizon
ISBN: 9781916277144

Jin-young Choi

To the Warm Horizon

shelley

When I woke up in the morning, the brilliant sunlight was quietly lapping away the rain from the previous night.

Even in happy moments, I couldn't scrub away the melancholy that coated me like a second skin or blow away the fog that separated me from the world; I gave vague answers to anyone who asked me anything.

Wherever we settled, we'd live on for the rest of our lives carrying wounds from this road. We may have to accept the fact of our survival not as a miracle but as a heavy burden to bear.

left feeling worse about humanity in general

TO THE WARM HORIZON by Choi Jin-young, trans. by Soje——

‘We must go together. We mustn’t die. This world is hell, so we’re already evil for staying alive, no matter how good we try to be. We must stick together. We must look into each other’s eyes and touch each other and sing and not forget our humanity, not even for a moment.’

Book C/W: r*pe, self-harm, suicide, murder

Looking back at the pandemic, looking at where I stand, the events and numbers slipping like sand … I wonder, how many countless lives do we have on this planet to spare? I am grateful to be alive, but what did my survival cost others? At the beginning of the pandemic, on that March 2020, when all plans were abruptly cancelled after the whisper of the first COVID-19 case in Brighton, it felt as if the world we’d been living in was a cup placed on its lip, sheltered and undisrupted. That spring, my parents had gone through a rough divorce, but before the pandemic started I’d thought everything would at least be salvageable. The world as a cup upturned, shattered. 

In TO THE WARM HORIZON, the five characters — Dori, Jina, Ryu, Gunji, and Joy — had disparate lives before their apocalypse began. One passed down vows to love and protect as their family members dwindled. Another’s reality was an abusive household, entangled with another character’s life by way of barely surviving in their backyard shed. They either had dreams, agendas, or resignation to their circumstances. Blinded by the noise of living around them, they couldn’t perceive time. When the virus crept and pierced through millions of lives, what defined and structured their futures were immediately erased. Finding that on the road, survival is much quieter. The noise reduced, time and present moments are what matter most. Instead of dreams, agendas, or defeat, our main characters restructure themselves around hope and presence. 

Among other things, this book made me feel and reflect on our current situation: Grief is inevitable in a pandemic, a hopelessness, a staying stuck in the same place.

When the door cracks open wide enough to let misery-making hope, the virus has mutated once more and shut the door with a rattle. The numerous times that door slammed in my face makes me think whether my dreams will ever manifest.

Proximity holds power over the precarious construction of connections; the ability to make and unmake. Spousal love can easily be renounced, childhood perceptions skewed, intimacy found on the remains and ruins of infrastructure. Love becomes something to fear of having, of keeping, its possession the same as possession of glass; yet, as effortlessly as it can be broken or stolen, it is a compass of light pointing towards a horizon. In times of crisis, pain and grief, we learn of the vitality of love and community. How beautiful and fragile and precious it is to even cup a shared sense of sorrow, to draw around it like blood to fire on a winter day. Sorrow which leads to care. Cleaning up dust and blood and sweat and tears from your eyes, from your lips that have so long not smiled without a bolt of guilt. As the world around you collapses in a torrent of statistics and capitalist violence.

Somehow, safety can only be sought and certain in the present moment. The past and future remain shrouded with uncertain pain, anticipation for a familiar kind of hell. But 

 is when we are living, breathing, when we take stock of what we have and be grateful for it. This meal could be your last, this hand holding yours could be the last, so smile because it may be your last, embrace like they might dissolve in your arms the next minute.

It was frightening how nothing felt out of place in the book. Strung by violences that feel familiar, we only survive through the hope that we are holding in our teeth.

‘Our own miracle. Was such a thing left?’

I’d pocket this book in case it is the only one I get to keep. TO THE WARM HORIZON is the ANNAM to my Jina.

fairuza hanun

TO THE WARM HORIZON by Choi Jin-young, trans. by Soje——

‘We must go together. We mustn’t die. This world is hell, so we’re already evil for staying alive, no matter how good we try to be. We must stick together. We must look into each other’s eyes and touch each other and sing and not forget our humanity, not even for a moment.’

Book C/W: r*pe, self-harm, suicide, murder

Looking back at the pandemic, looking at where I stand, the events and numbers slipping like sand … I wonder, how many countless lives do we have on this planet to spare? I am grateful to be alive, but what did my survival cost others? At the beginning of the pandemic, on that March 2020, when all plans were abruptly cancelled after the whisper of the first COVID-19 case in Brighton, it felt as if the world we’d been living in was a cup placed on its lip, sheltered and undisrupted. That spring, my parents had gone through a rough divorce, but before the pandemic started I’d thought everything would at least be salvageable. The world as a cup upturned, shattered. 

In TO THE WARM HORIZON, the five characters — Dori, Jina, Ryu, Gunji, and Joy — had disparate lives before their apocalypse began. One passed down vows to love and protect as their family members dwindled. Another’s reality was an abusive household, entangled with another character’s life by way of barely surviving in their backyard shed. They either had dreams, agendas, or resignation to their circumstances. Blinded by the noise of living around them, they couldn’t perceive time. When the virus crept and pierced through millions of lives, what defined and structured their futures were immediately erased. Finding that on the road, survival is much quieter. The noise reduced, time and present moments are what matter most. Instead of dreams, agendas, or defeat, our main characters restructure themselves around hope and presence. 

Among other things, this book made me feel and reflect on our current situation: Grief is inevitable in a pandemic, a hopelessness, a staying stuck in the same place.

When the door cracks open wide enough to let misery-making hope, the virus has mutated once more and shut the door with a rattle. The numerous times that door slammed in my face makes me think whether my dreams will ever manifest.

Proximity holds power over the precarious construction of connections; the ability to make and unmake. Spousal love can easily be renounced, childhood perceptions skewed, intimacy found on the remains and ruins of infrastructure. Love becomes something to fear of having, of keeping, its possession the same as possession of glass; yet, as effortlessly as it can be broken or stolen, it is a compass of light pointing towards a horizon. In times of crisis, pain and grief, we learn of the vitality of love and community. How beautiful and fragile and precious it is to even cup a shared sense of sorrow, to draw around it like blood to fire on a winter day. Sorrow which leads to care. Cleaning up dust and blood and sweat and tears from your eyes, from your lips that have so long not smiled without a bolt of guilt. As the world around you collapses in a torrent of statistics and capitalist violence.

Somehow, safety can only be sought and certain in the present moment. The past and future remain shrouded with uncertain pain, anticipation for a familiar kind of hell. But now is when we are living, breathing, when we take stock of what we have and be grateful for it. This meal could be your last, this hand holding yours could be the last, so smile because it may be your last, embrace like they might dissolve in your arms the next minute.

We can only care.

It was frightening how nothing felt out of place in the book. Strung by violences that feel familiar, we only survive through the hope that we are holding in our teeth.

‘Our own miracle. Was such a thing left?’

I’d pocket this book in case it is the only one I get to keep. TO THE WARM HORIZON is the ANNAM to my Jina.

To the Warm Horizon

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