Monday, September 07, 2026

Superfluous men

 I've been reading The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim, a 2021 novel very much in the tradition of the "superfluous man" genre from mid-19th century Russia, save for the fact that he's not privileged like Eugene Onegin, Pechorin, etc. Indeed, the Korean character falls into a kind of bastard, disaffected line that runs through Bartleby the Scrivener, Dostoievskii's Underground Man, Ellison's Invisible Man, De Niro's taxi driver, and so on. People so outside of society's framework that they get warped.

It's easy to see this archetype arising again in the grinding social context of the Asian salary man within Japan's keiretsus and Korea's chaebols. Lots of them show up, for example, in Midnight Diner (see on Netflix), little guys (and gals) who do whatever and show up at this bar and find a quasi-home for themselves.

Anyway, examples of this type abound in culture, but they don't really drive franchises. Grim reality doesn't create blockbusters with spin-off and other ancillary revenue possibilities. Eventually they find expression in folk heroes like Luigi Mangeone.   

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