Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Wuthering the Heights of Northeast Asia

It's not every day that one applies literary analysis to international relations, but Professor Kim Sung-han does so today:

"The circumstances in Northeast Asia nowadays remind me of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights. The story of love and revenge encompassing three generations on a windy Yorkshire farm is quite similar to Northeast Asia today."

Kim never specifies how these are "quite similar."

Does his remark about the "stormy Northeast Asian situation" hint at similarity? The word "wuther" means "to blow with a dull roaring sound," which might imply "stormy." But Shakespeare's Tempest would more strongly imply this.

Or perhaps a comparison was implict here:

"The Northeast Asian situation is made up of a triangular structure, with the United States, China and Japan as the major players."

Hmmm . . . "triangular structure" . . . "three generations" . . . and possibly even a bully like Heathcliff? I can almost glimpse a parallel. But not "quite."

Advice to all writers: Don't leave your readers hanging on the wuthering heights.

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