Dallas Institute of Humanities & Culture presents Jung Young Moon: Vaseline Buddha

eventdetail
Photo by Dong Ha Choe

Jung Young Moon, South Korea’s award-winning, cult favorite, and most enigmatic contemporary author, comes to Dallas to present his novel Vaseline Buddha (Deep Vellum, 2016), which scrubs the depths of the human psyche to achieve a higher level of consciousness equal to Zen meditation. This tragicomic odyssey told through free association opens when our sleepless narrator thwarts a would-be thief outside his moonlit window, then delves into his subconscious imagination to explore a variety of geographical and mental locations—real, unreal, surreal—to explore the very nature of reality: from a treacherous flight in the mountains of Nepal to a park bench in Budapest to a bizarre conversation in Amsterdam to an encounter with an inflatable rubber dolphin floating in a small river in provincial France.

Vaseline Buddha is truly meaningful, rewarding literature. What makes this novel so fascinating is its permanent liminality and ambiguity: it is exactly the completely obvious which remains ultimately cryptic; it is exactly the linguistic hyper-precision which leads to confusion; it is exactly the “boring” stuff which becomes thrilling at another level; and it is exactly the humorous, ironic attitude of the author-narrator that proves his deep seriousness.

Jung Young Moon, South Korea’s award-winning, cult favorite, and most enigmatic contemporary author, comes to Dallas to present his novel Vaseline Buddha (Deep Vellum, 2016), which scrubs the depths of the human psyche to achieve a higher level of consciousness equal to Zen meditation. This tragicomic odyssey told through free association opens when our sleepless narrator thwarts a would-be thief outside his moonlit window, then delves into his subconscious imagination to explore a variety of geographical and mental locations—real, unreal, surreal—to explore the very nature of reality: from a treacherous flight in the mountains of Nepal to a park bench in Budapest to a bizarre conversation in Amsterdam to an encounter with an inflatable rubber dolphin floating in a small river in provincial France.

Vaseline Buddha is truly meaningful, rewarding literature. What makes this novel so fascinating is its permanent liminality and ambiguity: it is exactly the completely obvious which remains ultimately cryptic; it is exactly the linguistic hyper-precision which leads to confusion; it is exactly the “boring” stuff which becomes thrilling at another level; and it is exactly the humorous, ironic attitude of the author-narrator that proves his deep seriousness.

Jung Young Moon, South Korea’s award-winning, cult favorite, and most enigmatic contemporary author, comes to Dallas to present his novel Vaseline Buddha (Deep Vellum, 2016), which scrubs the depths of the human psyche to achieve a higher level of consciousness equal to Zen meditation. This tragicomic odyssey told through free association opens when our sleepless narrator thwarts a would-be thief outside his moonlit window, then delves into his subconscious imagination to explore a variety of geographical and mental locations—real, unreal, surreal—to explore the very nature of reality: from a treacherous flight in the mountains of Nepal to a park bench in Budapest to a bizarre conversation in Amsterdam to an encounter with an inflatable rubber dolphin floating in a small river in provincial France.

Vaseline Buddha is truly meaningful, rewarding literature. What makes this novel so fascinating is its permanent liminality and ambiguity: it is exactly the completely obvious which remains ultimately cryptic; it is exactly the linguistic hyper-precision which leads to confusion; it is exactly the “boring” stuff which becomes thrilling at another level; and it is exactly the humorous, ironic attitude of the author-narrator that proves his deep seriousness.

WHEN

WHERE

The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
2719 Routh St.
Dallas, TX 75201
https://deepvellum.org/event/jung-young-moon-dallas-institute-of-humanities-culture-dallas/

TICKET INFO

Admission is free.
All events are subject to change due to weather or other concerns. Please check with the venue or organization to ensure an event is taking place as scheduled.
CULTUREMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME
Get Dallas intel delivered daily.