It’s a simple question. What do the following have in common?
A strange job in the James Bond classic “Goldfinger.” Legendary science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Kim Jong Un and the slasher movie “Friday the 13th”th”?
The answer is that they all appear in Ed Park’s long-awaited second novel, Same Bed, Different Dreams.
This book is unlike any other book I’ve ever read.and it is good thing. Park leaves the reader in a state of pleasurable disorientation. I had to look online to determine which characters were real and whose existence was the product of Park’s incredible imagination.
Heart-pounding questions began dancing in my head. Did the Korean Provisional Government really exist? Are there really 5 types of dreams?
Mr. Park joined Wisconsin Public Radio’s “BETA” and answered many of our questions.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Doug Gordon: What’s the story behind “Same Bed, Different Dreams”?
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Ed Park: This is an old Asian proverb that’s very popular in Korea, and my dad once emailed me, I think it was in the 90s. I don’t even remember the context, but I just remember thinking that it was so evocative and poetic that it would be a perfect title for a book someday.
It took me at least another decade to work on something that seemed worthy of that title.
On the other hand, what I started writing-wise was probably family comedies, relationship comedies. “Same bed, different dreams” means that you do not know what others are thinking, even if they are very close to you, such as family members or friends.
DG: There’s a lot of humor in your work, which I really appreciated. I imagine one of the biggest challenges you faced was weaving together different stories. Was that really the case?
EP: It was that way until it wasn’t. In the process of writing, I’m progressing into a plot line of sorts. It’s very linear and looks modern. And when I realized, oh, this character is going to read this crazy Korean alternate history book, my mind was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I don’t know if this is the same book.
And once it clicked and I found a way to incorporate it, something changed in my mind that I could integrate it more. But I’m sure there will be lots of notes and weird looking graphs plotting who’s related to who.
Some are fictional and some are historical figures. Contains elements from various movies, sitcoms and more. And it took a lot of brain power and sweat to connect it all together in a satisfying way.
DG: I can imagine that happening, but it was totally worth it. I had to go online to find out which characters were historical figures and which weren’t. It was a good education for me. And you mentioned the fusion of fiction and nonfiction, which is one of the great appeals of this book. But why did you decide to combine fiction and nonfiction?
EP: I think we can only talk about certain parts of history. And I think I’m talking about the modern history of South Korea and how it relates to American history. To do that, we need to talk about some numbers, right?
One of the elements of this book is a very real group called the Korean Provisional Government, which was established in 1919 as a kind of protest against the Japanese occupation of Korea. They colonized Korea since 1910. This is a real group that I read about years ago.
DG: The question is, “What is history?” It’s a recurring motif in your novels. why?
EP: That’s obviously a big question, and I think it was a question I asked myself. Why do the things I read and watch stay with me?
Why do I remember when Korean Air Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union in 1983? That it was Flight 007 at a time when I was obsessed with James Bond. Why do I remember finding it so interesting?
DG: As a Canadian, I am legally obligated to ask you about the third overtime of Game 6 of the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals between your hometown Buffalo Sabers and Dallas Stars. is owed. Tell us about what happened and why you decided to cover this piece of hockey history.
EP: I was living in New York at the time. Although I lived in New York for a long time, I was born and raised in Buffalo for sin. I grew up playing hockey, following the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres.
The Sabers have reached the finals twice. And I remember watching that triple overtime game – Brett Hull’s skate was clearly in the crease. he scored. And I think even in hindsight, NHL headquarters is saying, “Yeah, his foot was in the crease, that should have been called.” It was too late. The cat came out of the bag.
Not long after that, I kind of messed around with some sort of obsession and wrote a note to myself. I thought of this line about how the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals didn’t end.
As with the Korean War, there was actually no peace treaty. And what if someone tied these two together? threw it in there. And as you’ll see, this work has opened up a rich vein of Saber legend. I had a lot of fun tying that into the larger movement of the book.
DG: It’s also really fun to read. How did the 1980 slasher film “Friday the 13th” find its way into “Same Bed, Different Dreams”?
EP: I think it was sometime in the 1990s that I read about Kim Jong Il somewhere. Kim Jong Il is the son of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and was the father of current leader Kim Jong Un before being elevated to leadership. After his father died, he went to North Korea. He was a big movie buff.
Not only did he have a large personal film collection, he also wrote extensively about filmmaking and how movies are made. And I read somewhere that his favorite movie was “Friday the 13th.”
And actually, I didn’t watch it as a kid. To be honest, I didn’t watch slasher movies because I was a little scared. But I thought how interesting it would be if that question were true.
But when I finally saw it, it was scary. It was violent, but there was a kind of substance to it, almost like an aesthetic, and it was like I was trying to put myself in his mind.
Anyway, it wasn’t until I read this biography for the millionth time that I realized the details of his childhood and had a moment where I thought, oh, I have a theory as to why this was his favorite movie. Like why did he react to it. So I felt obligated to include it in the novel itself.