writers and ghosts.

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”

— Voltaire

In a similar vein of thought, if ghosts did not exist, it would be necessary for writers (who desperately require muses to avoid writer’s block) to invent them. This is particularly true of the korea drama genre. The struggles of another lifetime, the romanticized version only. While the use of ghosts takes a historical, humanistic approach to examining the current times, it also goes the other way. The obvious weakness in this approach is that the writer can only do secondary research, because he or she couldn’t technically travel back in time, or become a ghost.

Nothing deconstructed, nothing learned.

I started watching Chicago Typewriter because of the incredibly talented lead actor, and decided it would be a worthy exercise to deconstruct the topics and themes of this very nuanced drama on Netflix. The narrative consists of a celebrating writer collaborating with a ghost to re-discover the past.

The very many issues ‘Chicago Typewriter’ tries to tackle:

• Insights about the personalities and other specifics on the publishing industry: From the publisher’s perspective, the writer is a brand, and then there is the question of commercial value predominating over artistic integrity. Does it truly matter? There is much contention within the drama regarding the author’s moral issue on ghostwriting and the social stigma attached to it, unnecessarily amplified by the media. What surprised me the most is the fact that it is still considered to be a contentious issue. There have been debates on whether Shakespeare had a team of writers helping him write his plays — and that was how many centuries ago?
• The work life and struggles of celebrity writers: the worst case scenario — A writer’s works could be misinterpreted and send a psychotic reader off to an attempted murder. The solution to the very real problem of writer’s block is to invent your own muse, and begin writing. Alternatively, you could also get a prompt from a random Tweet, and begin writing.
• Re-interpreting Historical Significance. The second timeline / time travel story back to the past refers to the history of resistance fighters in the 1930 Japanese occupation of Korea, when they were fighting for nationalist independence. Perhaps the most important thing to contemplate upon because riots have happened repeatedly in many countries in the name of freedom, (well, to be precise, justice), leading to mass murder.
• What does nationalism really mean in contemporary times? Throughout history, much of nationalism is an instrument for political propaganda. In fact, the traitor of resistance fighters sounds the most rational when she said, “What has the country done for me?” Her reasons were valid and personal, especially when she had a son held captive by the Japanese.
• The drama is labelled ‘fantasy’. Is trauma ‘fantasy’? The male lead clearly has anger management issues, and the female severe emotional dysregulation issues. The conclusion to be drawn here is that psychological issues are common, and therapy shouldn’t only be accessible to the economically affluent (rich people). Further on into the episodes, we realize the cause for such trauma: intergenerational trauma, childhood traumas. I’m not entirely sure which category of trauma that delusional thinking of time travel should fall under.
• Why does it seem like there is not much plot progression in contemporary timeline? Even ghosts have trivial life concerns when living in the 20th century. Perhaps modern day living consists of a lot of entertainment activities that are rather pointless and doesn’t move the narrative? On the surface, the story is about a random string of events culminating in the completion of a novel. It is about an investigation and discovery of the past events (from the characters’ previous lives) to arrive at an understanding of present day traumas and make sense of the historical (dysfunctional?) relations among the lead characters, sprinkled with commentary on the devastating effects of social media.

“You can come up with reasons. Just stop and ask a stranger. See how many people know why they live.”

— the publisher, Chicago Typewriter (based on netflix’s translations; I felt the need to make the distinction to set the right expectations.)

Such pithy and realistic observation offered by the publisher to the writer who is having writer’s block and has stopped feeling enjoyment from writing. It can be inferred that this writer’s purpose is driven by enjoyment, and he just needed to find new things to enjoy. The other implication here is that because most people lack a sense purpose in life, they can be conditioned to want and buy things. Never mind that these decisions are generally tied to the irrational emotional states they experience. Indeed, if I was stopped at the street and asked such a question, I would probably tell them the new bubble tea shop that just opened near me is a good enough reason to keep on living.