영어로 읽는 고전 _ 그레이스 리빙스턴 힐의 탐색
그레이스 리빙스턴 힐의 “탐색(The Search)”은 20세기 초에 쓰인 장편 소설이다. 이 작품은 사랑과 희생, 그리고 한 사람의 인격이 단단히 빚어져 가는 성장이라는 주제를, 전쟁이라는 거대한 현실에 직면한 젊은이들의 삶을 통해 잔잔히 풀어 놓는다. 작품의 중심에는 군 복무를 위해 비교적 차분히 마음을 가다듬어 온 청년 존 캐머런(John Cameron)과, 조국을 위해 자신을 내어놓는 남자들의 모습을 한 발짝씩 마주하면서 차츰 그 무게를 깨달아 가는 한 소녀 루스 맥도널드(Ruth Macdonald)가 자리해 있다.소설의 도입부에서 우리는 먼저 두 명의 젊은 중위, 해리 웨인라이트(Harry Wainwright)와 밥 웨더릴(Bob Wetherill)을 만나게 된다. 두 사람은 가벼운 대화를 주고받는데, 그 가운데 웨인라이트가 머지않아 루스에게 청혼할 작정이라는 사실이 자연스레 드러난다. 자신만만한 그의 태도 뒤로는 좀처럼 양보할 줄 모르는 경쟁심과, 다소 떳떳하지 못한 구석을 지닌 인격이 슬며시 비치는데, 특히 곧 같은 장의 후반부에 모습을 드러내게 될 존 캐머런과의 사이에 얽혀 있는 과거의 일들을 떠올릴 때 그 그늘은 한층 또렷해진다. 두 중위가 브린 헤이번(Bryne Haven)을 향해 길을 떠나는 동안, 작품은 인물들 사이에 점점 복잡해져 가는 관계의 결을 차분히 비춰 보이며, 그 풍경 안으로 캐머런이 등장하는 순간 그 결은 한층 깊고 미묘해진다.루스 역시 작품의 또 하나의 중요한 시선으로 떠오른다. 그녀는 길거리에서 징집되어 떠나가는 한 무리의 병사들을 가만히 바라보게 되는데, 그 평범한 풍경 안에서 그녀의 마음속에는 그동안 자신과는 멀리 떨어져 있던 일처럼만 느껴졌던 전쟁이 한 사람 한 사람의 얼굴과 어깨 위에 얹혀 있는 매우 사적인 무게라는 사실이, 한 줄기 빛처럼 천천히 스며들기 시작한다. 그리고 바로 그 깨달음의 순간을 지나면서, 그녀의 가슴 깊은 곳에서는 캐머런이라는 한 청년을 향한 어떤 감정이 비로소 또렷한 형체를 띠고 깨어나기 시작한다. 이렇듯 도입부는 전쟁이라는 어둑한 시대적 배경 한가운데에서, 그리움과 성장이 두 개의 실처럼 정교하게 맞물려 짜여 갈 한 편의 깊은 이야기의 첫 마디를 차분하면서도 묵직하게 펼쳐 보인다.
Classics Read in English _ The Search by Grace Livingston Hill
The Search, an early twentieth-century novel by Grace Livingston Hill, gathers together the great themes of love, sacrifice, and the slow shaping of human character and lays them out against the unyielding backdrop of war. Its principal lights are John Cameron, a quietly steady young man who has prepared himself with serious heart for military service, and Ruth Macdonald, a young woman who, by gradual and almost imperceptible degrees, comes to grasp the immense personal cost borne by those who give themselves up for their country.
The opening pages do not begin with these two figures at all, but rather with two other young officers: lieutenants Harry Wainwright and Bob Wetherill, whose easy conversation conceals matters of more consequence than either of them quite admits. From their exchange the reader gathers that Wainwright is already determined to lay an offer of marriage before Ruth Macdonald, and beneath his confident, half-debonair manner Hill quietly allows the reader to detect a more competitive, and decidedly less scrupulous, side to his nature — a shadow that grows sharper still as soon as the name of John Cameron, with whom Wainwright shares a troubled past, is brought into view. As the two lieutenants make their way out toward Bryne Haven, the lines of relationship around them begin to tighten and complicate, and from the moment Cameron himself steps into the scene the whole emotional weave acquires a deeper and more subtle texture.
Ruth, for her part, soon claims her place as the other great gaze of the novel. Standing in the street one day, she watches a small detachment of newly drafted soldiers march away from their families — an ordinary enough sight in those years — and yet within that very ordinariness something quietly shifts inside her. The war, which had until then seemed a distant matter belonging to maps and headlines, settles all at once upon the shoulders and faces of those particular men before her, and she understands, perhaps for the first time, that it is in truth a deeply personal weight borne by single human beings one by one. Out of this slow inward awakening another feeling, until now scarcely acknowledged, begins to take its true shape within her — the dawning recognition of what John Cameron has come to mean to her heart. With this carefully prepared opening, Hill sets in motion the long, attentive story to come, in which longing and growth will be drawn together like two strong threads, slowly woven into a single unified pattern beneath the dark and demanding sky of war.
Among the contents
Two young men in officers’ uniforms entered the smoker of a suburban train, and after the usual formalities of matches and cigarettes settled back to enjoy their ride out to Bryne Haven.
“What d’ye think of that girl I introduced you to the other night, Harry? Isn’t she a pippin?” asked the second lieutenant taking a luxurious puff at his cigarette.
“I should say, Bobbie, she’s some girl! Where d’ye pick her up? I certainly owe you one for a good time.”
“Don’t speak of it, Harry. Come on with me and try it again. I’m going to see her friend to-night and can get her over the ’phone any time. She’s just nuts about you. What do you say? Shall I call her up?”
“Well, hardly to-night, Bob,” said the first lieutenant thoughtfully, “she’s a ripping fine girl and all that, of course, but the fact is, Bob, I’ve decided to marry Ruth Macdonald and I haven’t much time left before I go over. I think I’ll have to get things fixed up between us to-night, you see. Perhaps—later——. But no. I guess that wouldn’t do. Ruth’s folks are rather fussy about such things. It might get out. No, Bob, I’ll have to forego the pleasures you offer me this time.”
