Everyone already knows this story, in their own way! No matter where it happens, there is a home for it — a comfortable, cosy place, just under the surface of national identity and individual courage. It’s tight within the bones of people — and yet also a story that no one has ever read!

A talented child leaves behind a life of somewhat-luxury for a rugged, semi-nomadic home, alone, in the wilderness. He soon joins, and then leads a gang of outlaws, who begin fighting injustice, and righting the wrongs of society. He is smarter than his enemies, of unwavering morality, always a champion of the people; he steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

Of course, this is Robin Hood! But in Australia it’s Ned Kelly, in Japan it’s Nezumi Kozo, in Scotland it’s Rob Roy MacGregor, in Mexico its La Carambada… In Korea, it’s something a little more — it’s The Story of Hong Gildong, “arguably the single most important work of classic (i.e., premodern) prose fiction”, and a name borne so deep into history and culture that it is still used as a generic place-holder on government forms, like John Doe is in other countries.

From this light home, Hong Gildong is also a megalomaniac, a self-righteous egoist, a frivolous and joyriding criminal, as well as a messianic faith-healer. And none of this is understated or possible to miss, every page hits the reader — hard — with an assault on even the most calloused of moral sentiments. Hong Gildong is a shockingly unpleasant literary figure — and yet, somehow, his story and name have stood up to the ravages of time.

This must be expected. A look back in time at the real-life Robin Hood, would almost certainly be an immediate cure to the romance he is held in today — a lunatic stalking the outer forests of Nottingham, preying greedily on common-folk and aristocracy alike, lining his pockets through violence and terror. It wouldn’t be pleasant viewing, there wouldn’t be any merry men.

So we need more than translation here, we need the story torn open, exposed, with silence and detail bleeding thick into the narrative — welcome, Minsoo Kang.

Subtleties of language aside, there is a lot of heavy lifting involved in this new Penguin Classic. Layer-upon-layer of pseudo-history needs to be offset, the work of other writers and academics needs to be reference-checked and often discarded, and a lot of people are going to get their feelings hurt. Kang looks into Hong Gildong like the trained historian that he is, without intention or deference or concern for the centrality that this story holds in Korean folklore and literature.

So it is also a lens onto the Joseon Dynasty, the difficulties of attribution, the wide-open-spaces where documents are lost or events never recorded, the challenges of weeding out vested interests, and a poignant lesson on how cultural memes work — once alive, replicating faithfully across generations, unchecked and unquestioned.

Nagging the reader with Homer-esque prose — ‘this happened…, this happened…, then this happened…, this was thought…, this was then thought…, this was also thought… — in many ways this is a Korean Iliad. And inside the story itself, there is a breathless, hungry intent to build the character of Hong Gildong into a man destined to be more.

Just like those descriptions of the Trojan Wars — which again shockingly few people have actually read — every opportunity to pause, embellish, lie, and remind the reader of the superman before them, is taken. Rather than a lone Greek soldier — with nothing but a sword in hand — deep in lust for revenge, defeating thousands of enemies unaided, with Hong Gildong it is slightly more elusive.

Either way, there is nothing aspirational here, there can’t be! And this seems, at first, an odd literary device: by destiny of the stars, these people are not like you and me. Don’t bother with imitation! None of what you are reading can be repeated, it has to be born.

There are no imperfections in the character of Hong Gildong, no failures or mistakes. He is unstoppable. Or rather he is only ever held back by the unfair limitations of Joseon Korea — one limitation in particular: the status of illegitimate children like himself. With his pathway to greatness and success taken from him, Hong Gildong begins to look in other directions.

And it’s likely this soppy emotion that mostly appeals to Koreans today — and explains why this story is bound so tight from history to modern nationalism. With each new foreign invasion, Koreans have seen themselves held-back from their ‘rightful destiny’; everything swirling into a deep bitterness about lost potential. (Unsurprisingly then, it is during the period of Japanese colonialization that this old tale is reborn, cleaned, polished, and made ‘Korean’).

Whereas the figure of Robin Hood was at war against a parochial tyranny and individual greed, Hong Gildong raises his sword against the Joseon Dynasty as a whole. The grumble that starts all this violence, and alights the whole peninsula in warfare? Hong Gildong — as an illegitimate child — was denied the chance to refer to his “father as Father”. It makes the reader shudder to think what he might have done with some real suffering in his life, or god forbid, if he had more than one grievance to complain about.

It is all very filial and ridiculous. When Hong’s mother was made a concubine by his wealthy, powerful father — having no choice in the matter — we are told “From that day on she never ventured outside the house and showed no interest in other men.” What a shock, the prisoner couldn’t leave her cell!

The Confucianism of the period runs deep here, with Hong Gildong, the boy “born with the appearance of a great hero”, and destined to sniff-out injustice in the world, fawning over his father’s grace in between beatings for daring to acknowledge him as the parent he is — “You have shown me nothing but deep and constant love”, only to be told “If you ever speak of this matter again you’ll be severely punished.”

Hong Gildong’s nose for unfairness starts in his own household, but never actually applies to it; only to the Joseon proto-state. Echoing the hubris of youth today, people who can’t hold onto jobs nor fix their own lives, but still join protest marches and insist loudly that they can change the world instead.

So with a small turn of well-studied witchcraft — a theme that runs throughout, with the reader reminded of “the marvellous power’s Gildong possessed” — Hong Gildong leaves the home that his mother cannot, and becomes an outlaw.

And as an outlaw his thin morality breaks down immediately, as he more often than not cannot “allay his wrath”, and makes a habit of executing people “out of vengeance”.

Robin Hood stumbles upon his gang by accident, and then sticks around, in as much as anything to teach them a new, gentler, code of ethics for their criminality. There is no soft belly to Hong Gildong as he goes out immediately in search of “the lair of the bandits of Taesokbaek Mountain”. And rather than convincing his new friends of his qualities, they see it in his “appearance of a heroic personage”.

Welcomed into the gang, and then promoted to leader, it is worth remembering here that, though “filled with fury”, this is still just a ten year old boy; if you can believe it!

“Magical skills” in hand, Hong Gildong and the Taesokbaek Mountain bandits start terrorising the “eight provinces of Joseon”. It is all very violent, very self-congratulatory, and with the strange — yet unmissable — tone of a social climber, someone consciously building their resume for the next step in their career and an improved circle of friends.

As the story moves forward, morality is left behind. There is less-and-less of the Robin Hood archetype that Eric Hobsbawm called the ‘Noble Robber’, and more of a nasty, hardened criminal, ruthlessly fighting his way to the top. When the King has had enough of this, and agrees to negotiate an end to the insurrection, Hong Gildong asks only for one thing (after which he will leave the kingdom forever): “the position of minister of war”.

And just like that, with only a personal trophy to show for it, he walks away — so much for fighting the injustices of society!

The story casually shifts into its third phase, with Hong Gildong, his bandits, and their families boarding ships, and leaving Joseon for an island called Jae, then another called Yul. And here, finally beyond the reach of those old Confucian prejudices, any hope for an honourable and redeeming twist collapses entirely; along with the narrative itself.

The first two royal decisions of King Hong Gildong? First, decree that this new paradise is built in a mirror-image of Joseon, replicating its political order, aristocracy, and even system of titles and grants that left Hong Gildong isolated and girdled as an illegitimate child. The second? Making two women, named Jeong and Jo, his “concubines” because he simply, “could not resist them”…

Minsoo Kang writes with appropriate derision: “It is as if Hong Gildong the king has completely forgotten his earlier frustrations as a secondary son.” Such an easy exit doesn’t apply here. It’s unmistakable from language what is happening, as our all-conquering hero laments into his old age about those humiliations of his youth, rehashing dead grievances and talking endlessly about being denied by his father and brother.

Hong Gildong cares deeply about injustice — if, and only if, he is on the wrong side of it.

And here it ends, where all good folklore should: with old age, a comfortable retirement, and whimsical musings over the past. But with all that has been, and like a reflexive victim of trauma, when the reader is told that, finally, “The land was at peace with no sign of trouble anywhere”, it is hard not to have the thought, ‘of course it was, because for the first time in recent memory there wasn’t an adolescent terrorist running through the provinces, robbing, killing and pillaging all he could find’.

Then, with his victims still stitching their wounds, and his new kingdom secured under his rule — the world either burning or servile — Hong Gildong turns unemotionally to the camera, and with the unlearning tone of a husband just done beating his wife, says “I tell you that all of this could have been prevented if only I were allowed to address my father as Father and my older brother as Brother.”