Verisimilitudes between novels and Musok: Exploring narrative characteristics

The voices of ancestors and other souls play a pivotal role in storytelling, evident in both novels and Shamanistic rituals dedicated to ancestors. In both domains, these voices serve as conduits for conveying wisdom, insights, and messages from an individual’s deeper spiritual realm and the realm of the deceased in the “other world.” The predominant scholarly perspective distinguishes these narratives primarily based on their context and purpose. This paper aims to explore the shared narrative characteristics, or verisimilitudes, between contemporary novels and musok (Korean shamanism). Employing a comparative approach, this study centers on the communication between inhabitants of “this” and “that world” as the primary narrative device. It defines time and space according to the typology of communication and delves into language and narrative characteristics, with a particular emphasis on the role of the reader-receiver in interpretation. In essence, this study examines how these voices shape storytelling and influence the plot in both novels and rituals. This perspective is substantiated by excerpts from novels and recorded gongsu (oracle) sessions gathered during my previous fieldwork. Among the novels, Hwang Sok-yong’s Princess Bari (2015) and Han Malsook’s Hymn of the Spirit (1983) will be taken into consideration.