What I like about the Spinario
in particular is his calmness.
He’s not panicking.
He’s sitting there,
and there’s a real kind of concentration and a faith,
a faith that the thorn in his foot will come out,
a faith that it’s worth trying to get out.
He’s not asking for help.
He’s doing it by himself.
There’s an honesty about the sculpture in that way.
My name is Min Jin Lee.
I write fiction and I write essays.
I was born in South Korea.
I came to the United States when I was seven years old.
I grew up in Elmhurst, Queens.
I went to the Bronx High School Of Science.
I went to Yale and studied history.
I became a lawyer for two years,
and then I wrote and failed as a fiction writer
for a long time and published my first book in 2007,
Free Food for Millionaires,
and then 10 years later, I published Pachinko,
which is my second novel.
And I’m working on my next novel called American Hagwon.
I think that what allows me to work
on my very long projects is primarily my fixation
on the things that trouble me.
And the questions have to be so troubling
that nobody else could answer them for me except me.
And yet, my question seemed to connect with other people
with whom I never anticipated having a connection.
If I had to describe Antico’s Spinario,
I might spend a little bit of time on Antico himself
because he’s so interesting.
He was born the 15th century and he focused on antiquities.
He would reproduce them, and then, of course,
refine them according to his own sense of aesthetics.
Spinario is not something that’s original to Antico.
It’s a pre-existing antiquity, which was discovered,
and then later on, he made his own version.
So I was really moved by the fact
that Antico chose an ordinary boy
who has an ordinary problem.
Why did that speak to him?
What was he trying to tell his patrons
as well as anybody who would receive this gift?
Something about the idea of an ordinary boy
taking a thorn out of his foot
and concentrating on it is really interesting.
But the thing that I really love more than anything
is that little gap between the hand and the foot
and the thorn.
Because for me, it’s that gap, the absence of the contact,
which really closely approximates what artists do.
We are reaching for our thorn,
and yet, it is the thorn which defines our entire being.
That’s really hard as a writer.
It’s really hard as an artist to know
that I have this thorn and I have to take it out,
and I’m constantly reaching for it,
and I’m living in a kind of, like, not obvious agony.
It’s not that this boy is covered in blood.
He hasn’t been struck with an arrow.
It’s not like it’s going to kill him.
It’s this little, tiny thing which affects his daily walk.
And very much like an artist
that has a thorn in his or her or their foot,
I think about how the thing that troubles me
that affects my daily walk is very private.
You can’t even see it.
It’s in the bottom of my foot.
So it does make a lot of sense to me
that this is an object that was created
for a person’s study.
Not everyone can have their own Spinario,
but I think this one in particular,
it’s really quite special,
and whoever had it on their desk,
it must’ve been really moving
because it wasn’t about a triumph or a tragedy.
It was really about the daily struggle
of what you’re trying to do.
It took me at least 11 years to sell my first novel,
but those 11 years, I was constantly working.
I just couldn’t get anywhere,
and that was really embarrassing.
And during those 11 years,
I felt like I had to eat, I don’t know,
a truckload of humble pie.
I had so much shame about not succeeding
because I don’t think I’m the kid
that you would have bet on,
which is fine,
but I was starting to believe that was true.
Thankfully, things did work out better,
but I still feel this enormous sense of,
“I still haven’t reached my potential.”
I feel that all the time.
I always kind of think,
“How do I push things a little bit further?”
And it’s not always just craft.
It’s also, I have my vanity to push culture a little bit.
I think, well, if I’m going to go through all this effort,
if I’m going to endure periods
when I don’t have health insurance,
when I can’t make rent,
whatever it is that I’m going through
or whatever I did go through,
I think, well, I might as well push culture a little bit.
People would think
that I care a lot about Korea and diaspora.
And I do.
However, undergirding my sense
of why it’s worth going through all this effort
is my sense of moral purpose.
If I didn’t believe that the world should have moral order,
I would not write, I wouldn’t bother.
Because part of what we’re doing in writing,
at least, I think,
is a sense of directed thinking out of chaos.
Life every single day feels like chaos to me.
So I’m thinking,
“Well, how do I make a unified order?” which is cosmos.
And that is what I’m trying to do.
I’m not saying that it’s successful every time,
but for me, that is the most valiant goal
that I am constantly reaching for.
And that sounds so grandiose and absurd,
but if I didn’t have that sort of beautiful shining idea
that it’s possible, I wouldn’t bother.