It’s time for another book club! All discussions will take place within this home thread that will be updated each week with the current week number. So, make sure you use spoiler tags and indicate which part of the book you are going to refer to ahead of the tag to show respect to your follow-readers an any possible late-comers.
Summary
네 마술은 진짜 같아. 그 시간이 어디로 어떻게 흘러갔는지 모르겠어.” 지독히도 불행한 세 소년 앞에 마술사 부자가 나타나면서 마법 같은 기이한 일들이 벌어진다. 동지인지 적인지 마술사 부자의 정체를 알 수 없지만, 신비로운 마술을 보고 나면 왠지 모르게 마음이 평온해진다. 마술이 시작되는 순간, 세 소년의 운명은 어떤 방향으로 흘러가게 될까? 『밤을 건너는 소년』은 밤으로 내몰린 세 소년의 이야기와 미스터리한 마술사의 정체를 추리해 가는 과정을 그린 청소년소설로 2015년 한국문화예술위원회 아르코 문학창작기금 수혜작이다. 사계절 1318문고 백여덟 번째 책이다.
English Summary
(From DeepL) “Your magic is so real, I don’t know where the time went.” When a rich magician appears in front of three very unfortunate boys, magical and strange things happen. They don’t know if he’s a friend or foe, but the mysterious tricks he performs put them at ease. When the magic begins, what direction will the fate of the three boys take? "The Boy Who Crossed the Night is a young adult novel that tells the story of three boys who are thrown into the night and how they try to deduce the identity of a mysterious magician, and was a recipient of the 2015 ARCO Literary Creation Fund of the Korea Arts Council. It is the one hundred and eighth book of Four Seasons 1318 Bunko.
Absolutely had no idea what to expect of this one going in (i know i recced it haha) but so far intrigued. Why are the magician father and son so lowkey shady? Who does 철진이 owe money to? Why is the waiter in the club called " 박쥐"? why do the kids in these books alway bully each other so much? (okay i know the ans to that one)
Overall the language seems to be quite straightforward for me but this sentence at the end of the second chapter really stumped me:
엄마가 입에 달고 살던, 있는 것들이 더하다는 말이 하나도 틀리지 않은 것 같았다.
After looking it up seems like 입에 달고 살다 is a phrase meaning something someone always says. And 있는 것들이 더하다 is those that have, get. Guess it was just a case of two unfamiliar turns of phrase being packed into one sentence leaving me nothing to really grasp onto to decode it. Once i looked the pieces up the whole thing made perfect sense.
I finished the reading for week 1! Kind of proud of myself since I’ve fallen off so hard with Korean, but I’m back!
So far, I am filled with questions. The first two chapters felt very mysterious and I have absolutely no idea where the story is going. I also wondered about the character called 박쥐 at first I was like, bat?? Bat?? Am I missing something? Then I realized they are actually called that. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you just didn’t understand or if something is truly weird.
Otherwise though, I think the language is straightforward and I didn’t spot any exotic grammar really, so it’s a chill read to get back into Korean with.
Week 1, done! I’m intrigued by the characters - so we have the magician father and son who change their workplace every three months and seem like they’re hiding something, the waiter called “bat” who somehow knows the kid from chapter 2 and might be more than he seems, and the bully who owes money to someone and is the underling of a bigger bully.
Question: What genre is this in? When I read the synopsis I though magician like magic/wizard, not magician like Las Vegas.
Anyway, I’m curious to see how the different characters will interact with each other and how the story will go from here as we uncover their personalities and the secrets that each of them seems to be hiding.
Language-wise, there are definitely a fair amount of words I don’t know but the grammar is fine and I’m not having any issues following what’s happening in the story.
I will echo the others’ sentiment… I have no idea where this is going. There were a lot of words that I didn’t know, but many of them I could guess from context. Still took quite a bit of looking up unfortunately. But at least the grammar was straightforward . Overall it was hard (not as hard as previous attempts) but enjoyable.
This one also stumped me! Hope somebody can enlighten us haha.
And I don’t know what the heck was going on with 박쥐 and that ending scene of the first chapter. Why was the pidgeon landing on him give him such a shock? I know it says he got embarrassed with attention, but it felt like more than that.
Will be interesting to see how this all ties together.
week two and we got to see a bit of the magic show. starting to see how the characters intersect. i did laugh during the magic show though because being told you were chosen by the misery pigeon for being the Most Tragic Boy is so rude
I did find some things hard to understand, especially in the 박쥐의 실체 chapter.
some vocab that wasn’t parsed by my popup dict so i had to pause and break the sentences down.
조현병 schizophrenia
(학교) 일진 school bully
this sentence was especially rough: 일진 아이는 폐지를 주워 생활하는 할머니와 살았는데, 할머니는 손자를 그렇게 만든 범인을 찾으려 하지 않았다. Firstly 일진 wasn’t in my pop up dict so i started confused then 폐지를 주워 생활하는 할머니 was also a really confusing clause ← for this I eventually just asked chat gpt to explain it to me and it said 할머니는 경제적으로 어려운 상황에 처해 있어, 길거리에서 폐지(재활용품)를 주워 생활을 이어가고 있는 모습입니다. So i got there in the end
also i noted a few sentences in this chapter like “형은 뭘 믿고 날 다시 부른 거야?” which i didn’t get on the first pass. kind of reminded me of reading 행운이 너에게 다가오는 중 | L26 where i knew most of the words but got tripped up by colloquial phrasing because i hadn’t come across it before.
also unrelated but this chapter reminded me
language learning is how i learned pigeons are doves. someone said “look at that ~dove” to me. and affronted i said, no that’s a pigeon and they replied, yeah…a ~dove.
I hadn’t checked out Natively in a while (dialed down my language learning for a couple months), but this seems fun! And it’s early enough that I can catch up easily, so I’ll go read the beginning, to see how the difficulty feels, and I’ll probably join
I just finished week 1 and I am confused. The level is nice, I only had to do a couple lookups per page but wow the story is strange. So strange in fact that it’s making me second guess myself, because surely there’s no way that’s happening, right? 박쥐… Really took me while to wrap my head around that one.
Is this something along the lines of “Mother always says she thinks there’s nothing wrong with rich people getting richer”? That’s the only way I can turn it that makes sense.
i got sthing like: It seems that thing that my mum always would always say, “those that have, get” is accurate. edit for less awkward wording: My mum would always say “those that have, get”, it seems she wasn’t wrong.
I’m finding this book very weird so far but I’m also really liking it? I have a soft spot for sad boy vibes and tragic plots . Kind of on the edge of my seat to find out where the story goes since I have no guesses at all??
Unrelated but I’m glad I’ve been able to keep up after having a bad year for reading in Korean.
I finished chapter 3 and I’m a bit confused. It talked about Bakhwi’s past in another city, where he lived with his grandmother, was found in a really bad state and taken to the hospital, where the police investigated the case. But then the case was eventually dropped when the policeman moved to another city? Or was that some random criminal case? Because as far as I understood, Bakhwi recently moved to this city to get away from his dad and dropped out of school? I found this chapter difficult, partly because it’s late and I’m tired, but also because the subject of the sentences wasn’t always clear to me.
i found this chapter pretty hard too. i had to go back over this part to get what was going on. this was how i broke that bit down if it helps.
Summary
철진이는 박쥐가 A시에서 왔다는 말을 들었을 때 번뜩 생각난 일이 있었다. 얼마 전 용호한테 들은 이야기인데, A시를 주름잡고 있던 고등학생 일진 한 명이 후미진 골목에서 쓰러진 채로 발견됐다고 한다.
말을 들었을 때 번뜩 생각난 일
when he was listening to 박쥐 talk about coming from A시, he suddenly though of sthing.
얼마 전 용호한테 들은 이야기인데
it was a story he heard from 용호
so it didnt happen to 박쥐, 철진이 was just reminded of it when the subject of A시 came up.
The paragraph after that talks about the aftermath of the incident.
일진 아이는 평소 경찰서를 자주 들락거려 안면 있는 경찰이 있었다. because the bully kid was always at the police st there was a police officer that knew him who was personally interested in the case.
못된 짓을 해서 벌받은 것이라는 동네 사람들 everyone in the town thinks the boy got what he deserved, so that policeman is the only one that seemed to care about finding out what happened. then he got reassigned elsewhere so i guess the case was just never investigated.
also we dont know who 용호 is yet right? but i assume the name is on purpose since we have Bat, this is i presume dragon-tiger?
Yeah, my impression was that it was only implied that this was 박쥐, but wasn’t confirmed. Before that I think was 철진이 & 박쥐’s backstory and how 박쥐 had a lot of sympathy for 철진이 and identified with him… implying he might’ve been a bully too.
This is the guy that 철진이 needs to pay money to, right? Or am I making that up?
Another question… If 박쥐 doesn’t want to draw attention to himself because he actually turns into a bat at night, why does he call himself 박쥐 ???
What do we all think of the 마술사 now? Do we think he’ll use 박쥐 for nefarious reasons? Or is he a good guy? I’m thinking the former
Chapter 3 was definitely harder than Chapter 4 for me, but overall, relatively smooth sailing .
Okay, chapter 4 is done! It was much easier to follow than the previous chapter. I’m curious to find out if the magic is real, what the magician did to Bakhwi in the performance, and what he’s planning to use him for in the future. Also, I suspect that Siwon and 철진이 might meet next week at school.
I feel a bit more into the book now that I have a better sense of what’s going on. I’m excited to see where it goes and what kind of story it ends up being!
ah see i assumed 박쥐 was the reason the bully kid ended up in the hospital! it was all mysterous because he had no visible wounds. and when he woke up he was terrified but couldnt remember what happened. i assumed 박쥐 got sick of the bullys shit and pulled some shenanigans.
omg yes i forgot
still cant tell whether the magicial is gonna be friend or foe…i wonder did being in that box do something to 박쥐?
I’m going to do my best to join in this time! My Korean is in desperate need of some attention. 
at first I was like, bat?? Bat?? Am I missing something? Then I realized they are actually called that. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you just didn’t understand or if something is truly weird. 
)!
. Overall it was hard (not as hard as previous attempts) but enjoyable.
← for this I eventually just asked chat gpt to explain it to me and it said 할머니는 경제적으로 어려운 상황에 처해 있어, 길거리에서 폐지(재활용품)를 주워 생활을 이어가고 있는 모습입니다. So i got there in the end 
would love to have you join in
shenanigans.
