The Texture of Time

Author Eun Hee-kyung · Publisher Munhakdongne · Published 2026-06-22 · ISBN 9791141617226

About the Book

Into the Book

Regarding the body, others can never intervene. Whether it appears shabby, miserable, or pathetic to others, it is a unique life sensed solely by the body's owner. _Page 14

Just as there is an instinct for survival imprinted on the body from birth, isn't there perhaps a built-in mechanism in humans, as mortals, to make a soft landing into death? Where should we look for it? _Page 65

Kyung-sun wasn't waiting for a specific season. It was something like the cycle of seasons and the flow of time. She wanted to experiment with it and feel it with her entire body. _Page 113

While the daily life of the body changes in the real-time zone, isn't the time of dreams and ideals, once captured, heading in a different direction towards its own destination? _Page 284

All of us live in reality, experiencing and resolving pain, and inevitably changing in the process. However, the moments we loved someone are building a kingdom and experiencing four seasons somewhere. If the truth and love I believed in are preserved in this way and passed on to future generations who then believe in them, then death can also be seen as a relay of time, not an extinction. _Page 286

'First' is 'oldest.' Anna and Kyung-sun's 'first' gradually converges to 'oldest.' As Kyung-sun says, the day when all of it will disappear is not far off. But the time that has not yet come, every moment is 'first.' There will be countless first moments remaining for Anna and Kyung-sun. Kyung-sun was wrong. The memory of 'our first' is meaningful. It is 'the oldest' and at the same time 'our most recent' and 'our next.' _Page 357

Within one person's body are countless places and times. The body is a hatchery of joy, pain, desire, and loss; a library holding the dreams and distortions of love; the final home where the last life will reside. And eventually, it turns to ash. It is a journey of ending the individual's time and merging with infinity. _Page 373


Recommendations

Hwang In-chan (Poet)
Time, like geological strata, accumulates in our bodies, becoming traces that can neither be hidden nor erased, yet it flows like a river, leaving only a handful that soon dries up. Therefore, what we need is a large hand and a deep eye to look back at and caress such accumulating and flowing time. "The Touch of Time" delicately examines and precisely refines the traces of time left on our skin, newly reconstructing the entirety of past time. The touch of every sentence, where pain and joy, sorrow and rapture intersect, is dazzlingly brilliant to me.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Incidents of the Body _007
Part 2: Solitude and Fascination _119
Part 3: Our First _187
Part 4: Someday, a Wonderful Day _307

Author's Note _378