Plotters are just pawns like us. A request comes in, and they draw up the plans. There's always someone above them who tells them what to do. And above that person is another plotter telling them what to do. You know what's there if you keep going all the way to the top? Nothing. Just an empty chair.
Un-Su Kim's The Plotters is said to be set in “an alternate Seoul”; a seat of power in which those who pull the strings have access to a thriving assassination industry to enforce their whims and clean up their messes. Told from the perspective of one such assassin – Reseng, who was rescued from a garbage can as a baby and raised to his craft – the whole vibe is cynical and nihilistic: if you can unsentimentally kill someone with whom you've just shared a meal, and if you expect to be knifed yourself at every turn, there isn't much meaning or value to life. One reaction to this worldview is humour, and Reseng does have some snarky and deadpan lines, but this book is more crime noir than dark comedy or political commentary. Taken for what it is, The Plotters was an entertaining page-turner.
What sped up the assassination industry was the new regime of democratically elected civilian administrations that sought the trappings of morality. Maybe they thought that by stamping their foreheads with the words It's okay, we're not the military,they could fool the people. But power is all the same deep down, no matter what it looks like.
Although written by a Korean author and set firmly in his country, The Plotters could have really been set in any capital city: there's nothing particularly Korean about the powers-that-be (beyond the above explanatory quote); nothing particularly Korean about the behaviour of the characters. As soon as the government started outsourcing its murders, private businesses also began using the services of freelance assassins, and an entire industry arose: with plotters, contractors, trackers, assassins, and cleaners working together and in rivalries; with only the shadowy plotters at the top having a complete picture of the goals and means. As for Reseng – as a respected but mid-level assassin – he drinks beer for breakfast, reads Camus and Calvino, plays with his cats, and waits for assignments. Despite proving himself to be a cold-blooded killer, when some of his friends begin to disappear – and Old Raccoon, the man who adopted him, seems to be under threat – Reseng feels a tug at his loyalty and determines to uncover the plotters and their latest plot.
To the plotters, mercenaries and assassins were like disposable batteries. After all, what use would they have for old assassins? An old assassin was like an annoying blister bursting with incriminating information and evidence. The more you thought about it, the more sense it made. Why would anyone hold on to a used-up battery?
Ultimately, The Plotters has a nicely unsettling nihilistic vibe, the storyline was compelling, and I was never bored. On the other hand, there's no deeper meaning here and I didn't find it to be revelatory of some definitively Korean experience (unlike the works of Han Kang). Still, a good read; four stars is a rounding up.
