Let me introduce Korea's most popular French science fiction writer, Bernard Werber (베르나르 베르베르). The following sections will show my personal analysis of his popularity, as well as a general review of his literary works.
Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Ants_(novel)
When I was an elementary/middle school student in Korea, I used to be an avid reader of Bernard Werber's novels.
For a bit of background information, I would like to introduce Bernard Werber to those who have not heard of his name. He used to be (or still is) the most popular French novelist in my country (Korea) during the 2000s. He published his first major novel called "The Ants" (Les Fourmis) back in the early 90s, and rapidly gained popularity afterwards.
The exact genre of his writings is hard to pinpoint because they are mostly a mixture of science fiction, philosophical rhetorics, religious allusions, and spiritual connotations. In his fictional universe, Bernard Werber combines his scientific knowledge with metaphysical symbolism (e.g. meaning of numbers, dimensional shift in consciousness, etc) to create his own surreal yet surprisingly rational sort of imaginations. Some of them are:
(1) A scientific device which translates the language of ants and the language of human beings to each other, allowing the ants' society and human society to come to a state of mutual understanding and "ascend" together to the next step of biological evolution.
(2) What if the afterlife is a physical space which you can temporarily visit and explore, like an astronaut, with the aid of a special equipment (e.g. short-term coma inducer)?
(3) What if gods (deities) are entities who occupy different levels of control in our universe, and that every god is being governed by higher-level gods, and so on?
(4) A "universe box" - an aquarium-like electronic appliance in which you can generate your own miniature universe (with its own tiny little galaxies, planets, etc).
... and so forth. The ideas present in his stories are so intriguingly multidisciplinary and open-ended, that they oftentimes feel as though they can be used as perpetual fountains of inspirations.
Image Source: https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/파라다이스_(소설)
One of the interesting facts is that Bernard Werber has acquired far more fame in my country than in his home country (France). He has not been quite as successful in the United States either, which I can tell because only a small fraction of his novels have officially been translated into English.
I will tell you an example. Back when I was a high school student in America, I tried to find English editions of Bernard Werber's novels in the local library. However, I only succeeded in discovering the English translation of one of his novels called "Empire of the Ants" (i.e. the American title for "Les Fourmis", which, to my surprise, belonged to the library's "Teen Fiction" corner). What was interesting was that the library's "Korean Books" corner had a plenty of Korean editions of his books, including some of his more recent works such as "The Mirror of Cassandra" (Le Miroir de Cassandre).
So, what was the secret behind his disproportionate fame in Korea, as opposed to other countries including France? Bernard Werber has once mentioned in his interview with his Korean translater (이세욱) that the reason why his writings are far more popular in Korea is probably that Koreans are more attentive to new and experimental ideas than those in France who are rather "stuck" in old-fashioned ways of thinking.
I won't necessarily try to dismantle the authenticity of his conjecture, but one thing I believe is that it is generally not so hard to display rather blind affection toward a group of people who have shown far more admiration to you than others. Personally, as someone who spent almost the entire childhood in Korea, I want to insist that the vast majority of people in my homeland are not nearly as "open-minded" as he himself fancies them to be.
Some observations can be made in regard to the major differences between Bernard Werber's novels and those of other French writers, as means of explaining the origin of his megalithic traction in Korea.
(1) His novels are far more concise and fast-paced than other French novels. Since people in Korea usually have much tighter work schedules than those in France, they do not have enough time to read long, verbose stories. The succinctness of his writings helps them quickly pick up all the major plots of the story within a relatively short period of time.
(2) He repeatedly summarizes his main ideas in the form of "entries from an encyclopedia", thus periodically helping the reader recapitulate what he/she had just read in the preceding chapter. Since Korea's private educational institutions often emphasize the importance of summarizing a set of key concepts (for more efficient test preparation, etc), his habit of periodic recap probably resonated with the method of learning to which many Koreans were heavily accustomed.
... etc.
Other observations may as well be made, regarding the time period during which he became popular in my country. As far as I am able to recall, Bernard Werber's fame in Korea peaked during the mid 2000s. In order to understand the underlying implication of this timing, we must first take a look at the brief history of what happened in my country during that passage in history.
Image Source: https://www.fmkorea.com/753993544
Let us rewind the clock a bit. In 1997, a horrible economic crisis struck Korea, putting it on the verge of national backruptcy. This disaster was mostly mitigated within a fairly short period of time, yet its legacy involved massive unemployment and layoffs (... which explains why the "PC bang" businesses and the 1998 game "Starcraft" became so successful during that time; unemployed young adults just needed somewhere to spend time on and distract themselves from the dark reality).
By the late 90s and early 2000s, along with the rapid distribution of personal computers and high-speed internet (which was part of the government's plan to revive the economy through the growth of the IT industry), a new trend began to dominate the early Korean web communities; it was called "yup-ghi" (엽기), which can be translated into English as "anything bizarre", "anything weird", or "anything wildly irrational".
Many Korean websites during this time period featured numerous "yup-ghi" memes on their pages, which included:
(1) Images that were photoshopped in all sorts of grostesque ways (e.g. a bird with a dog's head, a half-cut strawberry with lemon-like inside, etc),
(2) Short written stories which were a bit inappropriate for children to read, and
(3) Flash animations & games which displayed gory and sexually explicit scenes,
... and many others! There weren't that many camera-recorded videos back then, since the internet connection was not as fast as to support their real-time transmission. Therefore, most motion pictures on the internet were made using Flash, up until the point at which YouTube and other online video platforms (such as AfreecaTV and PandoraTV) started to become mainstream (mid 2000s).
The origin of the "yup-ghi" outbreak in my country's web, in my opinion, can be traced back to the aftermath of the economic crisis in 1997. First, the rapid growth of instability in the job market forced many of the job-seekers at the time to question their old way of living.
The society used to grant people a promising future as long as they followed their standard educational curriculum, studied diligently, and worked rigorously. The economy continued to prosper, and everyone was told that bright opportunities would always be within their reach if they tried hard enough.
Then, the economic crisis broke out, and the vast majority of young, current/future employees in their 20s/30s saw their seniors being laid off despite having labored relentlessly for decades. They clearly saw, before their eyes, that the perpetual supply of hope that the mainstream media was feeding them all turned out to be in vain, and that even the utmost degree of loyalty to one's employer, as well as other forms of authority, could be entirely ignored and thrown into the garbage bin all of a sudden, as though it was nothing worth of respect at all.
This sense of betrayal gave birth to a rather reserved yet pervasive countercultural movement, which contributed to the rise of the "yup-ghi" genre of entertainment in Korean web communities. The origin of "yup-ghi", to me, could be interpreted as a way of expressing one's frustration with the standard, traditional set of moral values - an utter rejection of old and well-established habits in life.
This unforeseen branch of subculture, combined with the Y2K (cyberpunk + frutiger aero) aesthetics of the time, vastly shaped the cultural landscape of Korea's younger generations (Gen X and Millennials) during the early 2000s.
Then, by the early to mid 2000s or so, Bernard Werber rapidly became popular in my country. His books began to grab people's attention due to the way in which they exhibited collections of shockingly wild and creative ideas, which ventured to cross the boundaries between vastly different areas of knowledge such as science, philosophy, religions, and even pure mathematics (e.g. symbolism of numbers + geometry of meaning).
One of the major selling points in his books was their direct appeal to "something new". Exhausted by years of unemployment, financial shortcomings, lack of opportunities, and zero prospect for future growth, many young Korean readers at the time desperately searched for game-changing ideas - little nutshells of imagination which are so fresh and revolutionary in themselves, that they might even promise to offer a brand new key to unlock one's way out of the prison of hopelessness.
Bernard Werber's sparkling suggestion of a better future, reinforced by his subtle innuendos borrowed from New Age spiritualism, brought a fresh air of vivid imaginations to the readers, and helped them believe that they, too, will some day be able to claim their own territory in the infinite space of phantasmagoria. This, I believe, is one of the main factors which contributed to Bernard Werber's insane popularity in the mid 2000s.
Aside from the historical & cultural circumstances, I believe that Bernard Werber's books definitely possess their own unique values, regardless of in which country he happened to acquire the highest degree of recognition. Here are some of the remarkable differences in his writings as opposed to those of others:
(1) His work of fiction often contains multiple storylines which run in parallel (similar to a Sitcom). These storylines eventually join into one in the end, thereby completing the story's full picture. This, I think, is such a multifaceted (i.e. multidimensional) approach to fiction-writing - a wondrous way of impelling the reader to view the same fictional world in multiple angles.
(2) He uses his underlying philosophical creeds as means of constructing his fictional universe, and does not hesitate to explicitly state them as side notes inside the story itself (e.g. in the form of references to "The Encyclopedia of the Absolute and Relative Knowledge" (L'Encyclopédie du savoir relatif et absolu), for example). This is a great way to convince the reader that his story has an "additional depth" to it, and that the story itself is just a means of giving a hint of a profound body of knowledge which is hidden elsewhere.
(3) Quite frequently, either directly or indirectly, he emphasizes the significance of viewing a widely known piece of information (e.g. scientific knowledge) from an unusual perspective, such as: "The appearance of cancer cells could be interpreted as a signal which is being sent by unknown beings as an attempt to communicate with us", and so forth. This kind of inner thought experiment encourages the reader to observe small, ordinary things in our everyday lives with fresh new eyes.
I spent my childhood in the 2000s. And, as a result, I was hugely influenced by Bernard Werber's books. I recall reading his "The Tree of Possibles" (L'Arbre des possibles), "The Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge" (L'Encyclopédie du savoir relatif et absolu), "The Ants" (Les Fourmis) series, "The Butterfly of the Stars" (Le papillon des étoiles), and many others. These books were my absolute favorite, especially because I was a fan of philosophical science fiction back when I was a kid (I still am, kind of, although my definition of "philosophical science fiction" changed a bit over time).
While I did enjoy reading other works of science fiction as well, such as those written by H.G. Wells, Bernard Werber's books had a special charm in them which could hardly be found elsewhere. It was the overall impression that he always strived to fill his fictional universe with the most intellectually rebellious yet compassionate worldview, which fills the reader's heart with a profound sense of philanthropy. Such a sentiment is quite difficult to explain textually, but I am sure that those who have been immersed in his writings will perhaps share the sense of what I am trying to convey.
There is, however, a seriously disturbing aspect of his literary works which, in retrospect, makes me even cringe a bit.
Bernard Werber is indeed an effective writer when it comes to quickly raising the reader's passion. He hardly fails to populate his stories with bright ideas which can definitely be considered "creative" by anyone who stumbles upon them, and it is without a doubt that he is one of the most talented fiction writers when it comes to exhibiting pure imaginations in a strangely convincing manner.
From a narrative point of view, though, I could not help myself questioning the moral depth of his writings as I grew up. When I was an elementary/middle school student, I avidly consumed his novels as though they were the most profound philosophical treatises. As time passed by and I got acquainted with many masterpieces in the realm of classical literature, I began to realize that his fictional worldview is embarrassingly shallow.
One of the commonly recurring themes in Bernard Werber's fiction is that of the "struggle of a few intellectuals against the stupidity of the mass". Typically, in his story, a highly sophisticated and creative protagonist constantly gets persecuted by others who are far intellectually inferior to him. This "lonely genius", who gradually becomes tired of the sheer prevalence of idiots who never understand (or even try to understand) his unique philosophical perspective, eventually partakes in an adventure and finds solace in his own outworldly journey, where he finds friendship in a tiny circle of likeminded geniuses who are ready to acknowledge how smart he is.
His fictional worldview can be illustrated as a dichotomy between "those who are enlightened" and "those who are not". His protagonists (i.e. the "enlightened ones") are the creatives, innovators, and ones who never fail to exercise the utmost degree of imaginative freedom. The rest of his fictional characters, on the other hand, are vulgar, superficial, pretentious materialists who are solely obsessed with worldly interests (e.g. money, relationship) and never pay attention to deep, philosophical discourses. In his world, they are the "dumb ones" who are only interested in buying luxury goods (e.g. sports cars), watching romantic comedy movies, and chasing celebrities who make profit out of big, empty words.
The thing is, I do wholeheartedly share the sentiment which Bernard Werber conveys here, I really do. Sometimes I cannot help myself feeling that the world is almost entirely filled with clueless morons who are not even capable of grasping the slightest fraction of the area of intellect which I am able to see and understand. This is how I feel not so infrequently, to be honest.
Yet, expressing such a sentiment in so explicit a manner in one's literary work is a somewhat different story. Drawing a hard division between "those who are enlightened" and "those who are too stupid to be enlightened" is indeed a powerful means of fueling the reader's ego, since it convinces him that he, who is able to read Bernard Werber's books and understand the words written in them, must certainly be the "chosen one" who is intellectually superior to those who do not necessarily agree with his opinions. But if this is pretty much the boundary of how far Bernard Werber's narrative manages to reach (aside from spiritual libertarianism), I will say that it is the reader's moral obligation to outgrow the scope of the author's philosophy at some point in life.