이효석 문학의 커피향기와 카페공간 고찰

문학이론과 근대지식으로 무장한 이효석은 에로티즘과 엑조티즘을 특징으로 하는 도시소설을 남겼다. 대학교수를 지닌 작가는 예술과 생활을 일치시켰고, 서구근대문학의 조건으로 풍토, 기후, 육체를 중시하면서 환경과 상황이 작품을 탄생시키므로 딸기 같은 문학, 토마토 같은 문학, 능금 같은 문학, 메주 내 나는 문학, 버터 내 나는 문학이 탄생한다고 보았다. 서구근대문학을 육체문학, 청년문학, 체취문학으로 이해한 작가는 커피향기와 카페공간을 근대성의 기호이자 안식처로 활용했다. 카페는 1930년대 구인회 소속의 모더니즘소설의 배경을 형성했고, 이효석 역시 일상과 작품 속에서 커피향이 흘러나오는 카페공간에 대한 장소애를 가졌다.

카페는 근대성과 구별짓기의 특성을 지니면서도 모멸과 억압에서 벗어나 누구나 대접받고 환영받는 곳이었다. 촌사람, 전근대인과 구별되는 카페공간엔 예술과 지식, 음악과 세련된 정서를 바탕으로 지적인 대화가 오갔고 어느 누구의 간섭도 받지 않는 내밀하고도 은밀한 은신처이자 안개, 운문, 향기, 꿈, 공상으로 비유되는 예술가적 감성을 유지할 수 있었다. 차를 마시고 문학을 토론하며 시간을 점검하면서 클래식 음악을 듣는 일은 근대적 시간하에 근대적 삶의 양상을 드러내는 근대인의 모습을 의미했다. 항구도시 근처에 위치한 <기우>, <북국사신>의 카페는 사연 많은 손님들이 모여들어 노래하고 춤추고 술과 커피를 마시고 사랑을 쟁취하는 낭만과 청춘의 오아시스로 재현된다. 밀항자, 여행자, 선원, 이주노동자들이 국경을 넘기 위한 극도의 긴장감 속에서 휴식을 취할 수 있는 카페는 엥겔스걸인 러시아 여급이나 가족경제가 몰락해 여급의 나락으로 떨어진 조선여인의 사연을 담고 있다. 초기소설 속 카페는 일제의 억압과 폭력과 감시망에서 벗어난 식민지 조선인의 망명과 궁핍과 낭만이 혼재되고 있다. 카페는 룸펜의 공상과 여가와 사교의 소비공간으로도 재현된다. 실직한 지식인 룸펜들이 경성 혹은 평양거리를 걷다가 지쳐 들른 카페는 식민자본주의 근대라는 특수한 상황 속에 도시문명의 특성을 드러냈다. <천사와 산문시>에서는 남루하고 초라한 하숙집을 나서 호텔, 백화점, 카페, 카바레가 즐비한 거리를 산책하다가 여급 즉 마음의 천사가 있는 카페에서 위로와 성적 서비스를 받는 일상을 그린다. <공상구락부>도 30살의 실직한 미혼남성 4명이 카페에 죽치고 앉아 미인과 여행을 갈망하거나 세계여행을 꿈꾸지만 광산사업의 실패로 모임은 해체된다. 카페여급과 남성고객과의 욕망과 사랑의 실험장인 <성찬>, <계절> 속 카페는 일부일처제, 가족주의, 낭만적 연애, 가부장제, 이성애의 한계를 드러내고 연적을 질투하기보다는 연민와 연대의 차원으로 성찰한 주체적이고 독립적인 여급이 머무는 곳이다. 카페는 망명과 궁핍과 낭만으로서의 오아시스, 룸펜의 공상과 여가와 사교로서의 소비공간, 여급의 성과 사랑이 실험장 등의 의미를 내포하고 있다.

Armed with literature theories and modern knowledge, Lee Hyo-seok left urban novels characterized by eroticism and exoticism. The writer and college professor had his art match his life and believed that environments and situations would gave birth to works with an emphasis on natural characteristics, climate, and the body as conditions for modern Western literature. Such examples of his would include literature like strawberry, tomato, apple, fermented soybean lump, or butter. He understood modern Western literature as sensual literature, youth literature, and body odor literature and used coffee smell and cafe space as the signs of modernity in his works. Cafes made a mainstream in the modernism literature of Guinhoi in the 1930s, and Lee used a cafe space emitting coffee smell as an allegory in his daily life and works, as well.

A cafe was a sign of modernity and distinction, representing a place where everyone could receive a treatment and welcome, escaping from contempt and suppression. Distinguished from country people and premodern individuals, the cafe space witnessed intelligent conversations based on art, knowledge, music, and refined emotions and provided customers with a private and secret space of their own free from anyone's interference. It was a space needed by Lee to maintain his artistic sensibility likened to fog, verse, scent, dream, and fantasy as a professor and head of family. Drinking a cup of tea while discussing literature, checking time, and listening to classical music depicted an aspect of modern people to reveal a modern lifestyle in modern time. Cafes near a port city "Bukguksasin" and "Giwoo" were reproduced as an oasis of romance and youth where customers with many stories would gather, singing, dancing, drinking alcohol and coffee, and getting love. These were where stowaways, travelers, crewmen, and migrant workers could take a rest in extreme tension to cross the border. These places also told the stories of Russian waitresses as Engels girls and Joseon women that became waitresses after the fall of home economy. The cafes in his early works written from the perspective of class consciousness had a mixture of asylum, poverty, and romance for the people of colonized Joseon that escaped from the suppression, violence, and surveillance of the ruling Japanese. Cafes were also reproduced as the space of consuming hobos' fantasy, leisure, and social intercourse. Hobos that were intellectuals without a job would enter a cafe after walking around Seoul or Pyeongyang streets with tired legs. Such a cafe would reveal the characteristics of urban civilization in a unique situation of colonized capitalist modern times. In his Angels and Prose Poems, Lee depicts the main character's daily life of leaving his shabby, humble, tragic, and miserable boarding house, walking along the streets lined with hotels, department stores, cafes, and cabarets, and receiving comfort and sexual service from the angels of his heart or waitresses, who had a great appearance and talent, were proficient with talks, adorned themselves with mufflers and dresses, and wore make-up, at a cafe. His Fantasy Gurakbu describes the daily life of intellectuals in colonized Joseon represented by four single men without a job in their thirties. They would sit in a cafe all day long, dreaming of taking a trip with a beautiful lady or traveling around the world. Their gathering would break down, however, after one of them was put in a difficult situation after his mining business failed. In Lee's novels, the cafe space was also reproduced as the testing ground of sex and love. In his experiments with desire and love between cafe waitresses and male customers, the stories were told in women's position, which differentiates Lee from other writers. Women were well aware of men's irresponsible and temporary sexual instinct and recognized the limitations of monogamy, modern romantic dating, patriarchy, and heterosexual love. They would understand their rivals in love based on sympathy and solidarity of women instead of getting jealous of them. Self-sufficient and independent cafe waitresses were based on Lee's literary view, which was that the liberation of the body would result in the liberation of true humanity. These findings indicate that coffee smell and cafe space were major backgrounds in Lee's urban novels and represented a modern life implying his thematic consciousness.

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