A Heart Between the Sky and the Ground: A close reading of Kim Inyook’s “The Physics of Love” within the context of Goblin
THE PHYSICS OF LOVE
Kim Inyook
Mass is not proportional to volume A girl as small as a violet A girl who moves like a flower petal is pulling me towards her with more force than her mass. Just then, I am Like Newtons Apple I rolled towards her without stopping Until I fell on her With a thump, with a thump My heart Keeps bouncing between the sky and the ground It was my first love.
Previously included in the poetry collection “The Stars Might Take Your Pain Away,” a compilation of 101 poems selected by the poet Kim Yongtaek, Kim Inyook’s poem “The Physics of Love” became so popular that he republished his poems under the same title in 2016. This was all because the writer, Kim Eunsook, used it on the Kdrama Goblin.
In it Gong Yoo plays Kim Shin, a slain warrior from the Koryo Period who, upon his death, harbored so much violence and hate that he was cursed to have eternal life with a sword stuck through his chest. His spirit, instead of passing on to the afterlife, went into his sword, essentially turning him into a Dokkaebi, or a Goblin. The only way to set him free, and kill him, was if the Goblin’s bride, his bride, shows up and takes the sword out of him as she’s the only one who can do that. Kim Goeun plays that Ji Euntak, the Goblin’s bride.
Although hesitant and dismissive of her at first, she eventually worms his way into his heart. The moment that he realizes that he has fallen for her is when he’s reading “The Physics of Love,” while waiting for her to arrive. He eventually spots her across the street and decides to fill her life with a little bit of magic. Having almost nothing her entire life, orphaned and left with abusive relatives, she had learned to find happiness in littlest things. So even the magical changing of the color of the yellow stripe on the pedestrian walk as she stepped on them made her absolutely happy. We hear the poem recited in the background as she makes her way toward him.
On the first stanza, the persona contradicts the science-backed fact that mass is directly proportional to volume—something big should be just as heavy. He challenges this notion by the simple fact that someone as small, delicate and vibrant as his beloved has the capacity to pull him towards her with more force than what she should be capable of. He did not expect someone like her could elicit feelings so strong within him and yet, there he was, falling for him like Newton’s apple.
By evoking the story of how Isaac Newton came to discover the presence of gravity, then persona then injects the notion of inevitability into their relationship. The small girl has that much pull on his emotions because they were fated to be with each other— the same way that gravity is inescapable. He was going to be drawn to the people he was meant to be drawn to. And the only response that he can give is to give in. He falls for her with the sound of a thump— a sound of awakening, and also the sound of a heart coming to life.
The heart bouncing between the sky and the ground in the third stanza is a reference to the highs and lows of first love. Because this is his first time to fall in love, all the emotions seem to swing to the extremes. Petty little things drive him to a state of euphoria, like flying up to the sky. But it also means that petty little things can drive him down to the ground, to despair. Such was the characteristic of first love, young love.
However, within the context of “Goblin” the poem takes on a rather melancholy tone, almost foreboding. While the moment of realization feels like a new lease on life for the persona, it is the opposite for Kim Shin. If he has fallen for her, then that means she truly is his bride. Coupled with that is the realization that he has found the only thing that can kill him— which is exactly what he had wanted in all the 900 years that he wandered the Earth as an immortal. But now that he has found her, death was the farthest thing from his mind.
But it should be— that’s why in the episode, flashes of his death as he stares up at the sun at its highest point in the sky are interspersed with Ji Euntak’s bright, sunlit smile as she made her way to him. The last stanza now bears more gravitas as it moves away from the petty nature of youthful first love. His heart bouncing between the sky and ground becomes a reminder upon finally finding love for the first time, he has found death for the last time.
The scene ends with the sound of a loud thump as something falls on the page of the book. It is a bright red maple leaf— harbinger of fall, the season when beautiful things start to die.
