Who writes a memoir or an autobiography? Celebrities do, but so do people distinguished by their experiences. Indeed, to have such a book out in the world is a stamp certifying the uniqueness of the writer’s life and times. It also, more often than not, signifies that these experiences have come to a point of closure – giving the author necessary distance, to look at them with some reflection. There must be some temporary peace, a retirement from one’s vocation or an uneasy truce between one’s father, the king of England, and oneself, for a memoir or autobiography to emerge.
But the official story of the biggest contemporary musical act in the world was marketed not as an autobiography or a memoir, but as a ‘proof’ of its first ten years. Any fan of Bangtan Sonyeondan (or BTS), would know why. The point at which this book comes is not a culmination of its creative life. Nor are BTS at risk of stopping – even with two members serving mandatory military stints, the band is producing chart topping songs into its eleventh year.
‘Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS’, BTS and Myeongseok Kang, Pan Macmillan, 2023.
‘Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS’, published earlier this month, is thus a record keeper. It is also a meditation into the anger, sorrow and societal expectation that makes an act like BTS. The book is a long explanation of exactly why BTS would choose ‘proof’ as a term to describe their book – because as east Asians, Asians, South Koreans, South Koreans who sing hip-hop, men who wear make-up, men who dance, men who are celebrated by multitudes of women, and keen social commentators, BTS are always in a fighting stance, ready with proofs, should yet another doubter ask for them.
In the book, BTS’s longtime interviewer Kang Myeongseok tells BTS’s story through interviews he conducted with its seven members through the past three years.
It is thus an oral history of the tour de force that the artistes have been – marrying spoken reflections with a dogged recounting of all the unsavoury things that made BTS the success it is today. It dives deep into the process of the creation of the more than 300 songs that the band has, taking time to look into why key songs did well, why some others tanked when they were released, at which point the band had to face the misogyny in its music, and which member hurt a knee during which performance.
Beyond the often stirring reflections by RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook, the stories in Beyond the Story are not exactly new to BTS’s fans.
But once it is all put together between two covers, you do marvel at the scale of the protest that BTS’s very existence is. Although now a pillar of the South Korean cultural wave sweeping across the world, the book offers a solid look at how much of South Korean dogma BTS had to fight in order to be taken seriously as music makers and performers. On the other hand is the fact that they are Asian and thus their fame and talent are still unpalatable concepts for many arbiters of culture in the West.
Beyond the Story is being released in over 20 languages. One of the book’s three English translators, Anton Hur – the others are Slin Jung and Clare Richards – had said that the process was so swift that it involved translating the book as it was being written. This was because BTS’s company HYBE was keen to publish the book by July 9 – the 10-year anniversary of the creation of its fandom, ‘ARMY,’ which is now tens of millions strong. In many ways, this book is almost a singular recognition of how this enormous musical presence came to be with the power of its fans. BTS’s fans have translated their work, analysed it, pushed for radio play, streamed their music, and fiercely criticised racist and unfair critiques. In the book, members of the band note this in no uncertain terms.
Even though it is a book on reflections, its pace betrays the urgency Hur talks of, and puts you on edge. Over the course of seven chapters and 500 pages, you are angry when RM has to respond to a rapper’s slight on stage, anxious when Jimin has to learn to set his voice free for the song ‘Lie,’ happy when V can lean on his elder brothers for strength, and devastated when the band’s star producer SUGA decides he hates music (he does roll this back).
Also read: Watching BTS’s Min Yoongi in the Continent that Made Him
A book to hold
But the strength of Beyond the Story lies not just in essaying a story of seven men, but in the innovation it has brought to book making.
More than a decade ago, even before social media created public opinion, BTS and its company BIGHIT Music were circumventing a low marketing budget by uploading YouTube vlogs, writing tweets and in an entirely new way, creating its enormous global reach. Such a method of promotion was alien to South Korean entertainment then.
It is the same clairvoyance that has perhaps led to the production of a book that can pierce through our Reel-addled attention span to become arguably the second ever Korean volume in translation to top the NYT Bestsellers’ list.
The book unveils quite a few tactical ways of telling a story with seven sides to it and at once protecting it from crowding with the use of simple tools. The seven members’ words are indented and in grey. Kang’s flowing commentary is in black. Lithe footnotes are in dark blue. And the most crucial of BTS’s hundreds of videos and songs referred to in the book are introduced through QR codes.
It is thus a veritable item to collect. And for fans in India – where the album shipping process is long and expensive – the book is also a chance to own something authentic by BTS.
Article on Beyond the Story in yesterday's Loksatta!! It's a Maharasthrian publication in Marathi. The article mainly talks about BTS and the book and shares that there were approx. 5000 pre-orders in India. It describes the book and mentions the band is maintaining a connection+ pic.twitter.com/0MDdnbBjQo
— Illustri⁷ (@UrsaLune) July 16, 2023
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It must be difficult to choose what to say in your own story. In 2009, when asked about a then unfinished memoir, the American poet Mary Karr had told The Paris Review, “It circles me like a gnat. I circle it like a dog staked to a pole.”
To be the narrator of a story told by seven people about seven experiences of their one shared youth must be a pretty tough task. Tougher yet is to exercise choice at every instance and goad three years’ worth of interviews into linear shape. Kang does this with a fair degree of success.
Kang heads the Weverse Magazine, published by BTS’s own company. Celebrated as a music writer in South Korea, not much is known of him outside the country, other than the fact that he is the one journalist to whom all seven very private members of BTS have given lengthy interviews, full of passionate talk on what goes into their music.
In the book, especially magical are points where his personal fondness for the seven BTS members sneak in. One such moment is when Kang speaks of BTS’s performance leader j-hope’s reaction to a brutal instance of mistreatment faced by the band in its early years. He writers that j-hope usually keeps his tone consistent in interviews – to the point of appearing as an objective observer of his own life – but that “sometimes, very rarely, j-hope’s voice fills with emotion.” It is a simple paragraph, rendered perfectly in translation, but laden with meaning for fans of the band who know indeed how rare and thus precious this glimpse is.
