Kuunmong: The Cloud Dream of the Nine

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A Buddhist monk's disciple is punished for a moment of worldly desire and cast into a dream — a lavish second life as a Tang Dynasty nobleman who rises to power, takes eight wives, and achieves everything the waking world denies him. But the dream has a purpose: to teach him whether earthly glory is worth wanting at all. Written in the seventeenth century by Kim Man-jung, this is one of the foundational works of Korean literature — a novel that stages the conflict between Confucian ambition and Buddhist renunciation as a contest between waking and dreaming. A story that asks the oldest question in East Asian philosophy: if the dream is beautiful enough, does it matter that it isn't real?