Look at Who Acts, and Why
When you first open a classic, unfamiliar titles and names of objects may catch your eye. It can seem as if you must look up each one before you can read, but a story can begin simply by following the movement of a single scene. In The Tale of a Yangban, a man who cannot repay his debt weeps, while a wealthy man covets his social status. Ask why one wants to buy what the other wants to give up. Even without a detailed knowledge of the institutions of the time, you can understand why the two men enter a bargain.
On your first reading, write down one thing each character wants. The yangban wants to escape his immediate difficulties; the wealthy man wants to change a life in which he is treated as an inferior. Next, look for what they actually do to obtain those things. Once the connection between desire and action becomes clear, difficult words begin to find their place in the scene. Rather than memorizing every piece of information with equal weight, learn first the terms you need to understand the event at hand.
Distinguish the Library's Three Kinds of Text
The Classical Chinese original is the basis for checking the language and order in which the work tells its story. You do not need to decipher it all immediately. Simply noticing where a character's name recurs, where a conversation grows long, or where scenes differ in length can give you a feel for the shape of the writing. What matters is having somewhere to return when you later want to investigate a word or the course of a scene.
The plain retelling is a newly written account of the main events in modern Korean, presented here in English. It combines short sentences and adds explanations to create a readable flow, so it does not correspond to every sentence of the original one for one. Nor is it the provider's official translation. The commentary is a separate piece that proposes ways to read the story. Distinguishing events in the original, retelling that aids understanding, and editorial interpretation makes it easier to assess differences when you encounter other translations or commentaries.
Notice How One Event Changes the Next Judgment
The Tale of Gwangmun is a good work for this exercise. The householder hears Gwangmun's unvarnished words, believes that he is no thief, and releases him first. After seeing him bury a dead child and hearing the circumstances, he forms a high opinion of his character and helps him. The apothecary realizes his mistake only after the missing money is accounted for. One man checks Gwangmun's words and actions in turn; the other hears an explanation from the person who took the money. Their grounds for trust, and the order in which they acquire it, differ.
When you come to a change in the judgment of a character, pause for a moment. Ask what new information has just arrived and who knows it. Sometimes the reader already understands the circumstances while the characters do not. This difference can create sympathy or laughter. Moving a step beyond summarizing events in order, you can begin to feel how that order affects the reader.
Keep Both What Resonates and What Troubles You
In The Tale of Master Yedeok, Seongyulja respects Eom Haengsu, whose work others look down on. At the same time, he says that people should live within their circumstances and allotted station. You may find yourself agreeing with the respect for labor while questioning the demand to remain in an assigned place. There is no need to resolve that tension hastily. Recognizing the ideas placed together within a single work is itself a meaningful act of reading.
The Tale of Old Min likewise combines wit that makes people laugh with behavior that may trouble a reader today. The narrator's record of laughing does not require the reader to feel the same. Before keeping only the sentences you like, or dismissing the whole work because of one troubling scene, write down the grounds for each response. Understanding a character's action and judging that action favorably can be considered separately.
One Question Is Enough for a Second Reading
When you return to a work, you do not have to repeat everything from the beginning. Choose one question: what the two deeds promise differently in The Tale of a Yangban, how Eom Haengsu's daily life serves as evidence in The Tale of Master Yedeok, or how the final mourning changes the earlier jokes in The Tale of Old Min. Once a question is set, details you missed begin to appear naturally. The depth of a reading is not necessarily the number of times you have read or the amount of information you have memorized.
Finally, try writing one line for a fact established in the work and another for your own thought. The wealthy man abandoning the bargain during the second deed is an event; an account of the life he may have feared is an interpretation. The habit of connecting these without confusing them helps with other writing as well as classics. If you can find evidence in the work, even when you disagree with the commentary, you are already reading in your own way.