Book: The Vegetarian
Author: Han Kang
Pages: 210
Publisher: Portobello Books
Read On: Paperback
How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 days (with lots of breaks for thinking)
Plot Summary: Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister's husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree.
Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
General Thoughts: This book generated so much buzz and so many rave reviews that I had to pick it up and give it a read. Plus the plot sounded vague enough and interesting at the same time.
I bought this book in December 2016.
I read it in February 2017.
And I am reviewing it only now in December 2017!
Why you'd ask?
Honestly, I am not quite sure.
I did take some time in figuring out how I felt about this book. When I finished the book I had a hard time processing how I felt about it and how I could possibly rate it.
And it has taken me 8 months to write a somewhat coherent review of it here.
Things I Liked:
1. Any book that messes with my mind and the conventional story telling format is a good thing. Seriously, this book just doesn't quite fit into our preconceived notions of story telling or how a book should be written. It is entirely unique and I loved that about it. This is one of a kind read.
2. The book is told from three perspective. A woman has recurring nightmares and decides to go vegetarian. Her husband, her brother-in-law and her sister make for the three sections of this book. We see the events unfold through their eyes. We see their reactions and how this seemingly innocuous decision is affecting them all. This was really interesting to see, you would think one person's decision to make a choice about their food and eating habits wouldn't enrage those around them but man this one decision has a rippling effect within this family.
3. I didn't know that turning vegetarian has such a huge impact on people in Korea. While I was reading this book, when I had just started it, I actually went back to check the year in which this novel was set. I kept thinking it was set in the 40s or 50s but it is set in the present day. It really opened up my eyes to the social norms in South Korea. Apparently going vegetarian is pretty rare and is seriously frowned upon. But it still blew my mind to see Yeong-hye's family react in such strong and frankly violent manner.
4. This book is about of course a decision made by a woman about her own life but at the crux of it, it is a book about personal freedom and personal choice. Do we really have sway over our own fate? Do we truly get to make choices of our own volition? I think especially in Asian cultures, ours included, women don't really enjoy freedom over their own lives and fates. Isn't everything we do governed by someone else's will? Our fathers, brothers, mothers and later husbands and children have a say in everything a woman does. It's infuriating but God it's so true. This book shows us a woman who simply wants to change her diet. A small insignificant thing, right? No! This becomes a HUGE deal in her family. Everyone from her husband to her father reacts violently to her decision and tries to force their opinion on her. It makes your blood boil! This is shown so well in the book. It manages to enrage you and move you.
5. Each section of the book shows Yeong-Hye's predicament go from bad to worse. First her husband and his violent outbursts and her father's physical violence to bend her will and later her brother-in-law's exploitation. Her life goes from bad to worse, it is like seeing someone's life take a downward spiral for a really silly reason.
6. The writing was really special. It had a dreamlike quality to the writing that reminded me a little bit of Murakami's style of story telling, which is always a good thing!
Things I Didn't Like:
1. This book really confused me- with regards to how I felt about it.
There were a lot of good things about it but I can't quite say I ENJOYED myself while I was reading it.
I appreciated this book and I can see it's literary merit but it wasn't a book I enjoyed while I was spending time with it.
2. I also found that a book about Yeong-Hye and her decision that charts the course of this book, had so little from her. We see her world through three people in her life but never really from her, I wish that wasn't the case.
Rating: 3/5
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