The Vegetarian

The Vegetarian is a tree-part novella, each narrated by a different character. The main character is Yeon-hye, a young married woman who suffers a mental crisis and becomes a vegan in a country and family where veganism is not well-seen. Her crisis will affect all members of her family in unexpected ways, opening a box of Pandora that will varnish with emotional crisis everyone it touches. The other two major characters are her sister In-hye, and the unnamed artist In-hye's husband. The three parts are: 1/The Vegetarian = We are told the story of Yeon-hye'd through the eyes of her husband Mr Cheong, 2/Mongolian Marks = We are told the story of Yeon-hye's artist brother-in-law. 3/Flaming Trees = We are told the story of Yeon-hye through the eyes of her sister In-hye. The Vegetarian is Yeon-hye's vanishing act in three chapters as each shows a progressive deterioration of Yeon-hye's body and state of mind. The Vegetarian is also an three-way immolation: self-destruction, self-obliteration, and self-denial (Yeon, In, and the artist respectively). **************** The Vegetarian is not an easy book to read, sad, tragic and depressing but also artistic, erotic, lyric an poetic. The book has layer upon layer of meaning, and touches many different subjects that are organically intertwined, and that the reader will discover as they read along. # Some of these subjects and themes are immediately obvious: ~ The social and family structure in South Korea. ~ The objectification of women. ~ The nature of desire. ~ The nature of artistic creation. ~ The effect of trauma and the suppression of emotions on the psyche. ~ The many facets of violence in our daily dealings. From feeding somebody against their will, to emotionally using somebody disregarding their emotional needs, having intercourse with a person who is not in his right mind, or enduring life without living it fully. ~ Social and personal boundaries. # However, I see four major themes in the novel: ~ One is the seek for the real self, because that true self is what we really are, the voice in our inner speech. The closer you are to your true self and your true inner voice the healthier your state of mind. This novel shows this masterfully. . ~ The second is that reality is perception, which is tarnished by our psychological projections.What is more, reality is part o our dreams and dreams are always real no matter how fantastic and mysterious they look like. All the characters say, at certain point in the novel, that the other person is a stranger to them, or that they don't really know them, even though they are family. We can only know other people to a certain extent, even when we think we know them well. We are projecting all the time. ~ The third is mental illness. Which are the repercussions on the social network of the sick person? Where and what is the line that separates sanity from insanity? Who is most insane, the insane person whose mind exteriorises the trauma, or the sane person who cannot deal with the trauma within their own sanity? ~ The fourth is Human Nature vs. Nature. In the book, the former is equalled to violence, suffering, lack of peace, and being stuck, while the latter is equalled to peace, fluidity, happiness, movement, truthfulness, to life as in zen. In fact, the three characters develop a special relationship with Nature, Yeon-hye wants to be a tree, the artist wants to self-obliterate himself into nature through flowers, while In-hye sees trees and forest as holders of the mysteries and answers she is still to get. This links well with Korean culture and Korean connection with the forest, trees and mountains and with some ancestral animist believes that still permeate Korean culture. **************** There is a heavy presence of strong oneiric elements and moments in the novel that affect all the main characters in the book, Yeon-hye, In-hye, her husband and her son. The oneiric element works perfectly in the novel because dreams are the messengers of the psyche, they are the bed where the soul rests, the mirror of the true self, that part of the human being that is honest and says to you how you feel. Dreams are also a space where reality and non-reality mix in organic but mysterious ways. The dream is the seed of our hidden truths, of our moments of elation and those of despair and anguish. The dream is always emotional. And this is the case in the novel. We see our characters' frigid emotionality in their awaken life, but very emotional in their oneiric life. We see their dreams speaking their inner truth. However, the dream is not only an literary element here. There is a strong dream culture in South Korea, still alive nowadays. **************** Regarding influences, we Westerners have a western-centric view of the world that we project all the time, especially with successful Asian artists. We tend to see the influence of any major Western artist on any successful Asian artist who becomes popular in the West, and also a tendency to put in the same bag all those Asian artists who become popular in the West. In a way is understandable. Those are the cultural anchors we have because, when it comes to South Korea, we don't have enough knowledge of the language and culture of the country to do differently. Besides, we are reading a translation and, no matter how good the translator is, this is never the same as reading a work in its original language. What can we say about the use of language, play of words, choice of words, sentence structure and on any other linguistic characteristic that is intrinsically linked to the literary value of any literary work? Some critics with too much space to talk nonsense have made connections between Han Kang's writing and Murakami, and found all sort of Western literary influences on this book. Well, I don't see the connection with Murakami at all, mind you. The connection with The Metamorphosis could be made, albeit quite vaguely. I also have my own projections, of course. Here my mental association. The second chapter and the erotic flower theme resonated with me and brought to mind a video who I saw many-many years ago, the scene of the copulating flowers in Pink Floyd's The Wall (you can still find the clip on YouTube) because, somewhat, I found there was a similar energy, the madness, and darkness even. Han Kang has personally said in some interviews, that her work is indebted to Korean literature, that some of darkness and themes in her works are directly linked and indebted to her experience of the massacre in Gwanjiu in 1980, and that she writes from an Universal standpoint even though she is Korean. She is the daughter of a writer, grew up surrounded by books and artists, she says, but she doesn't really mention any major Western author as her major literary impromptu even when asked about this. So that should suffice to stop speculating about Western influences. **************** There are images powerfully lyric and visually artistic and cinematic in this book. One of my favourites is in the fist part, when Yeong-hye in the courtyard in the hospital with a bird in his hand.Almost like a modern painting. Or the image of In-hye reflected in the mirror with a bleeding eye. Others, on the contrary are very dramatic, shocking and horrific, like the dream with the dog. Those images will stay with you for a long time, printed in your retina long after you close the book. **************** The translation by Deborah Smith is good. Most of the book flows and that is the sort of experience we want as translators and readers to have when translating literary works. Having said that, I thought that the first part needed of a few more commas, cutting on some unnecessary wordiness and another choice of words (this being a very personal thing, of course). TWO NOTES || The Vegetarian was originally published in 2007, compiling three novelettes previously published separately. However, the story, according to Hang herself, developed organically, but turned dark, from a short story of hers "Fruits of my Woman" written in the year 2000. || The book was taken to the screen in 2009 under the direction of Woo-Seong Lim. The movie was also called The Vegetarian. TYPOS > I couldn’t get my head round it. (Locations 48-49). > natural it was to not wear clothes. (Location 1220). A WARNING This word contains explicit violence, human and animal, and explicit sex scenes. A QUERY Why was the book called Vegetarian in English is the character becomes a vegan? Was the title in Korean the same?

“Reality is wrong Dreams are for real”.-Tupac Shakur The Vegetarian a Korean novel written by Han Kang, is a story that shows the main character’s, Yong-hye, journey after deciding to become vegetarian. Though it is her story, the book only contains the points of view of the people around her. Separated into three parts, it starts with the moment she makes her decision. Told by her husband, Mr. Cheong. He describes what he thought of his wife in detail, before and after the life-changing events. Part 2, Yong-hye’s brother-in-law's point of view shows his obsession with wanting to film a certain side of Yong-hye, and now his obsession starts to affect his family. The ending of part two sets up the thoughts and feelings of the last point of view, Yong-hye’s sister In-hye. In-hye is left to care for her sister after she is abandoned by everyone around her and placed into a mental hospital. Yong-hye’s true thoughts are never shown, besides the dream she explain to her husband that started her change. Her words and actions show only a glimpse of what is going on in her head, which is hidden from the reader just like it is hidden from her family. Han Kang probably wanted to write this story to show the inner workings of a Korean family when dealing with a mental illness. In Korea, like in many other places mental illness is not easily accepted; it is even refused to be accepted by the ones affected by it. Causing a problem big or small in a relationship it's frowned upon disregarding what your parents elders and partner stays is utterly disrespectful in Korean culture if there is no love that the relationship should be treated as a business you have to play your part wanted to show how this is all destroyed by the mere action of not eating meat I enjoyed reading this sort of story after randomly coming across the short and simple plot was enough to get me started. I soon realized that it was more than what I expected to be this novel to be more than just getting to see how this affects a Korean family it shows how the people who seem the most composed on the outside are lost and a mess on the inside, whether it be from themselves or others, they can't seem to find a solution. Being referred to as insane, is just a measurement of how well you fooled others to think you were okay, because even you know you are not okay. One character who shared his confusion the most is Mr.Cheong. He was the first one that noticed the change in his wife. Knowing her as just an ordinary women who, goes along with what he says, and seeing her make a decision disregarding his opinion was a lot to handle. He wasn’t afraid to tell her that she had gone insane. His reaction to this is understandable because he knew her one way for a longtime. “If the hints of hysteria, delusion, weak nerves and so on, that I thought I could detect in what she said, ended up leading to something more?” This showed how much Mr.Cheong feared the woman he called his wife. By this point, she was a completely different person to him. The other character completely lost with the situation is In-hye, the older sister. She has known Yong-hye far longer than most, so she feels she knows who Yong-hye is. Seeing the events that happened after the family dinner just proved her wrong. Yong-hye has put on a strong face since she was little, and In-hye didn’t see through it. “Dreams...and I could let myself dissolve into them, let them take me over...but surely the dream isn’t all there is?” In-hye does not want Yong-hye to continue what she is doing. She wants to make herself believe that it is all a dream. A part of her understands Yong-hye, but the recent events can’t let her share that. The only thing she wants is for Yong-hye to go back to ‘the way she was.’ The book overall did a good job in telling the story jumping from points of views, but still getting the information the reader wants and needs. The only thing that I did not like about the book was the fact that we never got to see the point of view of Yong-hye. The only parts that we get close to hearing her thoughts is when she is describing her dreams, but that is still the husband's point of view. I wanted to know more about what she was thinking and how her mind got to this point. I feel just like the other characters, trying to find out why Yong-hye is like this, without being able to talk to her. It is amazing to think that the characters lives could all have been much different if the dream never came to Yong-hye, but I still think it would all have come to this. They don’t understand Yong-hye because they don’t know her, they only claim to. Yong-hye’s wish of being a tree shows how she dislikes being a human, and the ones around her are part of that reason. If you don’t mind the images that Yong-hye paints in the readers head, much like the images her brother-in-law draws, you can try and understand the pain Yong-he feels in her chest and how she wants to break free.

A fascinating read. Very different to anything I've read before. I had no idea where it was headed and had to keep turning the pages on a very strange and tragic journey. Explores some pretty deep and dark themes - mental illness, anorexia, and the way we relate to people who make choices that are different to ours. A difficult but rewarding read.

The first reading I had from this author. Fabulous and deep. It is about the choice. It is also about the human nature. The choice that goes beyond the extreme. After this, I bought other books from the same author. Warmly recommended.

For a used book, this was totally fine for me. There are a few small creases from previous use and a slight stain, but nothing major. It’s still readable and original, I’m happy with it.

This review is only for the quality of the print..the paperback is of very poor quality. The cover is not even cut to size! For 17sgd its not atall worth the money

I really loved the book