Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - La vegetariana

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

La vegetariana by Han Kang

488 reviews

rhdj's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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bibliomich's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The Vegatarian was a challenging read for me, and it is a book that I think I would need to go back and read again in order to fully appreciate what Han Kang was trying to achieve. My experience reading the book was hindered by the fact that I (mistakenly) assumed it fell in the genre of body horror, and so for much of the book I was anticipating a shift into something that resembled classic horror and/or body horror, and I was confused by the pacing of the story. The Vegetarian, in actuality, is much closer to literary fiction, and while there are certainly some horrific elements, the story is really exploring female bodily autonomy. It is smart and intense, and I think if I had gone into the book with no expectations at all, I would have appreciated the reading experience quite a lot more than I did.

CW: disordered eating, self harm, suicidal ideation and attempt, blood, sexual assault, infidelity, forced institutionalization for mental illness

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nadiarausa's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

Before I share a few initial thoughts, for anyone interested in reading the book, please be aware of a few TW/CW: there are two instances of SA, the first in part one and the other in part two, as well as a few instances of self-h*rm and su*c*de attempts.

As for my initial thoughts: I think a lot of people missed the point of this book. It certainly wasn’t about convincing anyone to be vegetarian or vegan, it wasn’t even just to relay gory and creepy things (though much of the “creepy” imagery in this book was honestly quite beautiful to me); it’s about the harm of misogyny, patriarchy, and the lack of autonomy women have, and how this affects the physical and mental health of women in patriarchal societies.

Han Kang did a beautiful job weaving a story that gives a fantastical horror vibe to the very real world that women (or women-raised folks) live in. I would love to read this in Korean as well! I’d be interested to see how similar or different things are between translations.

One thing on translation that I will note: I wish they’d used the names of the dishes rather than listing ingredients. I get that they were trying to clarify if there was meat in this or that dish, but it felt so weird to read something like japchae (잡채) translated as “stir-fried glass noodles with vegetables and meat.” It’s like saying “wheat noodles with tomato sauce and meat” instead of just saying spaghetti. But otherwise, with only having read the English translation, the translator seemed to do a good job.

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