Reviews with content warning for Forced institutionalization - The Vegetarian

Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

617 reviews

emily_journals's review against another edition

3.0

dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is broken up into three segments, which are each told from a different character's POV and at different points in the story, which surprised me based on the description as I was expecting this story to all be from Yeong-hye's POV. Only the first segment has any of Yeong-hye's perspective, but her perspective is in the background of even that segment, as the first segment is from Yeong-hye's husband's perspective.

I think the first segment of this book was my favorite, I enjoyed the commentary that the author was making about gender and family roles in Korea through the husband's perspective. I also enjoyed the snippets about Yeong-hye's dreams that were included in this segment, and I really wish this was continued throughout the rest of the book.

The second segment of the book is told from Yeong-hye's brother-in-law's perspective and this segment deals a lot with struggling with the failure to live up to expectations, and also with the exploiting and taking advantage of mental illness. This one was a bit weird to me, as the themes seemed to be working against the brother-in-law while the tone tried to make the audience empathize with him. I'm not sure if this tonal vs. theme discord was due to translation or if this was the way it was meant to be, but the discord was very off-putting and made me confused and unsure of what the author was trying to convey in this segment, so I didn't like this segment as much as the first.

The final segment of this book is told from Yeong-hye's sister's perspective and the main themes of this segment deal with the duties of those in proximity to mental illness and the grief of losing someone while they're still alive. The themes of this segment are probably the most interesting in the book, but the sister's voice and inner monologue are quite strange, which might be due to translation but I'm unsure. The way that she switches between different feelings and trains of thought quite suddenly detracted from the story for me and made it really difficult to immerse myself in this portion of the book.

Overall, I think the themes of this book were quite interesting, but I think either the author or the translation didn't have a clear vision of what voice they wanted to portray to the audience in the later two sections of the book. I also really missed Yeong-hye's short interjections in the later two sections that were present in the first section, I thought they added a lot to not only Yeong-hye's character but also to all the characters reacting to Yeong-hye in the first section.

Content Warnings

ifollowedthatrabbit's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

“The thing that hurts is my chest. Something is stuck in my solar plexus. I don't know what it might be. It's lodged there permanently these days […] No matter how deeply I inhale, it doesn't go away.”

Yeong-hye is an ordinary woman, according to her husband. That’s why he chose her as a wife, because she wouldn’t complain about anything and wouldn’t make him feel inferior. But this doesn’t last forever. Yeong-hye starts having horrifying nightmares that make her change her life drastically. She stops eating meat and any animal products.

“Yells and howls, threaded together layer upon layer, are enmeshed to form that lump. Because of meat. I ate too much meat. The lives of the animals I ate have all lodged there. Blood and flesh, all those butchered bodies are scattered in every nook and cranny, and though the physical remnants were excreted, their lives still stick stubbornly to my insides.”

This is not the average Vegetarian/Vegan kind of life; it’s something else entirely.

“One time, just one more time, I want to shout. I want to throw myself through the pitch-black window. Maybe that would finally get this lump out of my body. Yes, perhaps that might work.”

Through this philosophical story, Han Kang shows us the difficulties of being a woman in a man’s world. Yeong-hye and her sister are a vividly and raw depiction of the oppressive world women face daily.

“The pain feels like a hole swallowing her up, a source of intense fear and yet, at the same time, a strange, quiet peace.”

There’s so much I’d like to say about this book, but I’d end up giving massive spoilers, so I stop just here.

One last thought: there’s a scene, during the first part of the book, where I could highly relate myself to Yeong-hye. She’s at a dinner business party (her husband forced her to go) and she calmly says to the waitress that she won’t eat anything. Everyone stares at her. The food comes and they’re all meat based meals. The people at the table start commenting on her “vegetarianism” and how crazy that is. Oh, I’ve been there 😩 Anyone thinks they have a right to tell you what to eat, they think their lifestyles are better than yours. Eating meat is a natural thing, so you’re completely wrong. Quoting the great Aretha Franklin here: “a little RESPECT, just a little bit…”

Content Warnings

madelinequinne's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

wichbich's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

kiraeth's review against another edition

3.75

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

hydecircus's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Wish it had focused on the meat aspect throughout the whole book as hard as it did in the first third but that might be my only major issue and it's one of completely personal taste. I really love the different perspectives the story is told through and the way that the characters' perceptions of each other and the situations taking pace are so distinct from one another's. All three characters view the world and Yeong-hye in entirely different ways and the author (and translator) do a really spectacular job of differentiating their voices. Also a really bold choice to have almost nothing told from Yeong-hye's perspective, so we learn about her solely through what are undoubtedly unreliable and biased narrorators. I wish the ending had been a bit more concrete, but with a story like this I think it would've been difficult.

Content Warnings

acherontian's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

the premise is really intriguing and I loved the commentary on differing from your family/peers as well as your culture/society altogether and I felt that was very strong. the institutionalization aspect of it was even stronger. similarly, I think that choosing to tell this from everyone's perspective except for yeong-hye's was a fantastic narrative choice. she is an outcast. she is behaving in ways that others find odd and harrowing, so she shouldn't be telling her story. it's cruel, but it's so damn good.

I feel like it was ultimately too short (it could’ve benefitted from 2-3 more snapshots between the second and third sections, but that may be my disdain for time jumps leaking through) and could’ve gone more into psychological horror

(i loved the parts detailing her dreams and how she seemed to be photosynthesizing… i know that i wouldn’t have found out why she was doing what she was doing, and i wasn’t too concerned with that. I just wanted to see more of the behavior that terrified her family so much, it was interesting).

the vegetarian is compelling and poignant, I wish more people knew about it.

Content Warnings