Reviews

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

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harureads's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

How compelling do dreams have to be for you to move away from reality and towards death?

That is what I thought as I read through the dehumanisation (literal) of Yeong-hye who became a vegetarian after dreamt of violence intermingled with flesh, and a face. We are never told what the face is, but this face is realised within her body and I understood it to be her personhood, what made her human which she now wants to shed. This exploration of finding a different reality as an ordinary woman in the world ends in death, as I had predicted at the beginning, but what actually threw me off was how violent it was going to be for her to achieve that. Her final moments were spent surrounding a group of people who would not let her escape, and kept pushing her to eat - something that stands between her closure to life and her suffering.

This book is one in the long line of pro-euthanasia books that I have seen being published and popularised recently. Except here, Yeong-hye or even her sister and her husband for that matter, never really lived. Their violent pasts, choices, environments, and their memories made them people who did things, but not once do we see them live beyond this need. And this acts as a cautionary (although avant-garde) tale that resonates strongly in this period of widespread loneliness, the requirement of keeping up la politesse, or being alive for the benefit of someone else as a call for structural change.

oat_cakes's review

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4.0

This is a disturbing portrait of mental illness from the perspective of three onlookers. In three parts, it tells the story of a Korean woman, Yeong-Hye, from the point of view of her husband, then her brother-in-law, then her sister In-Hye.

When we first meet Yeong-Hye it is through the eyes of her husband, as she takes the drastic step of becoming vegetarian, which is quite unusual in Korean society. Her reason is the violent, blood-soaked nightmares that have been plaguing her. As the story continues, her family ever-more frantically try to force her to eat meet, culminating in her father trying to literally force some meat into her mouth, which results in violence and a trip to hospital. This part of the book hints at the supernatural and is almost blackly-comedic. It portrays the issues faced by women in Korean society through the flat and unreflective voice of an entitled husband, who totally unpersons his wife not to mention his sexual violence towards her. I found his frank description of his own violence towards and objectification of Yeong-Hye to be an arresting and thought-provoking way to come at these issues.

Then follows the story from Yeong-Hye’s brother in law, who takes up the narrative after her husband leaves her. He also objectifies her, fantasising about sleeping with her, but in contrast to the indifference of her husband this is almost touching. Through his own self-centred lens he describes his recruiting Yeong-Hye for an erotic art project, that leads to their having sex. In the previous part of the book we have come to know Yeong-Hye as strong-willed, even rebellious, asserting her refusal to eat meat against the outcry of her family. In this context I felt her agreement to sex with her brother in law was framed, with him narrating, as a self-assured and confident choice by her.

It is not until the final part of the book, again further forward in time, that we see things from sister In-Hye’s point of view. She, now separated from her husband, views Yeong-Hye as a victim of manipulation. In this part of the book we are confronted by the reality that Yeong-Hye is dangerously anorexic. In this context, as a seriously mentally ill person, her capacity to consent to sleeping with her brother in law seems completely different and his narrative is revealed as self-serving. This final third of the book is really tough going (the middle section gave some respite), and is a truly harrowing depiction of someone on a path to self-destruction.

I understand that originally the book was published in three separate pamphlets. I think this explains what many readers find difficult about it: it’s really three different stories, each about Yeong-Hye but none from her point of view. As such I can see why reading it can feel disjointed and lacking in a satisfying sense of character or storyline. Just as we think we are getting to know someone the perspective shifts and they are completely re-cast. For me this was also one of the things that made the book really interesting, and as remarked earlier I think it allows the book to tackle feminist themes in a fresh and provocative way which I really liked. But the book is certainly taxing, and I nonetheless hankered after a novel-length version of that first part with its promise of a supernatural and tragi-comic tale of a woman renouncing meat.