Review by elsieols - The Vegetarian

elsieols 's review for:

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

4.25

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

okay, so this review is a little difficult to fully articulate. i will try, though.

first of all, the husband and the brother in law both deserve to be buried alive and then to spend eternity in hell perpetually being castrated by hot-but-not-hot-enough-to-cauterize branding irons. that being said, i found myself rating this book highly despite their perspectives. there are a couple reasons, i think, why.

first off, it i didn’t know han kang was a woman, i would have dnf-ed less than 30% onto the book just by how mr. cheong was speaking of yeong-hye. however, knowing she was a woman and in an intellectual field, i think i opened up my mind more to what commentary could come from these depictions.

i can only see this book as a depiction of the abuse and mental fragmentation women face under the thumbs of domineering men in a patriarchal society, specifically from the forced repression that one does when raised as a girl and woman in a society like this. women in this depiction are like the dog yeong-hye remembers her father killing—forced to run in circles and coughing up blood and organs, being dragged on the ground for nothing but amusement after doing something as simple as biting, a basic, defensive instinct. and men are the people surrounding the dog, killing it and eating its meat. yeong-hye’s vegetarianism is her trying to pull away from the system and create a gentler system. she clings to her breasts as things that sustain life, as soft parts of her. in the end, though, in her attempt at escape from this system, she is the mess of hard lines and sharp edges that she had grown to fear in herself. it’s terribly tragic and very violent, but i do think that kang depicts these moments and emotions well. even the perspective choice speaks to yeong-hye’s forced suppression. we only ever see her perspective in tiny glimpses in her husband’s pov, and 2/3 of her story is told by men.

another reason i rated this book highly is because of the questions it brings of the self and the fracturing of the mind, especially in the last part. even if we look at these NOT primarily through the lens of repressed women, the questions in this part about the self and the way abuse changes a person are fascinating. i especially find it fascinating to examine the parallels between

yeong-hye’s descent into instability and her sister’s.

i think this was done incredibly well.

all in all, i appreciate this book even if it made me angry and uncomfortable. i can certainly see why one may rate it low based on the horrific narrators and an inability to separate them from the author due to HOW terrible and inexcusable they are. however, this feminist commentary i kinda stuck to from the beginning made me come to really appreciate kang for how she depicted yeong-hye’s story.

Content Warnings