brenticus reviewed The vegetarian by Han Kang
Translation of Ch'aesikchuŭija (Published 2007 by Ch'angbi)
None
4 stars
This was weird and much different than I expected. And it took me much longer to read than anticipated; not sure what was up with that.
I believe the frontmatter of the book indicated this was originally three novelettes that have been stuffed together, and I'd say that's fairly obvious even if they do all flow together fairly well. This book is about Yeong-Hye, a woman who decided to be a vegetarian one day based on a strange dream she had, but it's told from the perspective of her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister, with the POV switching for each novelette. Each one sees Yeong-Hye in a different light, each one has different opinions about her vegetarianism, and each one seems to give up on her by the end.
The thoughts and actions of Yeong-Hye are left obscure throughout the book, and the tension around her strange actions and statements seems to push this almost into thriller territory. We don't know why she's doing this, but it's having huge effects on her health and her relationships and she just doesn't seem to care. As things get worse and worse, we wonder more and more how much she really understands what she's doing.
Bodily autonomy is a huge theme in this book, with Yeong-Hye's autonomy violated more and more perversely as time goes on, but there's a lot of ambiguity around the morality of it. Is she being healthy? Is she capable of consent? Should she be allowed to starve herself even to the point of death? Is she capable of making these decisions for herself? The people around her vary in exactly how selfish their actions are, but the way that the violations get more intense alongside the question of whether Yeong-Hye can make these decisions for herself is really well done.
This book almost viscerally rips into its themes in a way that makes them stick with you for a bit. On the surface it seems like a fairly straightforward story, but Han Kang did a fantastic job of showing us what lies inside.
I believe the frontmatter of the book indicated this was originally three novelettes that have been stuffed together, and I'd say that's fairly obvious even if they do all flow together fairly well. This book is about Yeong-Hye, a woman who decided to be a vegetarian one day based on a strange dream she had, but it's told from the perspective of her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister, with the POV switching for each novelette. Each one sees Yeong-Hye in a different light, each one has different opinions about her vegetarianism, and each one seems to give up on her by the end.
The thoughts and actions of Yeong-Hye are left obscure throughout the book, and the tension around her strange actions and statements seems to push this almost into thriller territory. We don't know why she's doing this, but it's having huge effects on her health and her relationships and she just doesn't seem to care. As things get worse and worse, we wonder more and more how much she really understands what she's doing.
Bodily autonomy is a huge theme in this book, with Yeong-Hye's autonomy violated more and more perversely as time goes on, but there's a lot of ambiguity around the morality of it. Is she being healthy? Is she capable of consent? Should she be allowed to starve herself even to the point of death? Is she capable of making these decisions for herself? The people around her vary in exactly how selfish their actions are, but the way that the violations get more intense alongside the question of whether Yeong-Hye can make these decisions for herself is really well done.
This book almost viscerally rips into its themes in a way that makes them stick with you for a bit. On the surface it seems like a fairly straightforward story, but Han Kang did a fantastic job of showing us what lies inside.