Publisher's Weekly touts Han Kang's The Vegetarian as "the first must-read book of 2016." While the book is an interesting read, it is also a strange one.
From Goodreads - "Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether."
The book is comprised of three interlocking chapters, originally published in Korea as separate novellas. They are written from the perspectives of the relatives of the central character, Yeong-hye.
When read separately, the chapters depict individual lives affected by Yeong-hye's decisions. As a whole, they paint an even greater picture and give the reader greater insight into Yeong-hye's spiral downward.
The first part of the book is experienced through the eyes of Yeong-hye's husband, Mr. Cheong (referred to as such throughout). In choosing a wife, Mr. Cheong looked for a woman who would be submissive, unassertive, and bland. At first, Yeong-hye was exactly that.
She was a woman of few words. It was rare for her to demand anything of me, and however late I was in getting home she never took it upon herself to kick up a fuss. Even when our days off happened to coincide, it wouldn’t occur to her to suggest we go out somewhere together. While I idled the afternoon away, TV remote in hand, she would shut herself up in her room. . . . Only at mealtimes would she open the door and silently emerge to prepare the food. To be sure, that kind of wife, and that kind of lifestyle, did mean that I was unlikely to find my days particularly stimulating.
Everything in their lives changes when, after experiencing gruesome nightmares, Yeong-hye refuses to eat meat and continues her refusal despite negative pressure from Mr. Cheong and her family. At one point, after a particularly violent altercation with her father, she attempts suicide by slicing her wrist with a fruit knife.
The second chapter is narrated by Yeong-hye's brother-in-law (unnamed), a video artist, who never gave her much thought until his wife mentioned a birthmark on Yeong-hye's buttock. From that point, he becomes obsessed with her and with incorporating said birthmark into his art, even drawing mildly pornographic sketches of himself and Yeong-hye.
The final chapter is shown through the eyes of Yeong-hye's very own sister, as she struggles with a young child, a failing marriage, and her sister's decisions. Yeong-hye is now in a psychiatric hospital, refusing to eat anything at all. Yeong-hye, In-hye (her sister), and her brother-in-law all experience recurring dreams in which they see their reflections distorted, their faces altered and obscured. This distorted self is their "primal self," to which Yeong-hye completely gives in. In-hye is quoted as envious of her sister's total surrender:
She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She’d been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner.
While Han Kang's story is vibrant in itself, Deborah Smith's translation brings the story to light. Kang's writing and imagery pulse with texture and emotion:
First he [her brother-in-law] swept up the hair that was falling over her [Yeong-hye's] shoulders, and then, starting from the nape of her neck, he began to paint. Half-opened buds, red and orange, bloomed splendidly on her shoulders and back, and slender stems twined down her side. When he reached the hump of her right buttock he painted an orange flower in full bloom, with a thick, vivid yellow pistil protruding from its centre. He left the left buttock, the one with the Mongolian [birth]mark, undecorated. Instead, he just used a large brush to cover the area around the bluish mark with a wash of light green, fainter than the mark itself, so that the latter stood out like the pale shadow of a flower
Every time the brush swept over her skin he felt her flesh quiver delicately as if being tickled, and he shuddered. But it wasn't arousal; rather it was a feeling that stimulated something deep in his very core, passing through him like a continuous electric shock.
The failure to comprehend the very people with whom we should be closest is an underlying theme of the novel. Kang punctuates our erroneous faith in the ability to understand one another by silencing Yeong-hye and instead allowing her story to be told by her husband, her sister, and her brother-in-law. Their inability to “know” Yeong-hye creates frustration, disillusionment, and isolation. Only In-hye, who, in the midst of her own personal crisis, rejects the temptations of the primal, ultimately finds some meaning in Yeong-hye’s choices. Kang’s provocative novel calls into question our reliance on others for emotional sustenance when the primal side of our natures remains always unpredictable, always incomprehensible.
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