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Our Assessment:
B+ : nicely done, with some exceptional moments See our review for fuller assessment.
Review Consensus: - Return to top of the page - The complete review's Review: Yeong-he is the pivotal character in each of the three parts of The Vegetarian, but each is focused on another character: her husband in the first, her brother-in-law in the second, and her sister in the last. The novel begins with Yeong-he having a breakdown of sorts, emptying the refrigerator of meat (a lot of meat) and becoming a vegetarian. In a culture where it is highly uncommon to find anyone who doesn't eat meat -- "But surely it isn't possible to live without eating meat ?" is one of the reactions Yeong-he gets -- her choice, calling into question the most basic nourishment, undermines the very fabric of a close-knit society. Her husband sees it as such, too: If it had all been just another instance of a woman giving up meat in order to lose weight then there would have been no need to worry, but I was convinced that there was more going on here than a simple case of vegetarianism.Yeong-he was exactly the sort of unexceptional woman her husband was happy to settle on: always "inclined toward the middle course of life", he never strives for something more or better, and Yeong-he -- "the most run-of-the-mill woman in the world" -- is the ideal partner. Of course, he doesn't want an actual partner: Yeong-he serves a purpose, doing what is expected of her in the role of 'wife' but not intruding on his life. Sometimes he wishes she would complain and yell like other wives, but on the whole he's pretty satisfied with the docile, undemanding creature he keeps at home. He takes no interest in her interior life -- noting that she likes to read but showing no interest in what she reads. Yeong-he works at home, doing the words in the speech bubbles of manhwa-comics. Practically the only complaint he has with Yeong-he is her reluctance to wear a bra, a small irritating sign of rebellion and her not falling in line with societal norms (arbitrary though this one too is). Of course, once she goes vegetarian, that really disrupts his dreams of enjoying a: "carefully ordered existence". Annoyed by Yeong-he's new lifestyle (and at not finding meat on the table when he comes home to eat), he can nevertheless put up with it in their closed domestic sphere. Having never expected much from his marriage, he thinks he can adapt: I thought I could get by perfectly well just thinking of her as a stranger, or no, as a sister, or even a maid, someone who puts food on the table and keeps the house in good order.But her choice is perceived as anti-social, and in public she poses more of a problem. Dinner with his boss goes poorly; dinner with her family much worse, as Yeong-he's domineering father wants to forcefully put an end to what he sees as his uppity daughter's absurd choice. It ends in a mess, Yeong-he first hospitalized and then institutionalized; her husband has enough and cuts his losses. As he tells her: Stop eating meat, and the world will devour you whole.This first section is narrated in the first person by the husband. The second, set some two years later, is told in the third-person, and centers on Yeong-he's brother-in-law -- a witness to the terrible family-dinner, but otherwise until then an entirely incidental figure. Meanwhile, we learn only that Yeong-he's husband has rid himself of her; she's no longer his concern and he no longer figures in her life. Her brother-in-law is a struggling video artist. Yeong-he's sister, his wife In-hye, has successfully built up a business, and they have a child together, and he is able to live fairly comfortably, doing more or less what he wants. (This is a society where the wife in such circumstances: "is even grateful that he let her take on so much responsibility, running a business as well as a household, without so much as a word of a complaint" .....) Nevertheless, he's plagued by a sense of dissatisfaction. He's on on a quest of sorts: he has a vision, and wants to realize it, but he's struggling with it, and hasn't found what he's looking for. Now, suddenly, Yeong-he is the key. With Yeong-he now living on her own, after a period of being institutionalized, In-hye is the one family member who tries to help her sister out (the others have also washed their hands of her). A casual mention of the 'Mongolian mark' that Yeong-he had, and that long did not fade, inspires the would-be artist. (He also connects it to her vegetarianism, images he can't disentangle.) Obsessed, he is ultimately able to realize it -- at a terrible cost to him and his family. Yeong-he's body has become one: "from which all superfluity had gradually been whittled away"; it is, in essence, all essence. Her Mongolian mark, meanwhile -- a vestige, still lingering -- is: "more vegetal than sexual". Indeed, everything about Yeong-he suggests a primal urge to get back-to-nature -- and, significantly, all flora (rather than fauna). So too when her brother-in-law realizes his creative vision the transformation is into a plant- rather than animal-self. The final section centers on In-hye, still trying to help her sister. Institutionalized again, Yeong-he has forsaken not just meat but all food; in her final self-destructive state, now fully anorexic, she claims: I don't need to eat, not now. I can live without it. All I need is sunlight.Yeong-he's vegetarianism is not a conscious choice but an obsession (when she tries to explain it, she says it came to her in a dream); if it is rebellion, it is one she has little control over. She has suffered at the hands of her father -- and the dinner-scene shows what he is capable of -- and her husband's let-it-be attitude to everything clearly did not provide the support she needed. Her brother-in-law's creative take seems more in tune with her needs, yet turns out to be a damging indulgence: if Yeong-he arguably finds her true self here, it also leaves her without a place in any functioning society: at the end, even the mental institution doesn't feel able to deal with her. The Vegetarian is an often remarkable novel, with striking images and scenes, in an impressive range of controlled writing. These portraits -- three personal takes, each largely in relation to Yeong-he, and the murkier yet dominant presence of Yeong-he throughout -- are very well done. So is the sense of a rigidly functional society and its vulnerability to a variety of cracks. It is the reliance on mental illness that is a bit disappointing -- a device so common (and so tired) that it feels like far too easy an excuse, explanation, and fall-back. Han handles it reasonably well, but relying on it to such an extent here still limits what the story can be. - M.A.Orthofer, 5 January 2016 - Return to top of the page - The Vegetarian:
- Return to top of the page - Korean author Han Kang (한강) was born in 1970. - Return to top of the page -
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