Here is a re-post of my review of ‘The Vegetarian’ by the 2024 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Han Kang, which I first posted in 2016.
‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang (2007) – 188 pages Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith
If you thought a novel by a South Korean woman writer might be too polite or decorous for you, forget about it. ‘The Vegetarian’ is lurid and violent, and it has sex scenes that would make that old purveyor of masturbatory fantasy Philip Roth blush.
“I do not eat meat,” Yeong-Hye announces one day. Her husband is indifferent to what she does as long as she keeps up a respectable front with his work associates and bosses. However Yeong-Hye makes a big scene at a company dinner with her refusal to eat meat, and this embarrasses her husband no end.
Yeong-Hye’s father and mother come to visit. She refuses to eat meat. This so infuriates her father that he beats her severely and force feeds her a piece of meat. She spits it out and then brandishes a fruit knife and cuts her wrist. She is taken to the hospital in critical condition.
At this point, we realize that Yeong-Hye is mentally ill. I doubt that someone deciding to become a vegetarian would ever be considered a sign of mental illness in the United States, but Yeong-Hye has other symptoms. She not only refuses meat; she starves herself. She takes her clothes off and goes naked regardless of whoever happens to be around. In the second section of “The Vegetarian”, her artist brother-in-law is consumed with sexual desire for her. He is obsessed with sexual fantasies featuring Yeong-Hye. Because she is in her own little world, she is a helpless victim.
In the third section, Yeong-Hye’s sister confronts her sister’s sickness:
“Life is such a strange thing, she thinks, once she has stopped laughing. Even after certain things have happened to them, no matter how awful the experience, people still go on eating and drinking, going to the toilet, and washing themselves – living in other words. And sometimes they even laugh out loud.”
One thing I noticed while reading the author’s notes was that Han Kang was a participant in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Apparently afterwards she returned to South Korea, because the novel was written in Korean. So what we have here is a hybrid, a South Korean novel infused with a western sensibility.
All of the scenes in the novel are portrayed with a vivid dramatic intensity I wasn’t expecting. That is why I will remember ‘The Vegetarian’ long after other novels have faded from my memory.
Grade: A
Tony's Book World 
Posted by Lisa Hill on October 12, 2024 at 4:30 AM
I was disappointed by this choice, not just because Gerald Murnane was passed over *again*, but because I tried reading The Vegetarian and I found it utterly repulsive. I am sick of books featuring gratuitous violence against women, it’s gone past ‘raising awareness’, it normalises it. *chuckle* I don’t envy you having its scenes seared into your memory!
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Posted by Anokatony on October 12, 2024 at 5:22 AM
Diversity, Diversity, Diversity….
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Posted by Lisa Hill on October 12, 2024 at 7:48 AM
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is Murnane’s problem. He’s an old white guy. Never mind that he’s a writer of genius worthy of the prize.
I think what is most unfortunate about it, apart from the injustice of it, is that he’s a man of very simple tastes who lives a quiet life in the countryside. He would use the money to do something wonderful for other people. He wouldn’t just give it to his kids to build McMansions and buy BMWs. He would set up a Lit prize like Patrick White did when he won it, or build a shelter for homeless people, or donate it to a program like the Gates Foundation.
Oh well, perhaps some good will come of this year’s prize.
*sigh* Time to move on.
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Posted by Lux Reader on October 13, 2024 at 9:30 AM
I appreciate your insights into the book’s exploration of mental illness and societal expectations. It’s clear that Han Kang is a skilled writer who can create vivid and memorable characters.
I’m also interested in learning more about the cultural context of the novel.
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Posted by Anokatony on October 13, 2024 at 3:55 PM
HI Lux Reader,
I am intending to read and investigate the writing of Han Kang more by soon reading another of her novels, probably ‘Greek Lessons’.
Thanks for stopping by.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on October 15, 2024 at 5:19 PM
I’ve been torn about this one since it was published; I avoided it mostly because of the brutality issue. I was quite interested to see that it made such a favorable impression on you! It’s still on my TBR list, but I must admit that are lots of other things ahead of it.
On a different subject: have you read Powers’ Playground yet? I finally finished it a couple of weeks ago and, to my surprise, thought it was very, very good!
Different again, this time on Nobel Prize: Although I wasn’t particularly rooting for any one, I was a teeny disappointed about the selection, mostly (and unfairly) because Han Hang was largely unknown to me!
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Posted by Anokatony on October 15, 2024 at 5:39 PM
Hi Janakay,
I just finished ‘Playground’ yesterday. I will have to think abut it for a few days before I write my review. So far, I think it showcases some of Powers’ strengths as a writer but also a few of his weaknesses. Stay tuned for my review.
I would not have given Han Kang the Nobel Prize on the basis of ‘The Vegetarian’. Writers I think are deserving are A. S. Byatt, Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Chabon, etc.
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