Review: "The Vegetarian"

By Nilima Sinha, Library Committee

The 2024 Nobel prize in Literature was awarded to the South Korean writer Han Kang. The Vegetarian was published in 2007 and was Kang’s first novel to be translated into English. It won the International Booker Prize in 2016.

It is the story of Yeong-hye, who awakes from a bad dream and decides to become a vegetarian. Her horrified  husband finds her in the process of discarding all meat and seafood from the refrigerator, leaving him fearful and helpless. That, however, is where the simplicity of the story ends.

​The story is told in three parts from the perspective of three family members. 

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The first part is by Yeong-hye’s ​husband who is abrasive and abusive towards her. The second part is narrated by her sister In-hye’s husband, who is a self-absorbed video artist and finds a strong attraction to Yeong-hye’s emaciated body with a birthmark.  The third part is told by In-hye, the sister, who is the mother of a young child and manages a cosmetics store. She, In-hye, is the only person who stands by Yeong-hye after everyone abandons her.

Through these narrations we see the intense displeasure of Yeong-hye’s family in her choice of vegetarianism in meat-loving South Korea, the failure of her marriage and the metamorphosis of Yeong-hye who ends up being committed to a psychiatric ward for schizophrenia. As her husband states, Yeong-hye is “completely unremarkable”--except for her penchant of going braless in public--until she becomes a vegetarian. We hear very little from Yeong-hye except in some italicized thoughts where she admits to wanting to morph into a tree by allowing her body no nourishment other than sunshine against her naked body, and one especially provocative question that awakens her sister: “Why is it such a bad thing to die?”

This haunting, sensual, horrific novella written in lyrical, poetic language boldly explores the theme of rebellion against social conventions and expectations, and stays with you long after you have finished reading.

This book is not at the Coffman library. However, copies can be found at the Roseville library.