Title: The Vegetarian

Author: Han Kang

First Published: 30 October 2007

First Sentence: Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way.

I started The Vegetarian not knowing anything about the book, but I must say that the first few pages are captivating enough for me to read on. As Ian McEwan reviewed, it is “a novel of sexuality and madness” and I didn’t know how sexual nor mad the content really was until I was halfway through. I have never read anything that portrays sex as explicit or graphic as this, though by no means can it be the most erotic work out there. I was simply surprised, and quite honestly, a little disturbed. This aspect set aside, this novel is quite the masterpiece, which I believe I haven’t been able to fully appreciate in all its glory.

The Vegetarian is told in three long (and yes, I mean long) chapters from three point of views revolving around the protagonist Yeong-Hye: her husband’s, her brother in-law’s and her sister’s.

As you can probably notice from the first sentence, the novel’s primary conflict begins when Yeong-Hye decides to be a vegetarian. Confusing her husband and whole family, her only reason for this sudden change is “a dream” that she has.

The first section is narrated by her husband whose attempts at reverting Yeong-Hye back to her “normal” self fail miserably. When her strange behaviors start to affect his professional life, he simply ceases to care and neglects his duties as a husband, being as much as a jerk while thinking about his wife with utter disrespect: “I would no longer have to look at this woman.”

When a person undergoes such a drastic transformation, there’s simply nothing anyone else can do but sit back and let them get on with it.

Now, the second section is both beautiful and disturbing, not only story-wise but mostly for the explicit descriptions which I personally am not comfortable with. But I do think it’s poignantly written, with its portrayal of the life and struggle of a graphic artist.

The narrator’s perception of Yeong-Hye is somewhat perturbing, yet beautiful at once.

Never before had he set eyes on such a body, a body which said so much and yet was more than itself.

The third and last section, told from sister In-Hye’s perspective, was for me the hardest and most heartbreaking to read. Aware that “someone had to act as her carer”, she becomes the only one left who cares about Yeong-Hye. But this chapter is far more than a woman witnessing her sister’s deteriorating body, it’s also about a daughter, a mother, a wife, questioning about her place and role in life. It’s about discovering her own self and admitting her fear.

“Why, is it such a bad thing to die?”

Overall, The Vegetarian is a light read which I finished in a few days and stirred my emotions quite cruelly. But it’s not a book that I’d look forward to reread, at least not in the near future.