# The Vegetarian by Han Kang

This was a tough read. It's less than 200 pages but it took me awhile to get through it, and I did consider stopping. I was glad that I stuck with it, but only because of the end of the book, so this will contain discussion of the whole plot (it seems weird to say "spoilers!" when talking about literary fiction, as if I'm going to say that Tony Stark dies during the big fight with Thanos, but here we are). Given that I'm talking about what is coming further in this post, I'll also share a content warning for physical abuse, child abuse, rape, and suicide.

The Vegetarian title refers to a woman called Yeong-hye who has a nightmare and then decides to give up meat. Her family don't understand or support her decision, and things descend from there. The book is divided into three parts, each with a different viewpoint. The first is from the perspective of her crappy husband. The second is her crappy brother-in-law's turn. The third is from her sister's viewpoint. In one sense, Yeong-hye is the central character but, given the perspectives, she doesn't really get much opportunity to express herself. She isn't present in many of the scenes of the book. Particularly for the men, Yeong-hye is objectified and the first two thirds are mainly them deciding what they want to do to her. It's kind of the point - which wasn't clear to me until I spent some time with In-hye, her sister - that by the time the novel starts, Yeong-hye has been traumatised and belittled by men in her life, to the point that she doesn't feel like a full character.

After her nightmare, when she decides to become a vegetarian, Yeong-hye's husband is primarily concerned with how people will react (the book is set in South Korea, and was written in 2000, and vegetarianism seems to be quite uncommon), and what food she will be cooking for him. Yeong-hye's behaviour changes in other ways and there is little explanation because we view this via her husband who doesn't care why she is changing. He reacts terribly and rapes her multiple times. The first part of the book culminates in a family dinner, where everyone berates Yeong-hye for becoming vegetarian and finally her father beats her and tries to force feed her. She breaks away, tries to kill herself, and is taken to hospital.

The second section switches perspective to Yeong-hye's brother-in-law, the husband of In-hye. He's a video artist who, after the events of the first section, has become infatuated with Yeong-hye and wants to film her naked and have sex with her. I think the point of this section is that he is another man (like Yeong-hye's father and her husband) who doesn't respect her and wants something from her, but his case is slightly obscured by his artistic desires. At this point in the book, I'm slightly embarrassed to say I didn't really know what I was reading. It was just a sequence of strange and unpleasant events. The second section is stranger still, because the brother-in-law's viewpoint is fixated on artistic imagery and his plans for a work he wants to make. But that's a smokescreen for him being a wildly irresponsible man who takes advantage of a woman nearing the end of her tether. (Among other things, he leaves his small child at home alone because he wants to edit footage of Yeong-hye naked.) Yeong-hye i
s entirely objectified by him because he wants to paint flowers on her, film her, and have sex with her. We get very little of Yeong-hye's views during this, she seems kind of passive and accepting. In retrospect, the flower painting has connected with her internal life in a way that might have been meaningful for her, but it wasn't allowed to be explored on her terms because it was all about the man. In-hye (his wife) eventually finds the two of them together, and he tries to jump off a balcony to die, but is stopped.

At this point in the book I had mixed feelings about continuing.

The third section spends time with In-hye. She is resentful of her sister's strange behaviour, but she is the only member of the family who continues to have anything to do with her. She arranges for her to be committed to a psychiatric hospital and she visits her there. Over the course of this section her understanding of Yeong-hye grows and she becomes more sympathetic towards her. But by now Yeong-hye has been through so much that she is retreating into a fantasy of becoming a tree, and so wants to stop eating and survive on light and water. I'm not sure if I understood this aspect, but I think it was that Yeong-hye had been abused since childhood, no matter what she did, and is looking for some kind of life that would be safe and connected to the world but largely ignored by the men around her. It is deeply sad.

In-hye understands more about what her sister has suffered, and also what she herself has suffered. There is some light or hope in this part, because of this growing awareness in In-hye, but it also is layered with guilt and her own fears for whether she herself can endure.

I'm glad to have read The Vegetarian but I don't know if I would recommend it to anyone I know, and I don't know if I'll read more but Han Kang.
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