The Vegetarian

I’ve read few that pack so much into this length. This compact novel by the Nobel Prize Laureate is disturbing (terrifying, actually), tragic, powerful and beautiful.

The Vegetarian brilliantly captures how the mind and the body can launch a spirited revolt against unwanted surveillance. The novel examines the intricate ways in which people can become each other’s enemies when they meddle in matters that don't concern them.

Like meat, this book was hard to digest. It made me feel anxiety, turmoil, and pain despite my uncertainty as to what exactly triggered these responses. The isolated experience of a woman believing herself to be a tree, attempting to achieve spiritual happiness while others overstepped their boundaries, felt so very violating and personal.

I love it when stories slice me down raw, revealing wounds I did not know existed beneath my skin.

I became a vegetarian at age 13, and although my parents grumbled about having to prepare different foods, they certainly did not react as strongly as Yeong-hye’s family, who treats her decision as a kind of mental illness.

The book starts off like a dark fable, as Yeong-hye pares down her diet and believes she is turning into a tree. As the book progresses, though, it becomes a feminist allegory that asks questions that have only become more urgent since its publication: Who has the right to say what a woman does with her body?

Kang is a South Korean writer, who is also a poet. When I read her books, I get a sense of her integrity and curiosity.

There’s nothing wrong with books that entertain, distract or straightforwardly inform, but I’m always drawn to books that try to do something deeper and more challenging. The Vegetarian, winner of the 2016 International Booker Prize, is one of these books. Kang seems driven to uncover, unpack, dig ever deeper, often in pursuit of something she knows she’ll never quite arrive at.

She sets up extraordinary – off the wall – scenarios and lets the… show more.

Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. Seems simple enough, but Yeong-hye’s journey takes the reader on a very unexpected and increasingly disturbing journey…