The Vegetarian

Book Review

Title: The Vegetarian

Author: Han Kang

Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean]

Publisher: Granta, London, 2018

Pages: 183

Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian, thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital.

The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom?

In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviolence all of which are conspicuously absent in human society as far as Yeong-hye understands. She transforms herself into a tree out of her profound unwillingness of accept her human self. That transformation is a rejection of the carnivorous, aggressive, and insensitive human world. She utters statements such as: “I’m not an animal anymore,” “I don’t need to eat now,” and “I thought trees were standing people.”

When her affectionate sister, In-hye, tries to feed her, Yeong-hye’s response is: “I need to water my body. I don’t need this kind of food, sister. I need water.”

Yeong-hye is a symbol in the novel. There is a Mongolian mark on her body, just above one of her buttocks. Usually such marks fade away as people grow up. In the case of Yeong-hye, however, her mark remains with her “against a background of silence, a soundless harmony recalling something primeval, something eternal.” That primeval-ness is what Yeong-hye symbolises. Every now and then we are reminded of that primeval side of the protagonist’s very essence.

Trees are primeval. And more. They are symbols of purity, rootedness, and harmony with nature. Yeong-hye’s hallucinations and dreams suggest a yearning to return to a pre-human, pre-violent state, a kind of vegetative innocence. Yeong-hye transmutes herself into a tree eventually in order to escape from the vile world of humans. Trees do no harm and ask for nothing.

While trees may symbolise a kind of liberation, they also imply passivity. As a tree, Yeong-hye become mute, immobile, and objectified. Is Yeong-hye’s transformation an act of rebellion or one of ultimate surrender? Or is it the ultimate spiritual liberation from ego, desires, and even the flesh?

This is a very slim novel that can be read in a day or two. The narrative is so concise and crisp that it keeps you hooked to the end. It is divided into three parts, the first of which is a first-person narrative by Cheong, Yeong-hye’s husband. His very opening sentence catches our attention like a tight clamp: “Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way.”

Part 2, third-person narrative, focuses on Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law, referred to as P. P plays a crucial role to highlight the tree-symbolism in the novel. He is a painter and paints trees and flowers on Yeong-hye’s naked body, which she loves. She wishes to bloom too. The subhuman side of P is also evident to us though Yeong-hye doesn’t quite understand that.

The concluding part shows the sublime heights that human sacrifice can attain in the character of In-hye, Yeong-hye’s sister. It is not necessary to be like a tree in order to ascend above human vileness. You can be human and noble too.

Reading The Vegetarian is like being drawn into a quiet storm. Its power lies in its restraint, its ambiguity, and its refusal to comfort. You finish it feeling unsettled, contemplative, and changed. It is not a story you consume: it is a story that consumes you.

PS. This post is part of the Bookish League blog hop hosted by Bohemian Bibliophile.