![]() ![]() ![]() He has no feelings of concern or compassion. Pointedly, her husband reports this in terms of her ceasing to dedicate her being to his service. Vitality.īoth men are projecting like crazy. Her brother-in-law, in contrast, sees Yeong-hye as distinct, even unique, and exotic. (In short: inadequate man seeks woman he can disregard.) He only ever refers to her as “my wife”. The book’s opening line is “Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way.” The husband (“Mr Cheong”) goes on to innumerate the many ways Yeong-hye seemed to him entirely ordinary, and why this very ordinariness qualified her to be his wife. In keeping with a feminist reading, neither of the two men have any interest in Yeong-hye’s personhood. I found the final section, the sister’s perspective, most compelling. The narrative unfolds through three sections, from three perspectives: Yeong-hye’s husband her brother-in-law and her sister. British novelist Ian McEwan sums it up well, describing The Vegetarian as “a novel of sexuality and madness”. Male relatives do indeed get mad.īut there are other things going on here. I suppose the first section, at least, of this book, can be read that way. I had formed the impression from publicity I’d seen that The Vegetarian, by Han Kang, was a novel about patriarchy pushing back when one woman attempts to make a relatively mild assertion of will: woman goes vegetarian, male state goes mad. ![]()
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