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The Vegetarian (2007)

by Han Kang

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
3,4012903,774 (3.56)1 / 330
"Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams--invasive images of blood and brutality--torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It's a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that's become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her but also from herself." -- jacket.… (more)
  1. 21
    Human Acts by Kang Han (whitsunweddings)
    whitsunweddings: It's briefly mentioned in The Vegetarian that the Artist is a 5.18 survivor. For those unfamiliar, Han Kang's book on the Gwangju Massacre gives context for the trauma that he - and Korea as a whole - went through.
  2. 10
    Blindness by José Saramago (owen1218)
  3. 10
    The Yellow Wallpaper - story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (MissBrangwen)
    MissBrangwen: Although they were written in different periods of time, both texts reminded me of each other because of their dealing with the female experience of confinement.
  4. 00
    Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler (vwinsloe)
    vwinsloe: Both books involve a mysterious woman and the perceptions, projections and assumptions about her by others.
  5. 00
    The Hole by Pyun Hye-young (sturlington)
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» See also 330 mentions

English (281)  Italian (4)  Spanish (3)  French (1)  Danish (1)  Piratical (1)  German (1)  All languages (292)
Showing 1-5 of 281 (next | show all)
one of the most difficult things i've ever read. i had to continuously put it down and take breaks. ( )
  gojosatoru98 | Mar 1, 2024 |
It ain't really about becoming vegetarian, it's about going insane. A bit frightening. ( )
  lelandleslie | Feb 24, 2024 |
Loveless but not Bloodless
I’m cataloging this book for reference rather than reviewing it. After reading the 2020 International Booker winner The Discomfort of Evening I checked other winners and saw that At Night All Blood is Black and Time Shelter were past winners, and although I couldn’t handle At Night All Blood is Black, I recognized it was well-written. Seemed to me that the International Booker judges are into dark, and I like dark so I looked for more.

I decided to give The Vegetarian a go. I had a feeling it’s be a dark read but as I’d been able to watch “Squid Game” I would be able to handle The Vegetarian.

I suspect this book might be readable in print, but in audio it just seemed sick. Blood doesn’t turn me on. Neither does an anorexic vegetarian woman who runs around her kitchen chucking the contents of her freezer all over the floor.

The book has chapters that alternate between the voices of husband and wife. The husband chose the wife because she was plain and he assumed he wouldn’t have to worry about her straying. I’m not sure why she chose him. I only know she had vivid dreams about blood. Nothing about the first three chapters grabbed me. Not the prose, not the characters, not the story if there was one. Life is short and is getting shorter. I gave up.

I think it might be a story of a marriage, loveless but not bloodless. But thankfully I’ll never know. ( )
  kjuliff | Feb 18, 2024 |
Favorite quotes:

"Slowly she turned to face him, and he saw that her expression was as serene as that of a Buddhist monk. Such uncanny serenity actually frightened him, making him think that perhaps this was a surface impression left behind after any amount of unspeakable viciousness had been digested, or else settled down inside her as a kind of sediment."

"It seemed enough for her to just deal with whatever it was that came her way, calmly and without fuss. Or perhaps it was simply that things were happening inside her, terrible things, which no one else could even guess at, at thus it was impossible for her to engage with everyday life at the same time. If so, she would naturally have no energy left, not just for curiosity or interest but indeed for any meaningful response to all the humdrum minutiae that went on on the surface."

"There was nothing the matter. It was a fact. Everything would be fine as long as she just kept going, just carried on with her life as she had always done. In any case, there was no other way." ( )
  elk4422 | Feb 1, 2024 |
3.5 stars ( )
  EllieBhurrut | Jan 24, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 281 (next | show all)
The strength of Kang's voice is in her refusal to smoothen the rough edges of her characters - they bare their scars and innermost vulnerabilities and yet don't appear drawing sympathy.
 
What flows through "The Vegetarian" is an urgent need to detach oneself from the constraints of the human body, to transform and possibly transcend its limits completely.
 
“The Vegetarian” is an existential nightmare, as evocative a portrayal of the irrational as I’ve come across in some time.
 
But The Vegetarian isn’t an anti-meat manifesto or an uplifting story of emancipation. Instead, in dreamlike passages punctuated by bursts of startling physical and sexual violence, Kang viscerally explores the limits of what a human brain and body can endure, and the strange beauty that can be found in even the most extreme forms of renunciation.
 
At first, you might eye the title and scan the first innocuous sentence — “Before my wife turned vegetarian, I thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way” — and think that the biggest risk here might be converting to vegetarianism. (I myself converted, again; we’ll see if it lasts.) But there is no end to the horrors that rattle in and out of this ferocious, magnificently death-affirming novel.
 

» Add other authors (16 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Han Kangprimary authorall editionscalculated
Øverås, Vivian Evelinasecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Čubranić, Mirnasecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ben-Ari, PetraTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Blancafort, RaimonTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Brand, ChristopherCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Brůha, IvanCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Chŏng, Ŭn-jinTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ciccimarra, Milena ZemiraTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dong, LaurenDesignersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Eggermont, Moniquesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hart, AliceAuthorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
ΤΖΙΩΤΗ, ΑΜΑΛΙΑTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jaehong, ParkAuthor photosecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jeong, Eun-JinTraductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jo, MihwaTraductorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Johansson, EvaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Karhulahti, SariKääNtäJä.secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kim, Bo-guksecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lang, Hansecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lee, Ki-HyangTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Loibl, Thomassecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Martinez, GabiForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mihwa JoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Németh, Nikolettasecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Park, StephenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Preis, SiedeCover imagesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schmid, Rikesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Seng, Hangsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Smith, DeborahTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Snædal, IngunnTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Song, JanetNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Striesow, Devidsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Woo, Jae HyungTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Yoon, Sun-MeTraduttoresecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Zabukovec, UršaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

"Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams--invasive images of blood and brutality--torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It's a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that's become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her but also from herself." -- jacket.

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Book description
Yeong-Bye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-Bye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, commits a shocking act of subversion. As her rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, Yeong-Bye spirals further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree.
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