Since mental health is at the heart of this novel, it is expectedly sad, but beautiful too, with imagery so vivid it makes your head spin
Yeong-hye is a passive and dutiful wife. Perfect for her dull-as-ditchwater husband who doesn’t like to stand out. “The passive personality of this woman in whom I could detect neither freshness nor charm, or anything especially refined, suited me…There was no need to affect intellectual leanings in order to win her over, or worry that she might be comparing me to the preening men who pose in fashion catalogues…”. They live not happily but not unhappily either together for years.
Then suddenly things change. He wakes up one morning to see the kitchen in disarray as Yeong-hye empties the fridge, and throws out every single non-vegetarian item. From that moment onwards this hitherto voracious non-vegetarian eater declares that she’s a vegetarian and not a morsel of non-vegetarian food will enter her house or her mouth. Sex is off the table too because she insists that her husband’s body smells of meat. Her only explanation for her vegetarianism is that she has dreams. While her husband is shocked, he can live with it. He only feels the full impact of her decision during a company dinner with spouses in tow who express shock, horror, and above all, scorn, when Yeong-hye refuses non-vegetarian dishes. If her reason wasn’t religious or ideological or health-based, why on earth was she doing it?
That’s when her husband cracks. During a family intervention at Yeong-hye’s older sister In-hye’s house, things get out of hand and blood is spilt. Nothing is the same ever again. Not for Yeong-hye, not for her husband, and even not for In-hye and her artist husband.
The madness or whatever it is that Yeong-hye has, affects all of them and extremely strange things follow. For a while the focus shifts to In-hye’s husband and his unhealthy artistic fantasies. In the latter part of the novel, while Yeong-hye continues to be present in the backdrop, it is In-hye’s reflections on her once-upon-a-time perfect life, disappointments, and pain that consume us. What shines through is the love and protectiveness she has for her baby sister.
Between all the action, we get brief glimpses into South Korean culture and lifestyle. It’s very clear that the society is patriarchal. The backstory into the sisters’ childhood says it all. Has this perhaps affected them for life?
Since mental health is at the heart of this novel, it is expectedly sad, but beautiful too, with imagery so vivid it makes your head spin. The one thought that you’re left with, whether intentional or not, is this: Is everyone at least a little bit mad?
The Vegetarian
Han Kang
Penguin
pp. 160; Rs 499
