The Vegetarian

This book was nowhere near my reading list. How I came about it is through a friend. They were recommended the book and when they started reading it I thought, hm, let me see what's it about. And not knowing what to pick out of the other 70+ books waiting for me on my phone library, I naturally went and got The Vegetarian.

I don't know, I just felt like mentioning how I came across this book. And one note, might be some very slight spoilers in here, nothing straight out spoiler, but might take a bit away from reading the book. Some readers might not mind it, but I know I would, so here, you've been warned.

There's something I thought about while reading this. There are books, paintings, films, criticism, studies, all talking about and showing how women are treated unfairly in today's society. How they are expected to fulfil certain wants, how they are ignored by doctors and even car manufacturers. How they are treated unfairly in a school or work setting. All these works detailing all the unfair aspects of a woman's position in society, a staggering amount. And then, I wonder, how come we make such little progress in fixing this unfairness? In how many other ways do the same things need to be said and shown?

This book made me feel things, disgust being the most prominent one. But it's such a complex feeling of disgust aimed at so many things I don't even know how to begin to describe it. I certainly can't describe it in just a few sentences, but it mostly has to do with what I said the the previous paragraph.

The Vegetarian. I... disliked almost everyone there. Actually no, the only seemingly sensitive person there was Yeong-hye's sister-in-law, she was the only one appearing to care at all about Yeong-hye. And I disliked Yeong-hye's husband so much. He was so insensitive, so selfish, so preoccupied with appearances. Although I understand the cultural context around it, I blame him for his attitude and actions towards his wife.

Mongolian Mark. I think this might have been the most disturbing part of the book for me. Yeong-hye was clearly not well, and yet, her state of mind was dismissed solely on the account of what other people wanted to see. I felt my skin crawling. And it infuriated me how she was seen by others when they were actually the "bad guy".

Flaming Trees. By this point I think I was just tired. I felt the weight of it all. I was also expecting, for some reason, for the narration to be more abstract, more fantastical, so I was startled to see it being so mundane, so slice-of-life. It's kind of heartbreaking.

So yeah, I don't really know how I feel about the book overall. I'm kind of sick of representation. I would rather have some change instead. But the book is well written, I think it does what it's set out to do, so from that point, The Vegetarian is a good book.

After finishing this masterpiece, I was reminded of a film reviewer on Letterboxd who used to say that the interpretation of a piece of media, once it reaches the stage of public consumption, does not solely lie in the hands of the creator. In terms of that, you could make numerous interpretations of this novel, and all of them would fall short of capturing its essence – that's how open to interpretation The Vegetarian is.
Asides from the obvious metaphors of alienation, and stigmatisation when people don't stick to societal norms, there's a study in contrast to how various characters live their lives. Yeong-hye lives in flights of fancy; near the end she feels detached from her mortal shell to the point that she believes she can survive on sunlight. Mr Cheong lives a mundane existence and does not want to overthink his sense of purpose and seeming mediocrity – he just is.
In-hye lives a mundane existence, but she tries to find peace in being a beacon and always being a receiver than a giver. She assists her sister because it is the right thing to do, even when her parents abandon Yeong-hye. I found In-hye's husband the most fascinating, as well as the most repulsive. There is no sympathy you should feel towards his heinous actions – but because humans are predictably irrational, I did so anyway. He makes astounding leaps in logic because he wants to act out on his desires for the worse, but then again – who doesn't?
There's a lot more to talk about for this particular novel from my end, but since it's not even two hundred pages long – I'd strongly advise anyone who's not already read this to devour this whenever they can. Sure, it can be (understandably) divisive – but where's the fun without minimalist and yet seemingly full writing?