The Vegetarian

Author:
Han Kang
Translator:
Deborah Smith
from the Korean
Winner of the 2016
Man Booker International Prize
Publisher:
Hogarth/Crown Publishing
Release date:
2/2/2016
Pages:
192
ISBN:
978–0553448184
available also as ebook and audiobook

Genre:
Literary fiction

Goodreads

Follow Hogarth on Twitter

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I received The Vegetarian months ago through Blogging For Books. And of course, it got stuck on my shelf behind books to read urgently for tours and the like. I devoured it in no time, but then, it got stuck on my review list, so here it is finally, months after it received the Man Booker International Prize.

I followed live the ceremony for the Man Booker Prize International and rooted for The Vegetarian, as it had also been chosen as the winner by the shadow panel.
It is wonderful to know that the winners of this literary translation award share the prize money between author and translator. Are translators finally started being recognized as real authors as well? It’s about time.
Besides, it was quite encouraging to learn that all the translators of the short list were rather new translators, some unknown, who had even landed into literary translation almost by accident for some.
I enjoyed listening to both author and translator. I was not surprised to discover than Han Kang went through the Iowa writing workshop. I have yet to read an author who went through this training and that I don’t admire. What are they doing there? What’s their secret?
It was also quite reassuring to hear Deborah Smith confess she basically checked out every word in her dictionary. For sure, there’s no comparison of difficulty between Korean and English, but still, it makes me more comfortable when I think I am too anal double checking too many words myself when I translate novels into French.

The Vegetarian is weird, and gets weirder and weirder through the three stories. Each story focuses on Yeong-hye, from the perspective of her husband, her brother-in-law, and finally her sister.
One day, because of a dream she had, Yeong-hye feels obsessively compelled to become a vegetarian – actually details in the books seem to imply to me she is more accurately a vegan.

In the first story, the writing alternates between her husband’s narration of how things unravel, and Yeong-hye’s dreams, memories, and thoughts, like a journal, in italics in the text.
Her decision takes devastating dimensions, not unrelated to some strange traits of her personality, somewhat dormant before that.
Actually, each main character in the book has some type of psychological issue. Some having to do with violence or sex.

The book tackles mental illness and the world of psychiatric hospitals, but also family dynamics and how your parents’ behavior when you were a child can have dramatic consequences on your own adult development. I think it also raises the suggestion that one way or another, we all have psychological weaknesses, obsessions, and problems, some hidden until one event will cause them to fully bloom.

It is also an interesting look at the place of dreams in our life, and at the thin partition there may be between dream and reality.
It was interesting to read a book where the Mongolian mark is so central. Many Americans may not be familiar with it, but someone in my family was born with it, so I knew exactly what it was.

As an artist and painter myself, I was able to go beyond the weirdness and enjoy the beautiful painting scenes.

The writing is fabulous, tense, detailed, excellent at evoking the inevitable and doom. I never once had the feeling I was reading a book in translation. It all flowed superbly.

EN DEUX MOTS :

Roman intriguant touchant à l’obsessionnel. Très belle écriture pour un sujet difficile.

VERDICT: Hauntingly attractive novel focusing on obsessions and how far they can go. Tough topic with some extreme scenes, and beautiful writing.