The Vegetarian - Han Kang

( Man Booker International Award, 2016 )

 

The Vegetarian, at a superficial level, is rather a painful read. It paints, page after page of loneliness, lots of rain, and distance between what should've ideally been close relations in the recently industrialised, oriental world. It is set in an era,  in which one’s profession is at least as important as his or her personal life. It is set in era, in which cultures which lived as extended families have segmented into smaller families in this modern age and economy ;  selecting their partners  to meet their life’s journey with minimum hassle than with any deeper feeling. The few families tha twe come across here are at best going through the motions in life – spending their evenings, having dinner and sleeping – with a person who is tolerable. It is set in an environment where the despair accumulated over years that one has toiled over, comes back to haunt and ask oneself, whether what he or she did was correct ?

“Now, with the benefit of hindsight, In-hye could see that the role that she had adopted back then of the hard-working, self-sacrificing eldest daughter had been a sign not of maturity but of cowardice. It had been a survival tactic.”

 While those who endured the dull monotony, reached some success in the eyes of the world, they've  had their private world’s falling apart within them. Those who had the courage to challenge the system, challenge the sheer lunacy of adopting to another’s world are brimming with confidence, even when they prepare to make a final jump. They have totally removed themselves from the real world. We find both J and Yeong-Hye, sure of what they want in life. The extreme that J goes to fulfill his artistic ambition, and the vehemence and the utter conviction with which Yeong-Hye  sticks to, initially abstinence from meat and from food altogether, hint at their attempts to make meaning out of a life that has moved beyond simple comprehension.  In this sense this novella has anything but a promising end – adopt, endure and live as per convention, but with despair – or live as per your conviction, escaping the monotony  and boredom, labelled as an eccentric or institutionalized for mental instability.

If In-hye’s life is considered, it is only in her son, that she sees some hope, some promise and some reason to make her endurance worthwhile. It suggested to me that even in this new life, in which people spend more than half their day on work, it is these light but highly cherished  moments which make life worthwhile.  Maybe Sri Lankan metropolitan  life hasn’t quite crossed the perimeter to be quite similar to that of a recent industrialised one, as Korea, but the traits can be seen in at least some of the those whose lives and routines are more guided by their professional demands.

A somewhat disturbing book, that makes the reader reassess herself, even when her condition is far removed from what is disclosed within these pages.