Han Kang, The Vegetarian

"I prised open her clenched hand. A bird, which had been crushed in her grip, tumbled to the bench. It was a small white-eye bird, with feathers missing here and there. Below toothmarks which looked to have been a predator's bite, vivid red bloodstains were spreading."

The Vegetarian is a book about a woman who pursues overwhelming desire by depriving herself. First, she stops eating meat and then she stops eating altogether. We never hear from Yeong-hye directly, her words are related to us by her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister. Yeong-hye's desire is interpreted by her family as insanity, and when pleading, coercion and threats don't work, they resort to violence and institutionalisation to force Yeong-hye's conformity.

"A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst's couch*." But Yeong-hye is only asked to model for an art project by her brother-in-law, a professional artist. This brother-in-law develops an infatuation for her based on his wife's description of the Mongolian mark on Yeong-hye's buttocks. Despite being the focal point of this episode, the artist's intentions remain ambiguous. He teeters on the knife's edge between passionate artist and exploitative man. And Yeong-hye is given a moment of respite from being perceived as an abomination.

In-hye, Yeong-hye's older sister gets the last word. She alone cares for her sister after the rest of the family abandons them both. In-hye has seen Yeong-hye grow up, she regrets the cowardice in her inability to protect her younger siblings from their father's (historically and politically tinged) wrath. She remembers Yeong-hye's adolescent desire to become a tree. She understands, she finally understands, but it is too late. The ambulance barrels down a tree lined street and the novel comes to a close.

Poetic recollections of the novel aside, The Vegetarian is an interesting read, considering this reader hails from a nation that is currently attempting to impose a specific form of vegetarianism on it population; failure to comply results in public beatings, or death. The relatively modern practice of gau-raksha, or cow protection is steadily spreading across India. The Vegetarian illustrates that the defiance of dietary norms can be dangerous. It reflects a reality that resonates with this reader's. More than that, it stirs curiosity, to delve into the history of South Korea, for the author refers to two historical events directly: the Vietnam War, of which Yeong-hye's father is a veteran, and the Gwangju Uprising, of which the nameless brother-in-law is a survivor. Much of the narrative's violence has historical roots.

This reader's own cognisance of the prohibition of cow-slaughter and beef-eating in India is informed by D.N. Jha's popular historical work The Myth of the Holy Cow where the late historian elucidates at length the contradictory and multiple histories of cow-slaughter and beef-eating in the South Asian subcontinent, which in a spurious retelling sponsored by the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and its many appendages, has been reduced to a singular, incorrect, Brahminical prescription. This throws up further questions of how South Korea's own history is retold in these times. Jha mentions Korea in passing in The Myth of the Holy Cow while discussing the Buddhist tradition of Ahimsa, and the spread of Buddhism across Asia;

"Although Buddhism in Japan, where it came from China and Korea, played a role in legitimizing the ideology that made outcasts of those associated with slaughtering, butchering and tanning, it may not have been aimed at prohibiting animal food (deer, rabbit, or pork) but may have encouraged the inclusion of fish (especially raw fish) as an important item of the Japanese cuisine from the eigth century onwards."

— D.N. Jha, in, The Myth of the Holy Cow.

While Yeong-hye's rejection of meat is vivified by concerns other than religious, Jha's comments indicate that Koreans must recognise some form of vegetarian tradition, if not among the laity, at least within Buddhist priesthood; if not in practice, at least in doctrine, as in the Buddhist tradition of the antiquarian subcontinent. In light of this, it seems strange that her family defaults to the explanation of insanity so easily. Perhaps Yeong-hye's minor infraction against Korean dietary norms threatens to bring to light a history Korean society seeks to hide, which in turn sparks the intense violence by her family and her historically abusive father. It is these nuances that endear the novel to this reader. There is more to be said about this novel, but that is for another time.

* Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in, Anti-Oedipus.