I have been recommending The Vegetarian by Han Kang at the bookshop. The thing is, I recommend books sometimes that I didn’t really enjoy reading, because I understand that not every reader is me. If there is a connection there… I will recommend it. But the truth is that I have mixed feelings about The Vegetarian, anyway. Did I appreciate it? Yeeees? Was I engaged? Yes? Did I enjoy it? Well, that’s not really the word you’d use here. And the book is intense. There is body horror. There is sexual predation. There is mental illness. There is a distinctly Korean blending of the everyday (especially eating, drinking, sex, and the work place) with body horror, especially that involving human-nature transformation. I say this after reading three South Korean books this year and man, do they have a vibe.

Yeong-hye is having violent dreams of blood and death and her reaction is to stop eating meat. But her family doesn’t understand and her husband is embarrassed. Could one woman’s small act of autonomy cause her manicured and maintained life to fall apart? Could it drive everyone away (or draw the attention of the wrong people)? Does it mean that Yeong-Hye is going mad?

Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024 for her contribution to letters. She is a Korean writer whose works are being translated into English and available in America more slowly than her popularity in Asia has grown. The Vegetarian was published in 2007 and translated and published in English in 2015. It then won the International Booker Prize in 2016. Since then, more and more of her works are being translated, including Human Acts (2014 and 2016), The White Book (2016 and 2017, finalist for the International Booker), Greek Lessons (2011 and 2023), and We Do Not Part (2021 and 2025). It looks like Your Cold Hands (2002) has not been translated yet? (There are a number of other awards and shortlists among these.) (If you are interested in translation, Korean translation, or specifically how it plays out with Kang’s literature, there is a New Yorker article HERE about that. As a casual but well-read reader, the translation impressed me.)

My understanding is that The Vegetarian was originally three separately-published short stories or novellas. They definitely go together and read as a novel, but the three parts each feel distinct, too. Kang gives us three perspectives, and none of them are the protagonist’s, Yeong-Hye’s. (There are some fever-dream-ish interjections in italics in the first section that actually are her voice, but overall the first section is the perspective of her husband, the second of her brother-in-law, and the third (thank goodness!) is her sister.) It approaches surrealism or maybe even magic realism. And we’re never one hundred percent sure how we’re meant to read Yeong-Hye. It could be the cultural differences and our lack of understanding the context, but it could also be the way Kang (and plenty of other authors) writes.

Because I am not sure if this is a book about mental illness (probably schizophrenia) or about being a woman in South Korea. It feels like you have to choose between those two points because they kind of oppose one another, but perhaps the mental illness and the metamorphosis are being used as a counterpoint, a metaphor, and both things are true at once. Speaking of metamorphoses, I have not read Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, but there was some discussion at book club about this being an inspiration. (Metamorphosis is more clearly a metaphor, I think.) Expressionism plus reality? Modern Americans aren’t really great at holding opposing truths together, at the same time.

There was also some discussion at book club about people becoming plants (which was also present in Kim Un-Su’s The Cabinet) as a way of dealing with Communist themes. Someone said that the book “confronts historical trauma.” Which is part of what, as an outsider looking in, I am missing. Not that I couldn’t do some research and try to understand Korean history and Korean literature better. I think it’s easier to see Yeong-Hye’s rebellion to the system (to Korean society) in which her womanhood is caught. Easier to see her renunciation of what is happening to her and what she is passively participating in (up to this point). And she’s no sudden hero. The book is about her learning, over time, how not to participate in a system of predation and violence, of bumbling into body autonomy. Subtly while also loudly (on the page). And with much book club debate. It’s about boundaries and voice. It’s about control and who has it.

And it’s also pretty easy to see this tale as one about mental illness and that quote, “A sane person in an insane society must appear insane” (which is in a Kurt Vonnegut book but has been attributed elsewhere, as well). Who in this book is insane? Or going insane? And what choice do they each have over becoming insane? Are the three sections simply three responses to mental illness? The reason I liked the third section best is that I can relate to the sister’s response to the mental illness. It was problematic and fraught, sure, but it was both more real and less disgusting. Are all three perspectives ways of doing Yeong-Hye violence either for her rebellion or her illness? It would be interesting to explore what dreams accomplish in this narrative. I think that could really enlighten us as readers. The dreams actually seem to be the key to the book’s meaning. Nature is another lens through which to view this book.

It’s a tough read. It’s violent and troubling and doesn’t shy away from various graphic scenes. Is it worth it? Is it a good book? Some of the words used by reviewers online: weird, bleak, dark, powerful, abrasive, disturbing, rich, terrifying, unhinged (I would disagree with this one—the book is very controlled, actually, but the characters might be unhinged), emotional, unsettling, elusive, sinister, beautiful, unconventional. There are some real lovers online as well as real haters. A lot of peeps who come into the bookshop are the kind who would appreciate literature like this, world horror with alternative structure and body autonomy. But it’s certainly not for everyone. I am glad I read it, even though it’s not the vibes I usually enjoy. The writing itself (and translation) is great. The story is troubling and, at times, shocking. You probably know if you are the type of person who will appreciate this award-winning book.

Note: I will be reading Kang’s newest novel, We Do Not Part. Soon.

Trigger warnings galore, including a horrifying scene with an animal.

“The very idea that there should be this other side to her, one where she selfishly did as she pleased, was astonishing” (p19).

“[bad dreams] shiver the long night into fragments like potsherds” (p139).

“As a daughter, as an older sister, as a wife and as a mother, as the owner of a shop, even as an underground passenger on the briefest of journeys, she had always done her best” (p143).
“Why, is it such a bad thing to die?” (p160).

“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” (p161).

“To In-Hye, He-Joo’s words sounded like the deafening roar of a plane taking off” (p164).

“It’s your body, you can treat it however you please. The only area where you’re free to do just as you like. And even that doesn’t turn out how you wanted” (p179).

There’s a 2009 Korean film. Knock yourself out if you can find it. I can’t even imagine watching this after reading it. The book was intense enough for me.