The Man Booker
International Prize is an addendum to the Man Booker Prize awarded annually, my
favorite literary award. Han Kang has
won the International prize given for fiction in translation. According to the dust jacket, she was born in
1970 in South Korea. She made her
literary debut in 1993 with a collection of poetry. Her first novel came out in 1994. Han has won numerous literary awards, and she
has participated in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
She currently teaches at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.
The Vegetarian is a harrowing story of a young woman’s journey
away from her husband, her family by rejecting most of the expected customs of
Korea. The story is divided into three
parts. Part one focuses on Yeong-hye,
the wife of Mr. Cheong. She decides to
become a vegetarian, and tosses in the garbage a substantial amount of meat,
poultry, and fish. In Part Two, her
husband divorces her, and her sister’s husband – an artist struggling to find
his way in the art world – convinces her to model for him. In-hye finds her husband with Yeong-hye, and
she divorces him. Part three involves
In-hye’s futile attempt to rescue her sister.
This chilling tale
of an anorexic young woman and her struggle against the strict traditions of
her family will fascinate while the horrifying nature of the prose is difficult
to convey. I am only slightly familiar
with Korean customs and family dynamics, which seem strange – to say the least
– in our more enlightened attitude toward women’s rights which are also human
rights. Saving face is an important
element of the story. Mr. Cheong
describes his wife when Kang writes, “It wasn’t as though she had shapely
breasts which might suit the ‘no-bra look.’
I would have preferred her to go around wearing one that was thickly
padded, so that I could save face in front of my acquaintances” (13). Later, the husband says, “I’d always liked my
wife’s earthy vitality, the way she would catch cockroaches by smacking them
with the palm of her hand, She really
had been the most ordinary woman in the world” (26). Mr. Cheong also expects his wife to keep
“quiet; after all, hadn’t women traditionally been expected to be demure and
restrained?” (28). Not since the 60s, I am
afraid, Mr. Cheong.
Han Kang’s prose is spell-binding,
and I could not imagine where his prize winning nove, <i>The Vegetarian</i>, tale was headed.
--Chiron, 7/26/16
No comments:
Post a Comment