![]() ![]() ![]() He thinks that Yeong-hye is being ridiculous, whimsical rather than determined. This infuriates her husband, Mr Cheong, the narrator of the first portion of the book. After a frightening dream involving intense violence, she becomes a vegetarian (really, she is a vegan as she refuses to eat any animal products). ![]() Her voice is so rarely heard, her speech so rarely present, it would be more accurate to call her the object of the book if it weren’t for the fact that her actions speak louder than words. Yeong-hye is the subject of The Vegetarian, but not its protagonist or even quite its main character. Constant relevance is perhaps both a mark of great literature and a demonstration of why it matters so much our societies, our norms, our expectations change at such a glacial pace that we need books to keep us aware and to foment change, however slowly. First published in South Korea in 2007 and translated into English in 2015, The Vegetarian by Han Kang remains urgently relevant, almost 10 years after it was first picked up by readers. ![]()
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