The vegetarian A novel

Review by New York Times Review

LAST AUGUST, ANNE RICE posted a Call to arms - on Facebook, of course - warning that political correctness was going to bring on literary end times: banned books, destroyed authors, "a new era of censorship." "We must stand up for fiction as a place where transgressive behavior and ideas can be explored," she proclaimed. "I think we have to be willing to stand up for the despised." I, a fan of transgressive literature, could not pinpoint why I found her post to be so much more vexing than the usual battle cries of P.C.-paranoiacs. I finally had my answer after reading Han Kang's novel "The Vegetarian": What if "the despised" can stand up on their own? All the trigger warnings on earth cannot prepare a reader for the traumas of this Korean author's translated debut in the Anglophone world. At first, you might eye the title and scan the first innocuous sentence - "Before my wife turned vegetarian, I thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way" - and think that the biggest risk here might be converting to vegetarianism. (I myself converted, again; we'll see if it lasts.) But there is no end to the horrors that rattle in and out of this ferocious, magnificently death-affirming novel. When Yeong-hye awoke one morning from troubled dreams, she found herself changed into a monstrous . . . vegetarian. And that's where the misleadingly simple echoes of a certain classic premise end. Han's novella-in-three-parts zigzags between domestic thriller, transformation parable and arborphiliac meditation, told from the points of view of her lousy husband, who works at an office (Part I); her obsessive brother-in-law, who is an artist (Part II); and her overburdened older sister, who manages a cosmetics store (Part III). These three characters are largely defined by what they do for a living, whereas Yeong-hye stops doing much of anything altogether. "I had a dream," she says in one of her rare moments of direct dialogue, her only explanation of her newfound herbivorism. At first she is met with casual disdain by family and friends; a dinner acquaintance passive-aggressively declares, "I'd hate to share a meal with someone who considers eating meat repulsive, just because that's how they themselves personally feel . . . don't you agree?" But soon her physical form creates the very negative space those close to her fear: weight loss, insomnia, diminished libido and the eventual abandonment of everyday "civilized" life. An ascetic tome this is not: The novel is full of sex of dubious consent, all sorts of force-feeding and purging - essentially sexual assault and eating disorders, but never by name in Han's universe. A family gathering where Yeong-hye is attacked by her own father over meat-eating spirals several layers darker into self-harm, though it won't be the last time a man (or she herself, for that matter) violates her body. Violation of the mind, however, is a different issue. "The Vegetarian" needs all this bloodletting because in its universe, violence is connected with physical sustenance - in meat-eating, sex-having, even care-taking. Outside intervention, from family and friends and doctors, works to moderate the reality of this story, but their efforts are in the end as anemic as Anne Rice's rescue of "the despised." After all, who is the victim here? You can't save a soul if it becomes something beyond salvation. We get brief italicized sequences that describe Yeong-hye's thoughts, which range from diarylike internal monologues to something approaching a post-language state. A passage begins: "Can only trust my breasts now. I like my breasts; nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe," and then melts into the sudden realization that her old self is disappearing: "Why am I changing like this? Why are all my edges sharpening - what am I going to gouge?" At other times the language of devastation needs only the sensory details: a dying bird hidden in a clenched fist, an IV bag half full of blood, painted flowers on a naked body, the unremitting stench of sizzling meat. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN South Korea in 2007 and inspired by the author's short story "The Fruit of My Woman," "The Vegetarian" was the first of Han's works to be made into a feature film. (A second film, based on another novella, was released in 2011.) She has been rightfully celebrated as a visionary in South Korea and has been published around the world, but it took the enthusiasm of her translator, Deborah Smith, to bring "The Vegetarian" to publishing homes in Britain and the United States. Smith learned Korean only about six years ago, mastering it through the process of translating this book. She inhabits the prose's terrible serenity and glacial horror - the translator's hand never overwhelms or underperforms. Both lithe and sharp, syntax and diction never become mechanical and obtuse the way bad translations often render something "foreign." For a danger here would be to focus only on the ethnographic and sociological. In Britain, where "The Vegetarian" landed on The Evening Standard's bestseller list, reviews tried to make sense of its strangeness by attributing it to the culture. "The narrative makes it clear it is the crushing pressure of Korean etiquette which murders them," The Independent daftly concluded. Other British reviewers tried to emphasize that vegetarianism is impossible in South Korea. Likewise, a contemporary Western feminist lens could also yield a condemnation of the novel as an exercise in female debasement or "torture porn." But this would again assume a problematic normalcy and measure the book against it. There is an entire world of literature outside the West that is not adapted to our markets, in debt to our trends or in pursuit of our politics. Rather, Han's glorious treatments of agency, personal choice, submission and subversion find form in the parable. There is something about short literary forms - this novel is under 200 pages - in which the allegorical and the violent gain special potency from their small packages. "The Vegetarian" feels related to slender works as diverse as Ceridwen Dovey's 2007 novella "Blood Kin" and Melville's "Bartle-by, the Scrivener." I was also reminded of the Iranian author Sadegh Hedayat's 1937 cult horror masterpiece, "The Blind Owl." (Hedayat himself was a vegetarian, and there are cyclical scenes in his night-marish landscapes in which the killing of animals is positioned as the root of madness.) Ultimately, though, how could we not go back to Kafka? More than "The Metamorphosis," Kafka's journals and "A Hunger Artist" haunt this text. And Kafka is perhaps the most famous vegetarian in literary history; he apparently once declared to a fish in an aquarium, "Now at last I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore." Still, Han Kang's is not some cautionary tale for the omnivorous, as Yeong-hye's vegetarian journey is far from a happy one. Abstaining from eating living things doesn't lead to enlightenment. As Yeong-hye fades further and further from the living, our author, like a true god, lets us struggle with the question of whether we should root for our hero to survive or to die. With that question comes another, the ultimate question we never quite want to contemplate. "Why, is it such a bad thing to die?" Yeong-hye asks at the end of one section. The next section simply echoes back: "Why, is it such a bad thing to die?" 'I'd hate to share a meal with someone who considers eating meat repulsive.' POROCHISTA KHAKPOUR is the author of the novels "Sons and Other Flammable Objects" and "The Last Illusion."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 12, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

When ordinary and submissive Yeong-hye becomes a vegetarian, her family treats her decision as both a disease and a betrayal. As they try to control her, their own manners deteriorate, culminating in violence, adultery, and estrangement. Yeong-hye becomes a Bartleby-like figure as her personal choice morphs into other acts of social rebellion, such as being shirtless in public or refusing to ingest anything but water. Korean writer Han Kang's elegant yet unsettling prose conveys her protagonist's brother-in-law's obsessive, art-centered lust; her sister's tepid, regret-riddled existence; and Yeong-hye's vivid, disturbing dreams. What is more upsetting is how the characters' taboo behavior begins to seem reasonable over time, perhaps because they have ignored their desires for so long. Divided into three novellas, The Vegetarian shows how one woman's step toward independence destroys a family that thrives on oppression and what they consider to be normal. Readers will want more of the author's shocking portrayals of our innermost doubts, beliefs, and longings.--Hyzy, Biz Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Reviewed by Gabe Habash. You may think you know where Han's English-language debut novel is going, but you have no idea. At first, its mundane strangeness may remind you of the works of Haruki Murakami: Mr. Cheong, a Seoul businessman wakes up one night to find his wife, Yeong-hye, standing in the kitchen in front of their refrigerator. Mr. Cheong, who is drawn to Yeong-hye for no particular reason other than her passiveness, is taken aback. He's even more surprised when "the most ordinary woman in the world" declares she won't eat meat because she's had a bloody dream. Things get weirder, and you might be reminded of Patrick Süskind's Perfume, as Han's narrative takes a sharp turn in its second part-a tale of obsession, grotesque physicality, and art. Or, as the emotional and physical violence mounts, you might be reminded of Herman Koch's The Dinner for its depiction of the animal baseness lurking just below civility. And then things take a turn again, and Han's third and final part might remind you of Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life for its display of raw emotion. To go into much detail about how The Vegetarian is both similar to these other works yet also possesses its own singular wonder would do it a disservice. Suffice it to say, Mr. Cheong's true nature is revealed, and Yeong-hye's family members are soon swept up in her mysterious change, which manifests itself in increasingly odd ways: she begins to eat less and less, and then not at all, and she becomes fond of taking off her clothes on sunny days. The atmosphere of growing dread is entrancing and tense, and readers will find a bounty of bizarre, ominous images: an IV bag filling with blood, a bird squeezed in a fist, and a psychiatric ward in the forest where a gloomy rain is continually falling. There-I've already said too much. Yeong-hye, as the center of the novel, forces the other characters to confront what they really want, and to confront what this desire says about who they are. This is a horror story in its depiction of the unknowability of others-of the sudden feeling that you've never actually known someone close to you. It's also a decidedly literary story for its exploration of despair, inner unrest, and the pain of coming to understand yourself. There is much to admire in Han's novel. Its three-part structure is brilliant, gradually digging deeper and deeper into darker and darker places; the writing is spare and haunting; but perhaps most memorable is its crushing climax, a phantasmagoric yet emotionally true moment that's surely one of the year's most powerful. This is an ingenious, upsetting, and unforgettable novel. Gabe Habash is the deputy reviews editor of Publishers Weekly. © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Kang, a South Korean writing professor with Iowa Writers Workshop training, makes her English-translation debut with this spare, spectacular novel, in which a multigenerational, seemingly traditional Seoul family implodes. Yeong-hye, the youngest of three adult children, repeatedly announces "I had a dream," violent, bloody, and surreal, which causes her to stop eating meat; eventually, she eschews everything but water. Her sudden change in diet (vegetarianism remains uncommon in Korea) goes far beyond her own physical metamorphosis, as documented in three distinct sections by her self-absorbed businessman husband, her obsessive video artist brother-in-law, and her distraught shop-owner older sister. While Yeong-hye remains the crux of the disturbing narrative, her voice is rarely heard. Instead, she's ignored, interpreted, spoken over, and silenced to devastating effect. -VERDICT In a culture in which mental illness is met too often with dismissal or denial, Kang's novel is sure to draw both scrutiny and applause, in no small part owing to London-based Smith's seamless translation. Family dysfunction amid cultural suffocation is presented with elegant precision, transforming readers into complicit voyeurs. Fans of authors as diverse as Mary Karr and Haruki Murakami won't be able to turn away. [See Prepub Alert, 8/27/15.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice. Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her familyher husband, brother-in-law, and sisterforcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader's attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is. An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright © 2015 Han Kang 1 The Vegetarian Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn't even attracted to her. Middling height; bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin; somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow aspect told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn't help but notice her shoes - the plainest black shoes imaginable. And that walk of hers - neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing. However, if there wasn't any special attraction, nor did any particular drawbacks present themselves, and therefore there was no reason for the two of us not to get married. The passive personality of this woman in whom I could detect neither freshness nor charm, or anything especially refined, suited me down to the ground. There was no need to affect intellectual leanings in order to win her over, or to worry that she might be comparing me to the preening men who pose in fashion catalogues, and she didn't get worked up if I happened to be late for one of our meetings. The paunch that started appearing in my mid-twenties, my skinny legs and forearms that steadfastly refused to bulk up in spite of my best efforts, the inferiority complex I used to have about the size of my penis - I could rest assured that I wouldn't have to fret about such things on her account. I've always inclined towards the middle course in life. At school I chose to boss around those who were two or three years my junior, and with whom I could act the ringleader, rather than take my chances with those my own age, and later I chose which college to apply to based on my chances of obtaining a scholarship large enough for my needs. Ultimately, I settled for a job where I would be provided with a decent monthly salary in return for diligently carrying out my allotted tasks, at a company whose small size meant they would value my unremarkable skills. And so it was only natural that I would marry the most run-of-the-mill woman in the world. As for women who were pretty, intelligent, strikingly sensual, the daughters of rich families - they would only ever have served to disrupt my carefully ordered existence. In keeping with my expectations, she made for a completely ordinary wife who went about things without any distasteful frivolousness. Every morning she got up at six a.m. to prepare rice and soup, and usually a bit of fish. From adolescence she'd contributed to her family's income through the odd bit of part-time work. She ended up with a job as an assistant instructor at the computer graphics college she'd attended for a year, and was subcontracted by a manhwa publisher to work on the words for their speech bubbles, which she could do from home. She was a woman of few words. It was rare for her to demand anything of me, and however late I was in getting home she never took it upon herself to kick up a fuss. Even when our days off happened to coincide, it wouldn't occur to her to suggest we go out somewhere together. While I idled the afternoon away, TV remote in hand, she would shut herself up in her room. More than likely she would spend the time reading, which was practically her only hobby. For some unfathomable reason, reading was something she was able to really immerse herself in - reading books that looked so dull I couldn't even bring myself to so much as take a look inside the covers. Only at mealtimes would she open the door and silently emerge to prepare the food. To be sure, that kind of wife, and that kind of lifestyle, did mean that I was unlikely to find my days particularly stimulating. On the other hand, if I'd had one of those wives whose phones ring on and off all day long with calls from friends or co-workers, or whose nagging periodically leads to screaming rows with their husbands, I would have been grateful when she finally wore herself out. The only respect in which my wife was at all unusual was that she didn't like wearing a bra. When I was a young man barely out of adolescence, and my wife and I were dating, I happened to put my hand on her back only to find that I couldn't feel a bra strap under her sweater, and when I realized what this meant I became quite aroused. In order to judge whether she might possibly have been trying to tell me something, I spent a minute or two looking at her through new eyes, studying her attitude. The outcome of my studies was that she wasn't, in fact, trying to send any kind of signal. So if not, was it laziness, or just a sheer lack of concern? I couldn't get my head round it. It wasn't even 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. Even in the summer, when I managed to persuade her to wear one for a while, she'd have it unhooked barely a minute after leaving the house. The undone hook would be clearly visible under her thin, light-coloured tops, but she wasn't remotely concerned. I tried reproaching her, lecturing her to layer up with a vest instead of a bra in that sultry heat. She tried to justify herself by saying that she couldn't stand wearing a bra because of the way it squeezed her breasts, and that I'd never worn one myself so I couldn't understand how constricting it felt. Nevertheless, considering I knew for a fact that there were plenty of other women who, unlike her, didn't have anything particularly against bras, I began to have doubts about this hypersensitivity of hers. In all other respects, the course of our our married life ran smoothly. We were approaching the five-year mark, and since we were never madly in love to begin with we were able to avoid falling into that stage of weariness and boredom that can otherwise turn married life into a trial. The only thing was, because we'd decided to put off trying for children until we'd managed to secure a place of our own, which had only happened last autumn, I sometimes wondered whether I would ever get to hear the reassuring sound of a child gurgling 'dada', and meaning me. Until a certain day last February, when I came across my wife standing in the kitchen at day-break in just her nightclothes, I had never considered the possibility that our life together might undergo such an appalling change.   'What are you doing standing there?' I'd been about to switch on the bathroom light when I was brought up short. It was around four in the morning, and I'd woken up with a raging thirst from the bottle and a half of soju I'd had with dinner, which also meant I was taking longer to come to my senses than usual. 'Hello? I asked what you're doing?' It was cold enough as it was, but the sight of my wife was even more chilling. Any lingering alcohol-induced drowsiness swiftly passed. She was standing, motionless, in front of the fridge. Her face was submerged in the darkness so I couldn't make out her expression, but the potential options all filled me with fear. Her thick, naturally black hair was fluffed up, dishevelled, and she was wearing her usual white ankle-length nightdress. On such a night, my wife would ordinarily have hurriedly slipped on a cardigan and searched for her towelling slippers. How long might she have been standing there like that - barefoot, in thin summer nightwear, ramrod straight as though perfectly oblivious to my repeated interrogation? Her face was turned away from me, and she was standing there so unnaturally still it was almost as if she were some kind of ghost, silently standing its ground. What was going on? If she couldn't hear me then perhaps that meant she was sleepwalking. I went towards her, craning my neck to try and get a look at her face. 'Why are you standing there like that? What's going on . . .' When I put my hand on her shoulder I was surprised by her complete lack of reaction. I had no doubt that I was in my right mind and all this was really happening; I had been fully conscious of everything I had done since emerging from the living room, asking her what she was doing, and moving towards her. She was the one standing there completely unresponsive, as though lost in her own world. It was like those rare occasions when, absorbed in a late-night TV drama, she'd failed to notice me arriving home. But what could there be to absorb her attention in the pale gleam of the fridge's white door, in the pitch-black kitchen at four in the morning? 'Hey!' Her profile swam towards me out of the darkness. I took in her eyes, bright but not feverish, as her lips slowly parted. '. . . I had a dream.' Her voice was surprisingly clear. 'A dream? What the hell are you talking about? Do you know what time it is?' She turned so that her body was facing me, then slowly walked off through the open door into the living room. As she entered the room she stretched out her foot and calmly pushed the door to. I was left alone in the dark kitchen, looking helplessly on as her retreating figure was swallowed up through the door. I turned on the bathroom light and went in. The cold snap had continued for several days now, consistently hovering around -10°C. I'd showered only a few hours ago, so my plastic shower slippers were still cold and damp. The loneliness of this cruel season began to make itself felt, seeping from the black opening of the ventilation fan above the bath, leaching out of the white tiles covering the floor and walls. When I went back into the living room my wife was lying down, her legs curled up to her chest, the silence so weighted I might as well have been alone in the room. Of course, this was just my fancy. If I stood perfectly still, held my breath and strained to listen, I was able to hear the faintest sound of breathing coming from where she lay. Yet it didn't sound like the deep, regular breathing of someone who has fallen asleep. I could have reached out to her, and my hand would have encountered her warm skin. But for some reason I found myself unable to touch her. I didn't even want to reach out to her with words.   For the few moments immediately after I opened my eyes the next morning, when reality had yet to assume its usual concreteness, I lay with the quilt wrapped about me, absent-mindedly assessing the quality of the winter sunshine as it filtered into the room through the white curtain. In the middle of this fit of abstraction I happened to glance at the wall clock and jumped up the instant I saw the time, kicked the door open and hurried out of the room. My wife was in front of the fridge. 'Are you crazy? Why didn't you wake me up? What time is . . .' Something squashed under my foot, stopping me in mid-sentence. I couldn't believe my eyes. She was crouching, still wearing her nightclothes, her dishevelled, tangled hair a shapeless mass around her face. Around her, the kitchen floor was covered with plastic bags and airtight containers, scattered all over so that there was nowhere I could put my feet without treading on them. Beef for shabu-shabu, belly pork, two sides of black beef shin, some squid in a vacuum-packed bag, sliced eel that my mother-in-law had sent us from the countryside ages ago, dried croaker tied with yellow string, unopened packs of frozen dumplings and endless bundles of unidentified stuff dragged from the depths of the fridge. There was a rustling sound; my wife was busy putting the things around her one by one into black rubbish bags. Eventually I lost control. 'What the hell are you up to now?' I shouted. She kept on putting the parcels of meat into the rubbish bags, seemingly no more aware of my existence than she had been last night. Beef and pork, pieces of chicken, at least 200,000-won worth of saltwater eel. 'Have you lost your mind? Why on earth are you throwing all this stuff out?' I hurriedly stumbled my way through the plastic bags and grabbed her wrist, trying to prise the bags from her grip. Stunned to find her fiercely tugging back against me, I almost faltered for a moment, but my outrage soon gave me the strength to overpower her. Massaging her reddened wrist, she spoke in the same ordinary, calm tone of voice she'd used before. 'I had a dream.' Those words again. Her expression as she looked at me was perfectly composed. Just then my mobile rang. 'Damn it!' I started to fumble through the pockets of my coat, which I'd tossed onto the living room sofa the previous evening. Finally, in the last inside pocket, my fingers closed around my recalcitrant phone. 'I'm sorry. Something's come up, an urgent family matter, so . . . I'm very sorry. I'll be there as quickly as possible. No, I'm going to leave right now. It's just . . . no, I couldn't possibly have you do that. Please wait just a little longer. I'm very sorry. Yes, I really can't talk right now . . .' I flipped my phone shut and dashed into the bathroom, where I shaved so hurriedly that I cut myself in two places. 'Haven't you even ironed my white shirt?' There was no answer. I splashed water on myself and rummaged in the laundry basket, searching for yesterday's shirt. Luckily it wasn't too creased. Not once did my wife bother to peer out from the kitchen in the time it took me to get ready, slinging my tie round my neck like a scarf, pulling on my socks, and getting my notebook and wallet together. In the five years we'd been married this was the first time I'd had to go to work without her handing me my things and seeing me off. 'You're insane! You've completely lost it.' I crammed my feet into my recently purchased shoes, which were too narrow and pinched uncomfortably, threw open the front door and ran out. I checked whether the lift was going to go all the way up to the top floor, and then dashed down three flights of stairs. Only once I'd managed to jump on the underground train as it was just about to leave did I have time to take in my appearance, reflected in the dark carriage window. I ran my fingers through my hair, did up my tie, and attempted to smooth out the creases in my shirt. My wife's unnaturally serene face, her incongruously firm voice, surfaced in my mind. I had a dream - she'd said that twice now. Beyond the window, in the dark tunnel, her face flitted by - her face, but unfamiliar, as though I was seeing it for the first time. However, as I had thirty minutes in which to concoct an excuse for my client that would justify my lateness, as well as putting together a draft proposal for today's meeting, there was no time for mulling over the strange behaviour of my even-stranger wife. Having said that, I told myself that somehow or other I had to leave the office early today (never mind that in the several months since I'd switched to my new position there hadn't been a single day where I'd got off before midnight), and steeled myself for a confrontation.   Dark woods. No people. The sharp-pointed leaves on the trees, my torn feet. This place, almost remembered, but I'm lost now. Frightened. Cold. Across the frozen ravine, a red barn-like building. Straw matting flapping limp across the door. Roll it up and I'm inside, it's inside. A long bamboo stick strung with great blood-red gashes of meat, blood still dripping down. Try to push past but the meat, there's no end to the meat, and no exit. Blood in my mouth, blood-soaked clothes sucked onto my skin. Somehow a way out. Running, running through the valley, then suddenly the woods open out. Trees thick with leaves, springtime's green light. Families picnicking, little children running about, and that smell, that delicious smell. Almost painfully vivid. The babbling stream, people spreading out rush mats to sit on, snacking on kimbap. Barbecuing meat, the sounds of singing and happy laughter. But the fear. My clothes still wet with blood. Hide, hide behind the trees. Crouch down, don't let anybody see. My bloody hands. My bloody mouth. In that barn, what had I done? Pushed that red raw mass into my mouth, felt it squish against my gums, the roof of my mouth, slick with crimson blood. Chewing on something that felt so real, but couldn't have been, it couldn't. My face, the look in my eyes . . . my face, undoubtedly, but never seen before. Or no, not mine, but so familiar. . . nothing makes sense. Familiar and yet not . . . that vivid, strange, horribly uncanny feeling.   On the dining table my wife had laid out lettuce and soybean paste, plain seaweed soup without the usual beef or clams, and kimchi. 'What the hell? So all because of some ridiculous dream, you've gone and chucked out all the meat? Worth how much?' I got up from my chair and opened the freezer. It was practically empty - nothing but miso powder, chilli powder, frozen fresh chillies, and a pack of minced garlic. 'Just make me some fried eggs. I'm really tired today. I didn't even get to have a proper lunch.' 'I threw the eggs out as well.' ' What? ' 'And I've given up milk too.' 'This is unbelievable. You're telling me not to eat meat?' 'I couldn't let those things stay in the fridge. It wouldn't be right.' How on earth could she be so self-centred? I stared at her lowered eyes, her expression of cool self-possession. The very idea that there should be this other side to her, one where she selfishly did as she pleased, was astonishing. Who would have thought she could be so unreasonable? 'So you're saying that from now on, there'll be no meat in this house?' 'Well, after all, you usually only eat breakfast at home. And I suppose you often have meat with your lunch and dinner, so . . . it's not as if you'll die if you go without meat just for one meal.' Her reply was so methodical, it was as if she thought that this ridiculous decision of hers was something completely rational and appropriate. 'Oh good, so that's me sorted then. And what about you? You're claiming that you're not going to eat meat at all from now on?' She nodded. 'Oh, really? Until when? 'I suppose . . . forever.' I was lost for words, though at the same time I was aware that choosing a vegetarian diet wasn't quite so rare as it had been in the past. People turn vegetarian for all sorts of reasons: to try and alter their genetic predisposition towards certain allergies, for example, or else because it's seen as more environmentally friendly not to eat meat. Of course, Buddhist priests who have taken certain vows are morally obliged not to participate in the destruction of life, but surely not even impressionable young girls take it quite that far. As far as I was concerned, the only reasonable grounds for altering one's eating habits were the desire to lose weight, an attempt to alleviate certain physical ailments, being possessed by an evil spirit, or having your sleep disturbed by indigestion. In any other case, it was nothing but sheer obstinacy for a wife to go against her husband's wishes as mine had done. If you'd said that my wife had always been faintly nauseated by meat, then I could have understood it, but in reality it was quite the opposite - ever since we'd got married she had proved herself a more than competent cook, and I'd always been impressed by her way with food. Tongs in one hand and a large pair of scissors in the other, she'd flipped rib meat in a sizzling pan whilst snipping it into bite-sized pieces, her movements deft and practised. Her fragrant, caramelised deep-fried belly pork was achieved by marinating the meat in minced ginger and glutinous starch syrup. Her signature dish had been wafer-thin slices of beef seasoned with black pepper and sesame oil, then coated with sticky rice powder as generously as you would with rice cakes or pancakes, and dipped in bubbling shabu-shabu broth. She'd made bibimbap with bean sprouts, minced beef, and pre-soaked rice stir-fried in sesame oil. There had also been a thick chicken and duck soup with large chunks of potato, and a spicy broth packed full of tender clams and mussels, of which I could happily polish off three helpings in a single sitting. What I was presented with now was a sorry excuse for a meal. Her chair pulled back at an angle, my wife spooned up some seaweed soup, which was quite clearly going to taste of water and nothing else. She balanced rice and soybean paste on a lettuce leaf, then bundled the wrap into her mouth and chewed it slowly. I just couldn't understand her. Only then did I realize: I really didn't have a clue when it came to this woman. 'Not eating?' she asked absent-mindedly, for all the world like some middle-aged woman addressing her grown-up son. I sat in silence, steadfastly uninterested in this poor excuse for a meal, crunching on kimchi for what felt like an age. Excerpted from The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Han Kang All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. 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