The Vegetarian

Just finished. Short, potent, distressing. Because of disturbing dreams, Yeong-hye becomes a vegetarian–a vegan, really–to battle the darkness inside herself. The first part of the novel is told from the point of view of her husband, who is really quite a wretched person. He's cold and sexist and can't handle that she won't let him eat meat at home anymore. One could write a feminist thesis on this part alone. She never details her dreams, and he's not that interested. After he tells her family what's been going on, all hell breaks loose.

Part two, we discover that he's divorced her, and that she has spent time in a mental institution, after which she lived with her sister and brother-in-law. The brother-in-law is our main character for this section, and he becomes fixated on Yeong-hye because of her lingering dermal melanocytosis (I totally had to look that up, because it occurs in only roughly 5-10% of white babies, and I'm white). He is a middle-aged artist, a mite dysfunctional, and he dreams of painting her over with flowers and having sex with her. He does this, and it basically ruins him.

In part three, we get the p.o.v. of Yeong-hye's older sister In-hye. This part is particularly heartbreaking, because she is essentially an ideal woman, but her life is falling apart. She is a good cook, a good wife, a good person, looks after her sister, is a devoted mother, and runs her own business. Basically, from what I can tell, with very little appreciation. Her husband leaves her after his fiasco with Yeong-hye and goes into hiding. Yeong-hye is put in a mental institution again and slowly begins to starve herself as she disconnects from everyone and everything around her.

This is not a cheerful novel. But it is awesome in a way that it seems writers like Banana Yoshimoto and Natsuo Kirino are awesome, full of subtle but intense emotion and devastation.