Part 4: The Uncanny: Metamorphosis and Brutal Aesthetics in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian
In-hye’s Slender Thread
“Sister . . . all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters.”[i]
“A chorus of living wood, sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning.”[ii]
“The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion.”[iii]
Prelude to the Final Engagement with The Vegetarian:
Having spent almost two years studying Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, I feel as though I have a much better understanding of the Man-Booker judges’ choice to award her novel the handsome International Prize. Also, I have thought deeply of the novel’s importance—it is important—and its artistry, which I believe to be of a high order. Some who have read previous parts of my critique may have disagreed with some of my comments and criticisms. Already, I believe my mind can change to consider some elements in the previous essays quite differently. Its raw and uncompromising artistry narrates a story encompassing much more than the travails of a mentally ill woman. Family and society all around Yeong-hye are under scrutiny. Some readers may not have been able to accept its brutal features—what I term “Brutal Aesthetics,” which is understandable. This is a difficult work to read in depth. I congratulate the Man-Booker group for their courage to pick such a difficult, controversial work.
Other choices of transgressive literature in previous decades have been awarded the Man-Booker prize (earlier the Booker Prize before the Man-group joined the organization[iv]) and some have been severely castigated or misunderstood by some of the judges and the reading public. One such controversial work I recall was How Late It Was, How Late, by the Scottish writer James Kelman, (1994).[v] Readers rebelled at his scatological language and the brutality of the actions described. The ugliness of the protagonist, Sammy the “idjit” drunk, did not endear the reader at first reading, and the horror of his torture at the boots of the police, plain clothes “sodjers,” was almost sickening to read. They kicked his eyes out. To Sammy’s mind his blindness was deserved for his “stupit” behavior. Though told in a more intelligible Scottish argot than the arch-slang dialect of Irvine Welsh’s “Trainspotting” style, the novel’s stream-of-consciousness pace may have placed the work another light-year’s distance from an easily-engaged readership. Indeed, Kelman’s writing was brutal in its aesthetics, an indictment of society and its guardians and the absurd inadequacy of Britain’s bureaucratic services, and yet a celebration of a base, downtrodden blind man finding the means to trudge on alone with life. Sammy’s cry of success: “So okay, ye’ve had this bad time. Ye’ve lost yer sight for a few days and it’s been bad. Ye’ve coped but ye’ve fuckin’ coped.” The Man-Booker judges (some do, anyway) like to see ways human beings cope in the toughest of conditions, against all hope. Recall Balram in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008).
[i] Yeong-hye to her sister, Ch. 3. “Flaming Trees,” p. 150.
[ii] Richard Powers, The Overstory, p. 4.
[iii] Mary Oliver in Maria Popova’s Brainpickings. https://www.brainpickings.org/…/mary-oliver-upstream-stayi…/.
[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_Prize
[v] The first American edition came out later: New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.
fivewillowsliteraryreview.blog 