Yeong’s Hye’s change in diet reveals an altered mental state, but it also brings repressed emotion in other characters to the surface. To focus solely on this trajectory would be reductive, as this is a layered narrative of a collective desire to escape animal desires and needs, through inactivity, passivity or death. Latterly, it seems to reflect Yeong Hye’s desire to retreat into an inert state. The contrast between these images and the more passive natural imagery is striking. Images of characters eating meat, overflowing IV drips, force feeding and physical abuse are not dissimilar to the nightmarish visions of physical dismemberment upon which Yeong-Hye apparently dwells. That side, visceral descriptions of food and flesh leave little to the imagination. We are introduced to Yeong Hye, the main character, by a man who leads are apparently banal life. It is a tale of isolation and repression. Previously published in Korean in 2007, a new translation Han Kang’s The Vegetarian by Deborah Smith is this year’s Man Booker Prize winning novel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |