“Vegetarianism is only an introductory metaphor/incitement for its larger story: the impositions on women’s bodily autonomy.”

Kang’s novel, first of all, is not about vegetarianism: this is only an introductory metaphor/incitement for its larger story: the impositions on women’s bodily autonomy. Even this, of course, is a grotesque simplificationHere, Waywords most often uses this term as a form of false ... More of the novel, but since so many reviews seem to limit the novel’s themes as belonging to Korean women, a geographic/cultural wall-breaker here seems a good place to start.

Yes, the novel has a number of incidents and complications that strike fairly uniquely to Korea, but this is hardly a wonder from a South Korean writer. I suppose all novels which take place in Boston apply only to American East Coast urban harborites. Kang’s patriarchal control is only the first and easiest to grasp of the limits:  Yeong-hye’s father, her husband, her brother-in-law, each take turns first misapprehending then correcting, abusing, and abandoning her. Too, though, her own sister struggles with this understanding, having worked so hard for love and family in more traditional ways. In fact, there are no individuals or institutions along the way (from businesses to a series of hospitals) that treat her differently from the male family. The presumption is that she is sick.

Still, this “diagnosis” of Yeong-hye is hardly arbitrary, nor is her style of vegetarianism anything like most readers have come to expect. As cliched-meatlover arguments wash over scenes, her diet also is ill-informed, driven by a kind of hidden dream-motivation more than any reasoned notion of environment, animal welfare, nutrition, or its like. Her behaviors which follow are strikingly outside of social norms, and some are potentially dangerous to others. It is tempting–too easily tempting–for readers to worry for her, too, to hope that a secret will be unlocked that might “return her to normal health.”

This readerly presumption itself could/should be questioned. What demands do we make–and how do we–when we imagine someone is unwell? What is a restoration to normal that satisfies us? And we might ask as well, what is the least we might ask of each other? That we all show propriety? keep residence? remain alive? On the reverse are choices individuals make; and somewhere in between, perhaps, negotiated or presumed, is what a society (or gender) tolerates.

All this and I haven’t really talked about what the novel is about, its three distinct parts each from different points of view, its three “cases” for examination, how different encounters address the consequences for their meetings and intimacies with Yeong-hye. These are unexpected, sometimes grotesque or perverse, always unsettling, and all–physically, psychologically, even institutionally–rooted in our foundations of meat, of flesh.

No, The Vegetarian is not about a diet. It is about bodily autonomy, and one woman’s attempt to escape the carnal completely.