Category Archives: 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 … Continue reading →

A Gravely Troubled Man The perspective of the artist is highly self-reflexive. For one, he did not condemn Yeong-hye for her strangeness, though he was unable to truly understand her psychic disposition.  Han’s study of the artist is excessively detailed, … Continue reading →

“Such Uncanny Serenity” It is dark under the lamp. (Korean quote) The natural world can offer us more than the means to survive, on the one hand, or mortal risks to be avoided, on the other: it can offer us … Continue reading →

In brutal aesthetics, however, the animal mutates variously into a beast, a god, a monster, or a creature.[i] Brutal aesthetics is not nihilistic, it is only the first step. To illuminate, to connect, to transform, to reanimate is the important … Continue reading →

Commentary on The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith (New York: Hogarth Press, 2015)  “Art is here to prove, and to help one bear, the fact that all safety is an illusion.” (From James Baldwin’s … Continue reading →

Our discussion book for June, suggested by Bill Hagens, is The Vegetarian, a South Korean three-part drama novella written by Han Kang and first published in 2007. English translation by Deborah Smith published by Penguin Random House in 2016. Winner … Continue reading →