Still he rationalizes away her behaviour, preferring to maintain a facade of normalcy. But this is not an effort to embrace a health trend, she becomes thinner and more withdrawn over time. From that point on she becomes a committed vegetarian, much to her husband’s horror, dismay and shame. Cheong arrives home to find his wife removing and discarding all of the meat in the fridge. Her only explanation, when pressed, is “I had a dream”. She is oddly lost, curiously absorbed by whatever it is she sees there. One morning, without warning, Yeong-hye is discovered, by her husband, standing in the glow of the open refrigerator at 4:00 AM. In his world it is all about him, even as it becomes apparent that his wife is struggling with something dark and troubling.

Yet he is, once his measured existence takes a turn for the decidedly strange a man who proves himself remarkably self-centred. Not exceptionally attractive, her quiet resourcefulness, and competent housekeeping and cooking skills please him. He marries accordingly, choosing the perfectly average Yeong-hye. Cheong, a Seoul businessman who sets the bar fairly low and is intent on a smooth life, devoid of excessive stress or excitement. The opening chapter, “The Vegetarian”, is narrated by the moderately ambitious Mr. It passes through the lens of an eerie erotic account of artistic obsession and ends with the force of an unbridled mountain creek, crashing and rolling down a steep rocky channel to a wildly uncertain end. This haunting allegorical tale of a woman’s gradual descent into madness that cracks and shatters the carefully composed order around her, starts out with a certain clean, almost antiseptic atmosphere of emotional detachment.

However, its American release from Hogarth in a slightly different translation, should encourage a new round of well deserved attention. Despite being available in Canada in the UK edition, the book has received relatively little attention on this side of the Atlantic. The Vegetarian, a novel by Korean author Han Kang, confidently translated by Deborah Smith, met with resounding critical praise when it was released in the UK early last year. Blood in my mouth, blood-soaked clothes sucked into my skin.” Try to push past but the meat, there’s no end to the meat, and no exit. A long bamboo stick strung with great blood-red gashes of meat, blood still dripping down. Straw matting flapping limp across the door. Across the frozen ravine, a red barn-like building. This place, almost remembered, but I’m lost now.

The sharp-pointed leaves on the trees, my torn feet.

The vegetarian han kang ending