#the vegetarian

[metamorphesque]

―  favorite words of … han kang

the vegetarian, human acts, the white book

˗ˏˋin case you’d like to buy me a☕ˎˊ˗    

#han kang #translated by deborah smith #favorite words of #quotes #literature #parallels #translated literature #korean literature #the vegetarian #human acts #the white book

[quotespile]

The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure.

Han Kang, The Vegetarian

#literature #quotes #Han Kang #The Vegetarian #quote #books #lit

[marbleheavy]

this is out of left field but a book rec list!! specifically, books that have to deal with consumption of women/cannibalism/ecofeminist themes (basically, feminist, food-centric horror)

1. The Vegetarian by Han Kang

This book is SO good but definitely check the trigger warnings. Told from three different perspectives, it follows a woman after she has a life-altering dream that makes her go vegetarian, much to the dismay of her family. The thing that stuck with me most about this book is how it portrays the normalized but profound betrayals by men that women experience. It’s a mix of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and My Year of Meats

2. My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki

Another meat-centric book! This one switches between two women, one in America and one in Japan, as they navigate the world of meat consumption and how patriarchy and misogyny are reflected in it. There’s a very mixed-media feel to this as every section starts with a poetry excerpt by Sei Shonogan and one of the main characters, Jane Takagi-Little, is directing a series on American meat consumption to promote eating meat in Japan. All of Ruth Ozeki’s books are wonderful so if you like this, you should read them all.

3. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterriva

This one is straight up cannibalism. It’s about a man, Marcos, who works at a meat processing plant that makes “special meat” (human) and is gifted a “specimen” for him to eventually slaughter himself. The specimen is a woman, Jasmine, who Marcos eventually forms a relationship with. This one is overtly dystopian and although certainly very dark, a little more palatable because it allows the reader to feel more distant from the reality of the book. Of course, though, there is till some very striking commentary on the abuse and exploitation of animals, women, and people as a whole.

4. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

This one is different from the others in that the consumption comes from fungus and not literal people, but there’s still a deep-seated sense of rot. The main character, Alex Easton, returns to the ancestral home of their childhood friend as they learn she’s dying. There is a distinct supernatural element to this, but still very heavy with animal and body horror.

5. A Certain Hunger by Chelsea Summers

Dorothy Daniels, the main characters, is a food critic, sex lover, and psychopath. This one, again, explores the relationship between the treatment of women as sexual beings and commercialized consumption. Also, again, cannibalism. However, this one is very White Feminism, so take that into mind.

all of these books are very good but all have very heavy trigger warnings, so please please look them up before reading. happy reading, my pals <3

#book recommendations #book rec #ecofeminism #cannibalism #literary fiction #the vegetarian #my year of meats #tender is the flesh #what moves the dead #a certain hunger #han kang #ruth ozeki #agustina bazterrica #chelsea summers #t kingfisher #feminist horror #feminist books #marble book recs

[ilyareads]

short books recs (under 200 pages)

1. Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

This book follows Sentaro, who runs a dorayaki stall, and his friendship with Tokue, who makes killer sweet bean paste. It is a heart-warming and endearing story that brings you comfort. I love the friendship between Sentaro and Tokue, especially seeing how it develops. The ending feels a little rushed. I kind of wished it was longer. Kind of sad. I cried. 10/10 would read again.

2. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Funiculi Funicula cafe provides a time-traveling service, and the book, divided into four parts, retells different characters' experiences traveling in time. I always associate time-traveling with angst and regret, and this book has just that. I love how each part explores different relationship dynamics, so the time-traveling experience varies for each character. Very heart-warming, but very emotional as well. Cried a lot. It's a series but you don't have to read other books. But if you want more info on the cafe and the characters' backstory, then I highly recommend reading the other books.

3. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

This book revolves around two students, who are victims of bullying. Due to their shared struggle, a friendship blossoms between them. The depiction of bullying and its impacts is raw and authentic, the story providing the perspectives of both the victims and the perpetrators. It was a rage-inducing but thought-provoking read.

4. The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

This book follows Nana the cat as he embarks on a road-trip with his owner, Satoru. Now, cats are my absolute weakness. I love cats. I WOULD DIE FOR THEM. Which is why reading this book was hard and painful. The writing is witty, since it is written from the perspective of a cat. The plot itself is kind of predictable, but it doesn't make it any less painful. Tldr; Shredded my heart into pieces. Cried so hard, I couldn't breathe.

5. Almond by Won-Pyung Sohn

The story follows the main character, Yunjae, who suffers from a rare condition called Alexithymia that essentially makes him unable to feel emotions. Due to that, he couldn't understand social cues so people shun him. The development of the story centers on the people Yunjae are going to meet, and how his relationship with these people develops. The ending felt a little anticlimactic, but I loved it nonetheless.

6. Eartheater by Dolores Reyes

The unnamed protagonist can locate missing people and find out their fate by eating dirt, so people seek her to know the fate of their missing loved ones. It was definitely an interesting read, with elements of magical realism in relation to the protagonist's ability. It is also an intriguing depiction of femicide, a reflection of a system that continuously fails women. I felt rage for the women failed by the system and the sufferings they had to endure at the hands of hateful men.

7. A House is a Body by Shruti Swamy

This book is a collection of short stories, which is a raw and authentic depiction of what it is like being human. I enjoyed certain stories, while some left me utterly confused. The narratives are enticing and poetic, so despite some stories not hitting that hard, I enjoyed the writing.

8. The Vegetarian by Han Kang

After having a bizarre dream, Yeong-Hye declares that she is turning vegetarian, and this sudden change concerned her family. I made the mistake of thinking that this book is merely a depiction of what it's like to be a vegetarian. HELL NO. It utterly deviates from my expectation. I could only describe the book as bizarre and spooky, in an unconventional way. It depicts the complexity of the human mind when the contraint of societal expectations is disregarded.

#book #books #book review #book recommendations #book reccs #book blog #bookblr #booklr #reading #sweet bean paste #before the coffee gets cold #eartheater #the vegetarian #almond #heaven #the travelling cat chronicles #mieko kawakami #toshikazu kawaguchi #durian sukegawa #won pyung sohn #hiro arikawa #dolores reyes #shruti swamy #han kang

[oddishfeeling]

do you have any book recommendations? pls i need lots 💙💙

this is such a loaded question friend. but lucky for u, i am procrastinating assignments, my take out has yet to arrive, and i just finished another book!

horror fic has been my choice for the last several books

the centre by ayesha manazir siddiqi is about a young Pakistani woman living in the UK. she's a translator for Urduru films. language and translation are central to this book. people are becoming fluent in a matter of weeks in complex languages.... the centre is gorgeous if not entirely mysterious, magical even. but whats the catch?? beautifully written. vivid details. anisa is a flawed, honest, and genuine feeling mc, as are the people in her life. i just finished it a couple hours ago n i miss my girls.

slewfoot by brom is set in 17th century Connecticut. our protag, Abitha, is not from this town but she does he best to adhere to the Puritan standards, if not for her well being, than that of her husband's. something stirs in the outskirts of the village, in the forest and beyond. she finds help from an unlikely source while also fostering a deep inner power of her own. these characters felt so well thought out, the writing is magnetic and the action is well paced. it puts so many preconceived notions right on their head. i loved this book and can't wait to read brom's other novel, the child thief, a retelling of peter pan and the lost boys!

sister, maiden, monster by lucy a. synder was oh so gay and oh so cosmically horrendous. this is like h.p. lovecraft wasn't a weird racist. this is like if biblically accurate angels were once just women in love. this is horrifying, visceral, and relevant to our COVID world. i was gawking at so many of the details. there are so many monster themes actually, it's perfect. the story is told through 3 povs of 3 different women. and we love women! and horror! i didn't expect to pick this one up but I'm so glad i did.

mary: an awakening of terror by nat cassidy do u know what it's like to be virtually invisible? forgotten? disaffected? do u know the pure joy of having a precious collection, adding to it over time, and it being almost ur only reason for living anymore?? then you're a lot like mary. and mary is a lot like plenty of women who get the chance to live beyond adolescence, who are cast out by society-- deemed invaluable. mary is utterly lost at a time in her life she feels she should have it all figured out. she goes back to her hometown, an ambiguous small town in the middle of the desert, and some unlikely characters help her piece things back together. i finished this book feeling so close to mary. we are friends now. there is mystique, horror, fables, myths, bad guys, mysterious architecture, and well mary is not the most reliable narrator. loved this one too.

the last house on needless street by catriona ward i had no idea where this book was going and i loved piecing the narrative together through several characters and their povs. it forces u to confront ur own biases regarding mental health. u are sympathetic to the characters in the most painful, heart wrenching ways. there is murder. there is mystery. there is missing children. there are cats. this book surprised me and it was fun to have to find a couple reddit threads to be sure i was understanding the story correctly. i felt like i read this kind of fast! which is always fun too.

brother by ania ahlborn this one pissed me off a bit. but in a good way because i was so deeply invested. this one is set in Appalachia. i'm not one for stereotypes, especially bc i think Appalachians have a bad rep and it's of no fault of their own. that being said, the insular feel of the book and the absolute claustrophobia those mountains create in this story were like a character in it of itself. our protag, michael, knows there's something beyond. he's seen them on colorful postcards. but his own mind and his own heart seem utterly trapped here. this one is heartbreaking. it's horrifying. and it'll make u dizzy from the amount of times u change ur mind. excited to read her other novel, Seed, because this one stuck with me so much!

a couple honorable mentions that fit the theme:

the vegetarian by han kang korean food. infidelity. art. nightmares. inexplicable mindfucks! this story was scary because it felt very.. possible? no monsters this time. no spells. just... the mind deteriorating. could happen to any of us.

a certain hunger by chelsea g. summers what if girlbossing is just a quick pivot from sociopathy?? what if the crimes are so much more gratifying than say, fame or fortune or even love?? women can be sociopaths too, you know!! this one is fun bc the protag is crazy and it's fun to slip into these characters. cathartic even. omg did i mention, she's a foodie too! just like me :-)

#book recs #horror lit #halloween reading list #the centre #ayesha manazir siddiqi #slewfoot #brom #sister maiden monster #lucy a. snyder #mary: an awakending #nat cassidy #the last house on needless street #catriona ward #brother #ania ahlborn #the vegetarian #han kang #a certain hunger #chelsea g. summers

[liquidlightandrunningtrees]

The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her successes had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn’t understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.

Han Kang, The Vegetarian

#quote #han kang #the vegetarian #surprise #fact #lived #child #remember #nothing #endure #feeling #believed #goodness #humanity #harm #devotion #understand #quotes

[samireads]

March wrap up. I was coming off the SKZ high from last month and I went to Japan… this was the result 🫣

#2023 reads #March 2023 #violets #kyung sook shin #I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki #baek se hee #sweet bean paste #durian sukegawa #the memory police #yoko ogawa #strange weather in tokyo #hiromi kawakami #the vegetarian #hang kang #books #reading #bookblr #bookstagram #Japanese lit #korean lit #literature #tbr

[phaedraismyusername]

Just chucking my 10 pence into the ring for Women in Translation month with a handful of recs on the off chance it'll be of use to someone

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

- a short novel about a Korean woman who decides to become a vegetarian after a bad dream and how the people (mainly men) around her react to the decision and her subsequent spiral into stranger and stranger behaviour.

Convenience Store Woman by Sakaya Murata

- the story follows a neuro-divergent middle aged Japanese woman who loves her job at a convenience store more than anything and just wants to be left alone to do what makes her happy and how the people around her pressure her into conforming to what society expects from her (finding a man, getting a "real job", etc) and how those expectations negatively impact her life.

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

- a strange winding Argentinian novel about a dying woman and a young boy sitting in hospital together and telling stories. I don't really know the best way to sell you on this one other than you'll have to try it to know if you'll like it lol. But if you like a whole lot of weird and appreciate narratives and themes around environmental abuse then this could be for you.

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

- another Argentinian book but this time it's just a straight up consumption horror lol. It follows a man who works at an abattoir essentially in a dystopian society where animal meat is now poisonous to people so they've started breeding and mass-processing humans for meat instead. Does what it says on the tin and pulls absolutely no punches in the process lol.

Confessions by Kanae Minato

- an excellent little Japanese thriller. A class room of teenagers are sat down by their teacher on her last day of work to talk about her resignation after her young daughter died in an accident on school grounds, only for her to reveal that she knows that two of the students are responsible for her death, and the steps she's taken to set her revenge into motion. The rest of the book jumps pov every chapter as you watch the consequences ripple out from there.

and last but not least

Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang

- a Chinese sci-fi novel that follows a group of Mars-born teenagers who, after a civil war between planets, have spent their formative years on Earth as delegates and are now returning to Mars and how they deal with that, basically. It's the longest book on this list by far at around 600 pages but the writing is beautiful and the conversations about Mars being a communist ideal while Earth has reached the pinnacle of what capitalism can create are done in a way that doesn't feel at all soapbox-y and feels very fair in exploring the pros and cons of each system. Just an all around excellent book.

#women in translation #wit month #book recs #the vegetarian #convenience store woman #confessions #vagabonds #tender is the flesh #fever dream #sakaya murata #kanae minato #samantha schweblin #han kang #hao jingfang #agustina bazterrica #books #recs

[words-and-coffee]

The thing that hurts is my chest. Something is stuck in my solar plexus. I don’t know what it might be. It’s lodged there permanently these days. Even though I’ve stopped wearing a bra, I can feel this lump all the time. No matter how deeply I inhale it doesn’t go away. Yells and howls, threaded together layer upon layer, are enmeshed to form that lump. Because of meat. I ate too much meat. The lives of the animals I ate have all lodged there. Blood and flesh, all those butchered bodies are scattered in every nook and cranny, and though the physical remnants were excreted, their lives still stick stubbornly to my insides.

Han Kang, The Vegetarian

#Han Kang #The Vegetarian #quote #quotes

[dionyrtal]

yesterday's book mail. seeing goldfinch in hardbook was a surprise because it was dirt cheap! (the beauty of second-hand book stores) and i was initially going to work on the vegetarian for my senior dissertation to analyze the relationship between trauma & food. i'm so excited to read it. [x]

#dionyrtal #dark academia #dark academia aesthetic #new books #tbr pile #goldfinch #donna tartt #the vegetarian #han kang #lit

[quotespile]

Her life was no more than a ghostly pageant of exhausted endurance, no more real than a television drama. Death, who now stood by her side, was as familiar to her as a family member, missing for a long time but now returned.

Han Kang, The Vegetarian

#literature #quotes #Han Kang #The Vegetarian #quote #books #lit

[smokefalls]

The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure.

Han Kang, The Vegetarian (translated by Deborah Smith)

#Han Kang #The Vegetarian #quote #fiction #2023 reads

[remotelyvague]

#the vegetarian #han kang #motherthing #ainslie hogarth #nightbitch #rachel yoder #a touch of jen #beth morgan

[bluebangsthepirate]

feminine rage and consumption 

i've been thinking a lot about books about womanhood in relation to consumption recently because of all the amazing literature i've read (the vegetarian by han kang, a certain hunger by chelsea g. summers, nightbitch by rachel yoder)

spoilers for all the books:

in the vegetarian, yeong-hye stops eating meat. throughout the course of the book she becomes malnourished, and eventually stops eating at all. the book follows a sort of transformation (metaphorical/literal). i interpreted as our existence being so linked to violence, whether that be the act of eating meat or the ways in which we treat one another.

in a certain hunger, dorothy is described to have always existed as someone who operates differently. she doesn't really empathize or care for others in a normal way. the act of killing men and eating them is her way of honoring the relationships she had with these men and the love they shared. but it is also born of the rage she feels as a woman existing in this world. and the most important relationship she has is with her friend emma. the conclusion of the novel is truly beautiful and heartbreaking, knowing the camaraderie and love between them, not even in spite of all the monstrosity that has occurred.

in nightbitch, the protagonist is also fueled by an anger that only women, more specifically mothers could understand. nightbitch grapples with the modern ideals of motherhood, giving up her job to be with her son, but also losing a part of herself. the animalistic instinct of wanting to be with your child but also the resentment of the unpaid labor and destruction of who you used to be. this is explored through her magical transformation into a dog. it manifests itself through the killing of animals and eating meat, still raw.

while these books all take very separate approaches on existence and womanhood in relation to consumption i found this underlying theme really interesting. whether it be to abstain from the violence as a form of protest, or to indulge and rejoice in the destruction. all take on an element of horrific but also beautiful. i have no conclusions as to what this all means, but i am curious as to others interpretations on the why of it all.

#nightbitch #rachel yoder #a certain hunger #chelsea g. summers #the vegetarian #han kang #bookish #feminine rage #literary analysis

[chaos--core]

Bird Symbolism in Books (I’m obsessed)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

#reading #my post #jane eyre #the great gatsby #the vegetarian #han kang #f scott fitzgerald #charlotte bronte

[mervederya]

Thursday, 13 1/100

Well well, hello 100 days of productivity again. I need the motivation to continue writing my thesis, from the beginning this time because it needs a lot of revision. I was chaotically researching last year and I was kind of straying away too far from my topic. So here we go with another start until January, I believe. So I'll really need the productive motivation to pull myself through these months. With that said, I'm excited since I love researching. Here are two books I've been reading these last few days: The Vagina Monologues and The Vegetarian. Both tackle the issue of freedom, free will, self-autonomy, sexual violence and prejudiced society. They were probably heavy to read right before I slept but the way they dealt with those themes made me more thoughtful about modern society, hence I'm focussing on the opposite side of this issue in my MA thesis: toxic masculinity. I'll update here more often because I actually quit my main Instagram account but I have another one, which i might share here later. Stay safe.

-Merve

#studying #study aesthetic #booklover #studyblr #dark academia #dark aesthetic #study space #productivity #research paper #thesis life #study desk #study corner #bookblr #currently reading #vagina monologues #the vegetarian #dark photography #minimal lifestyle #minimal photography #minimal aesthetic #student life #bullet journal #bullet journalling