Recently, I heard the happy news that the Korean writer Han Kang will be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, and it brought back my personal memories. It was probably more than twenty years ago. I once encountered a newspaper article about the national ambition of South Korea to deliberately promote that an elderly poet would win the Nobel Prize. That was when a military general became our president and the government was proud to host the Olympic games as a badge of honour for its progress. The motto of my elementary school was ‘Keep doing until done,’ and we, citizens of South Korea, wanted to brag that our nation deserved at least one Nobel Prize. The honour went this year to the author Han who had nothing to do with the national ambitions.
After I heard the news, I decided to read the author's work. I was aware of her reputation, but I was ashamed to admit that I had never read any of her books. I opened the app Google Play Books on my phone, selected ‘The Vegetarian’, and started reading the free sample text.
As soon as I had read about fifteen pages, Google Play Books asked me if I wanted to buy the whole story. The price was 8,02 Euro. I briefly imagined running to the local bookstore to get a paper copy, but I forgot for a moment that they didn't have any books in my language. So, I happily accepted the four-hour journey into Korean, my native language organised by Google Play Books, paid for the novel via PayPal in less than five seconds, and downloaded it.
I read the book in one sitting. The book was published in 2007, so it has been 17 years old, but it was still fresh for readers due to the articulate writing style, the clarity of the subject and the ingenuity of the plot.
The novel is composed of three separate chapters that come together to form a single story. To achieve this, the author has meticulously placed various devices and plots. It's a clever idea to tell a story in three parts, because everything of three parts inherently creates tension. I want to find a structural example of this book, which is also divided into three pieces. Let’s take a layered cake. However, its bottom level is often big and heavy and the top slice is smaller and lighter while the book gets denser as it progresses through the stages. No, it doesn't fit.
How about an onion? Below the dried-up husk of an onion is a rounded bulb with a smooth surface. Underneath that layer of skin is a smaller, robust mass. The centre of the onion is the kernel. The onion's core isn't as prominent as a pearl in a shell, or as ready to go as an adult caterpillar. It's more like a possibility that, when the time comes, the bud will burst open and swell into an onion like itself.
Yes, this story is shaped like an onion. Young-hye, the central character, sheds herself like an onion. In doing so, she becomes lighter and more plain. The first story of her first peeling is described by her husband; the second story of her second peeling is narrated by her brother-in-law; and the final story of Young-hye's journey to the kernel is told by her sister. The distance between the narrators - her husband, her brother-in-law, her sister - and Young-hye gradually becomes shorter and shorter. These narrators are more than observers; they are themselves the protagonists of each story. Because they encounter Young-hye only through their own perception, they project their interests, desires and pains onto her. The three stories, therefore, seem different but are essentially the same. The writer composes the three stories in a calm and deliberate manner.
We weave a web of relationships in our lives. Small cracks that seem to have no effect on us leave some wounds and scars on our lives, just like the tearing of a net. Whether or not Young-hye's eternal dream to become a tree is actually pathological is a discussion for another time. However, there is nothing like trees to live quietly and honestly with absolutely no harm. It is heartbreaking as a reader living in the same era to witness the death of a young female protagonist who tried to be honest with herself. Shouldn’t we ask ourselves, where is the place where people like Young-hye can live without losing their life?
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