He has an idea to produce video art of her naked body covered in flowers – painted on her by him. Yeong-hye has apparently been eating in the intervening period – not meat – and has put on weight and her body has rounded, giving the impression of “an enticing lack of superfluity”. Brother-in- law begins to obsess over Yeong-hye after a chance remark from his wife about a ‘Mongolian mark’ that Yeong-hye has on her buttock.
The relationship between husband and wife is described as “…that of business partners, whose only shared business was their child”. He is an unsuccessful artist and a kept man – In-hye runs a business that supports the family. It is set some two years after the family drama and hospital stay. The second section, Mongolian Mark, is told from the point of view of Yeong-hye’s brother-in- law, husband of her sister, In-hye. I don’t know why she keeps staring at my face, either, as though she wants to swallow it.” There, where her mother is attempting to feed her a meat broth on the pretext that it is a herbal remedy, we are given a further glimpse into Yeong-hye’s thoughts, “I don’t know why that woman is crying (her mother). Her father tries to physically force her to eat meat and she responds violently, ending up in hospital. Things come to a head at a family party with Yeong-hye’s siblings and their spouses, and her parents. There is an account of a painful dinner party, where Cheong is trying to impress his bosses but his wife’s anti-social behaviour embarrasses everybody – except her. The reader, however, has an insight into Yeong-hye’s mind through brief passages detailing her thoughts and dreams, and it is obvious that she has a mental illness. Cheong, however, asserts, “There’s nothing wrong with her, this kind of thing isn’t even a real illness” and he decides not to take her for a medical evaluation. She also started to withdraw from society and she practically stopped sleeping. Yeong-hye was a ‘normal’ wife for five years, but then she had a dream and stopped eating meat – in fact, she became a vegan and skeletally thin. However, if there wasn’t any special attraction, nor did any particular drawbacks present themselves, and therefore there was no reason for the two of us not to get married.” To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn’t even attracted to her. “Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. Mr Cheong always opts for average in everything, including his choice of a wife, and he is proud of that. The first, The Vegetarian, is narrated by Mr Cheong, the husband of Yeong-hye (she is the central character in the book).
Words that, to me, describe the themes of this story are: visceral, mental, sensual, maniacal, delusional.
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