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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > BotM June: THE VEGETARIAN by Han Kang
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
I like how the books correlates the social expectations of femininity with the consumption of meat. Yeong-Hye's nightmares begin as the idea that she is taking another thing's life and essence into herself in order to survive. In the same way, Korean culture seems constructed in such a way that men survive off the essence of women in the same way that animals eat other animals to live. The three sections seem to be a meditation on how men "consume" women. In the first chapter, Yeong-Hye exists as a vessel her husband takes from in order to establish his own existence. Food, sex, clothing, social stability, these are all things her husband seems to consume and that Yeong-Hye is expected to provide. Notice when she begins to break down, even her own family is less concerned with her own well-being than with the fact she is unable to provide for her husband's expectations.

In the same way that the first chapter is explicit criticism of the predatory nature of male and female relations in Korea, the second chapter seems to be a broader critique of sexual relations and the trope of the "muse." Despite being well provided for by his wife, the brother-in-law still looks at Yeong-Hye as something to consume for own benefit. Instead of consuming her for social stability, he seems to be higher up on Mazlow's hierarchy, seeking to consume her for own his self-actualization. The brother-in-law sees her as a thing to be used for his own spiritual and artistic benefit, utterly unconcerned with how his behavior affects either of the women in his life. Both of them exist for his benefit, at some level or another, and he never seems concerned with reciprocating that support. I appreciate how thoroughly the concept of a "muse" is intertwined in this portion. The idea of the beautiful or at least sexually appealing women as a source of artistic inspiration is an old cliche, but here the author really breaks it down into its inherently predatory nature.

The third section complicates any possible resolution. Why does Yeong-Hye want to become a tree, and no longer be animal? Because, plants do not consume anything to live. Even as a vegetarian, she was still taking life from something else living. She was still acting in a predatory fashion, if not against a "conscious" being like an animal. Her desire to stop eating meat, tied back into her dream, is tied into her desire to escape from the predatory experience of womanhood. This is alluded to in the memory of the sisters lost in the woods. For Yeong-Hye, to end her own taking of life means an escape from the predation of a male society. However, we see that this is impossible. Not only because she is slowly dying, but also because of the burden this places on her sister. Ironically, Yeong-Hye's own desire to escape from the cycle with consumes her essence has caused her to become a burden to her sister. Yeong-Hye is now consuming essence from her sister in the same way the men of her life have consumed from her. There is no clear resolution.

Further Recommended Reading Please Look after Mom by Shin Kyung-Sook

* # ¿ Jun 6, 2016 15:15
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

I skim read it and found the writing dreadful, characterization fake and inch-deep, and actual plot trite and mystified without a single idea that's worth something.

And the revelation at the end of the book? Are you kidding me? Take a random guess, whatever you say will be right 99% of the times. Call that originality.

I'm convinced this book won a prize because it's so short that they rewarded it because no one wants to work hard anymore. Paid reviewers LOVE this because you can read it in a couple of hours and feels like FREE MONEY. It's just a pretense of a book. An imitation of good writing and good plot. And then people love it because they love what some institution tells them to love. The book won a prize, so it must be GREAT.

I mean:
"Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way."

"the inferiority complex I used to have about the size of my penis"

"The only respect in which my wife was at all unusual was that she didn't like wearing a bra."

"Her voice as it sounded over the phone, always somehow more distinct than in person, never failed to send me into a state of sexual arousal"

"Well, I was in a dream, and I was standing on my head … leaves were growing from my body, and roots were sprouting from my hands … so I dug down into the earth. On and on … I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch so I spread my legs; I spread them wide … "

"Can only trust my breasts now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts, I’m okay."

"She was standing, motionless, in front of the fridge. The potential options all filled me with fear."

Is this good writing? Really? If you told me this was a parody I'd believe it.

You can look up the preview on Amazon, the book is so short you can basically read half of it for free. It VERY BARELY qualifies as a "novel" because its word count is just at the edge of a novella.

source your quotes

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 15:07
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

Huh, what do you mean with that?

Its a joke about how your review sounds like a terrible amazon review that you copied/pasted

Abalieno posted:

P.S.
You want that flavor of mysterious, evocative mystification, but AT LEAST done competently? Forget this book even exists and read "The Vorrh", by B. Catling.

If you think The Vegetarian is about mystery and mystification perhaps you should not skim read it and actually read it.

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 15:14
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

It wants to imitate that dreamlike, introspective and symbolic atmosphere. I only think it's dreadful for what it achieves. Symbols are powerful because of what they hide. But being the actual deal here inch-deep, it's all fluff and mystification. Japanese horror B-movies have more creativity and depth.

I think you are putting your own tastes into the book more than allowing the book to speak to you. You seem to be hunting for a metaphysical symbolism to the text that isn't present.

quote:

The title is of course misleading. It's not about vegetarianism in ANY way

The Grapes of Wrath is not about very angry raisins either.

quote:

So, it's just about a very subjective mental illness. The book does a poor job with it. The motivations are fluff. It doesn't play realistically, and the dreamlike effect is lost because the depth just isn't there, it's only imitation of what a million of other books do better.

There are reviewers that TRY to lift it up as a kind of metaphor of Korean culture and society. None of them explains how you could reconcile that theory with a story of very subjective mental illness that has absolutely no point of possible generalization to "everyone".

It's a sad story written with the purpose to shock, without ever earning it.

Its not a subjective mental illness. Its a commentary on the nature of how human interaction is always in someway based on consumption and exploitation, and how Korean culture is particularly built around women being consumed for the benefit of men. There is an overwhelming feminist perspective in this book you seem to be completely glazing over.

I mean, do you honestly really believe there is a huge literary-industrial complex shilling out short awful books for a profit and that no prize-winner ever really deserves it rather than maybe you just didn't get the book?

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jun 14, 2016

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 15:31
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

And it's impossible EVEN to engage with the characters on a personal level. The woman not only is mentally ill, but she's completely unaware of everything around her. So whereas if you were mentally ill you'd notice how people react around you, you'd be self conscious, struggle to blend in and fail (and this could be an interesting and worthwhile story to tell). But this woman doesn't give a drat. She's ostensibly weird around people, she makes a deliberate exhibition of it. She's completely, utterly self-absorbed and without a trace of empathy. She's essentially not-human, because of how cold she is to everything that surrounds her. But then the book EXPLOITS this by making everyone else around her even more implausibly WORSE. So you'd expect the "sane" people to act differently, but nope. Her husband is a piece of poo poo who has even less empathy and not a single redeeming quality.

That's exploitative. It's a carefully picked selection of the worst human beings with the sole purpose to put the protagonist under an excess of negativity, just to justify what happens to her "internally".

This is the problem though. These are not hand-picked awful human beings. These are flawed but realistic people meant to reflect the overall ideas of the text.

Yeong-Hye doesn't have agency not because of terrible exploitative writing, but because the idealized Korean woman is one who is subdued and complicit in her own abuse. The novel's very introduction sets out to show how she was "ideal" to her husband in her total passivity, and how a single act of generally meaningless rebellion becomes catastrophic. Her husband is not uniquely terrible, her husband is a normal man of society with the normal expectations of a man in that society. Seeing your wife as a vessel of prestige and household maintenance is not a unique evil, even just in Korea. Plenty of American men feel that way as well. As with the brother-in-law, plenty of men lust after women over than their wives. Plenty of men put their wives in a mother role and a different one in a purely sexual role. Plenty of men also justify the exploitation of their sexual partner as a person less worth considering than their domestic partner. There is an entire theory about it "madonna/whore". You seem to want these people to be uniquely evil because you are uncomfortable admitting they are actually quite normal and common people.

The total point of her passivity is to show the willingness of men to use women for themselves. If she was a more engaged character, not only would the only intellectual base of the plot dissolve, but she would not even be an effective reflection of societal expectations on women.

Abalieno posted:

P.S.
"consumption and exploitation of women for the benefit of men" as a KOREAN culture thing? REALLY?! More like an universal human thing in the last thousands of years. So she played a game on the "metaphor", consumption = eating. "I don't like consumption of women, so I stop eating." Whoa! Booker Prize! This is exactly what I mean with "inch-deep".

"Fishing is hard, life is hard" whoa Hemingway great inch-deep symbolism

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jun 14, 2016

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 16:11
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

But it wasn't *meaningless* rebellion. It's self-inflicted pain. That's why the title is ridiculous. It's not like she decided to eat "healthily" and started to do something in a different way. The catastrophe is self-inflicted with minimal impact about what happens around herself. It's more like "doom" and destiny than cause-consequence. Is suicide "meaningless rebellion"?

She's essentially into self-harm. Being "vegetarian" is utterly misleading unless there's really someone out there who consider being vegetarian as an act of self-harm. Is self-harm an act of rebellion? And of course it's catastrophic, the concept starts that way regardless of what's around her. She's trying to kill herself, but of course people around her are so bad that certainly they don't help.

It's a legitimately sad story used in an illegitimate exploitative way.

You seem to want the author to have written a book about a selfless family dealing with a mentally ill woman's habitual self-abuse rather than a focused meditation on the predatory nature of human relationships. Like, I can get if you do not think the book achieves its goals well, but you seem to think the author should have written an entirely different book.

Do you think The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is similarly exploitative?

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 16:39
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

On one side I considered those relationships utterly implausible, so neither the relationships nor the characters can work for me that way. It's a twisted, convenient representation, to my eyes.

Yep, I don't think human relationships work that way. Even if you take that, it's superficial. I don't know how to better say it than repeating endlessly it's exploitative.

I do see what you mean, and you do see what I mean. The difference is the angle the writer forced on the story is utterly dishonest and artificial to me, so why it turns into that story into the one I described. She wants those themes, but because the characters are so fake it all falls apart. We interpret things differently because that angle is a false one for me.

You buy into that concept and its use, I don't.

I don't see how the characters are implausible to you. In a patriarchal society aren't men given the expectation that their worth can be measured by the woman they claim? In that same society aren't fathers measured by the suitability of their daughters? Aren't mothers measured by their dedication to their children? Aren't wives measured by their submission to their husbands?

Plenty of marriages have ended because they became socially inconvenient for one of the partners. Plenty of men have cheated on their wives while sexually and emotionally exploiting their mistresses. Does this make these people monstrous? Probably. Does it make them implausibly monstrous? Not at all.

What particularly about the husband or the brother-in-law comes off as inauthentic to you?

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 17:03
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

The brother-in-law I can't comment because I skipped that almost entirely. The rest, also because this book is so thin, events proceed like following this one directional convenient thread. So there's no depth also because there's no space. The husband isn't even in a "relationship", they are just there as strangers because the writer put them there. Very good writers in so little space would give at least the illusion of a relationship. She doesn't manage that.

You skipped a third of the book and are complaining about the underdevelopment of the plot and its characters.

Abalieno posted:

But hey, this husband is so perceptive that he always thought his wife was alright before "turning vegetarian". The premise already falls apart.

He thought his wife was alright because she never gave him any trouble. It's the whole point. He was never concerned with her well-being because how his wife felt didn't matter as long as she performed her role.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Jun 14, 2016

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 17:23
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Corrode posted:

There's more than a touch of the 'tism about a guy complaining how a book titled The Vegetarian wasn't about a literal dictionary-definition vegetarian.

I am willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but the whole angry spiel about reviewers and critics got me super annoyed.

Plus the whole skipping the middle of the book thing.

EDIT: Has made for a lively book club thread at least!

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 17:53
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
a speck of the spectrum if you will

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 18:13
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Nanomashoes posted:

There's also a touch of the 'tism in calling your literature thread mates to make fun of the guy who doesn't like the book you like.

yeah that was lame gently caress that guy

* # ¿ Jun 14, 2016 19:34
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Peel posted:

One thing I noticed in this breakdown is that while the first two chapters are each centred on Yeong-Hye and a male predator, the third is between two women. However the third still has a parasitic male presence in the form of the son. But he differs from the previous two in that 1. he has no choice in the matter being a literal child 2. he appears to be an anchor for the sister and prevent her from sliding into withdrawal like Yeong-Hye due to her responsibility toward him. He certainly gets better shrift in the narrative than the other male characters. I'm not sure what to make of this - there's a political reading of hope for the next generation but I don't like it, it feels crude and out of place and doesn't gel with the fact that the sister abandons him to another woman (parasiting on her) to care for Yeong-Hye as she declines.

I think this ties into the idea that parasitism and consumption is essentially "inescapable." A child is a parasite of the mother. Does that make the child evil? no. Does it make the mother submissive? no. However, the very nature of parenting is to sacrifice of yourself for another thing. I think its used as the final example because it is deliberately irresolvable. Women suffer became men take from them in order to thrive. But in the end, we all take from others in order to thrive, whether its the life we consume as food or the lives we consume in our relationships. I think she deliberately complicates the ending so that we are not motivated to look for an easy resolution to the fundamental question.

* # ¿ Jun 15, 2016 20:53
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
If we're gonna start taking noms for next month, I want to recommend The Little Red Chairs by Edna Obrien.

It has a lot to discuss, especially given the recent Brexit.

Edit: or The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota but it is much longer.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Jun 28, 2016

* # ¿ Jun 28, 2016 16:16
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Next month is going to be Lud in the Mist because it did well in the last poll, is respectably intelligent, is accessible, and is free -- I want to make sure we keep the BotM relatively accessible. I don't want to just do the same thing every month even if the "same thing" is "high-quality modern realistic lit fiction".

That said I'll definitely add both of those to the next poll (which will be at the end of July).

Fair enough, not sure I would really recommend either book for August though as the zeitgeist would have passed by then.

* # ¿ Jun 28, 2016 17:08
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Guy A. Person posted:

Really? I feel like we won't even be seeing some of the actual consequences for another few months. If you are talking about the 24-hour news cycle it will probably have moved on unless literally nothing happens in that time (which seems unlikely with Trump running for president)

I'm cool reading either tho

Well both books deal with the explicit contexts of migrant labor in London and the rest of England which isn't really connected to the Brexit per se but is definitely in the zeitgeist of "why did England do this very stupid thing". Sure the geopolitical ramifications of the decision will be ongoing but the current conversation about multiculturalism in England will probably have passed on by then

* # ¿ Jun 28, 2016 20:51
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
what the gently caress is malazan

* # ¿ Jun 29, 2016 18:46
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

That's the difference between just riffing on "literary" themes with the purpose of getting attention and gratify certain circles, and actually having something meaningful to say.

If you notice, no one engages with the themes in this book, we all talk about it as a separate distant thing as if it was a description of people living hundreds of years ago. It's dead. What this book really delivers is about making the reader feel better than the characters shown in the book, and create a sense of detachment to see them as a curious experiment without any consequence.

I am not trying to be a jerk or sarcastic or anything but I seriously have no loving idea what you are talking about

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 19:11
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

NO ONE identifies with those male characters.

Uh, I absolutely do. Identifying with a character does not mean sympathizing with them. I absolutely feel the same sense of male entitlement they feel and the same insecurity of having your masculinity judged by your romantic relationships. I am pretty sure all men feel those things as well. I certainly do not act upon those forces in the same way, but at the same time I am also cognizant of the fact I experience those forces the same as they do.

Identifying with a character doesn't mean imagining you are them, it is about finding things in them that you also find in yourself even if they are irredeemably ugly.

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 21:04
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

The book offers these "male predators", horrible people, as sacrificial scapegoats, so that you see how terrible they are, and feel yourself a better person because you know you aren't like that. Again, no one engages because it's built as if the story is about some barbaric people you read about, from your high seat of moral superiority. It offers the reader the high seat.

I think this is a wildly insecure interpretation. You seem afraid to engage with their own selfishness because it might mean admitting you yourself are capable of being selfish. I do not look at these characters and think about how much better I am them. I look at these characters and recognize people who are different from me reacting to the same social forces that I do. You seem to be taking the most superficial possible reading of them. I do not look at these characters so I can say "look how different I am from them, this makes me a good person" I look at them and go "My god, could I be like this too?"

You keep saying the lack of morally laudable male characters somehow means we as the reader are supposed to feel superior to them. I think rather you want a morally laudable male character so that you are not forced to confront your own capability for selfishness and immorality. It's like how every movie about racism in America needs a "good" white person so that white audiences don't feel alienated. This novel doesn't reaffirm my masculine ethos; it challenges it, and I am grateful for that.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jun 30, 2016

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 21:38
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

knees of putty posted:

Surely it's not necessary to identify with a character to be successful. It's a very solipsistic view that in order to gain understanding or insight one has to take that person's viewpoint. That's part of the joy of this book - the viewpoint shifts around, each offering a new vision of a single person's journey. A kind of stretched Rashomon. Was the family so unreal and amplified that they were unbelievable? I'm not so sure. Certain aspects were amplified to draw out some unpleasant features of the male psyche, but the family was sufficiently normal to provoke shock at their reaction to a somewhat benign and trivial move to stop eating meat. We can read into it of course that they were not reacting to becoming vegetarian, but to the refusal to accept husband/father instruction. If you think this is unreal, just have a look at a prominent feminist's twitter feed.

Exactly.

Hell, one of the candidates for president is a thrice divorced philanderer married to an Eastern European model half his age and we are really supposed to act like the objectification of women by their husbands is somehow implausible

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 21:53
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Guy A. Person posted:

I also think it's weird to assume a South Korean author is writing for a Western audience hoping they would pat themselves on their backs and then give her awards. The likely intended audience for this was South Koreans, who would have a very different reaction to the challenges presented in this book.

Especially considered the book was published a decade ago in Korea before being translated here

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 21:56
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

Of course. What I see problematic is the role of the reader in relation to the book. .

I say the book gives the high ground to the reader, that's the issue for me. Lack of identification is instrumental to that.

How about you respond to my complete deconstruction of this argument rather than just repeating it?

Abalieno posted:

Of course. What I see problematic is the role of the reader in relation to the book. .

I say the book gives the high ground to the reader, that's the issue for me. Lack of identification is instrumental to that.


The refusal to accept husband is called "you could have chosen better", or "getting a divorce". That's why what's left of the book is just a bad metaphor.

The entire world doesn't work like the United States. Women in Korea cannot simply get divorced easily if they are unhappy, and women are pressured to marry very young to a husband because of his provider role rather than any particular romantic affection. And before you get all huffy about the idea we are somehow exoticizing Koreans, I haved worked with Koreans everyday for the last ten years. I read another book about Korean feminism "Please Look After Mom" because a Korean woman recommended it to me if I wanted to understand what it was like to be a woman in Korea. For someone so dedicated to accusing the rest of the thread of moral tourism, you seem obstinate about even considering the fact that gender roles don't work in other countries like they do for you.

quote:

About "father instruction", that's interesting because I keep wondering why no one mentioned that the hinted explanation of the protagonist's mental illness is that she was abused by her father when she was a kid. Which is one of the reason why I think is downright terrible as it justified itself through the most trite of the cliches.

This whole thing: kid is victim of abuse -> mind falls apart because of it -> writer tries to make it into an universal metaphor about predatory nature -> want to become a tree. I can only see it as ludicrous.

It's like the ultimate revelation at the end of the book, and it's so predictable the book was better without mentioning it and just leave it completely unexplained.

Have you considered perhaps that the revelation is not trite and predictable but that you lack the basic critical skills to understand the context of a story beyond cliches? She did not go crazy because her father beat her. She went "crazy" because she longed for an existence free of the burdens of serving as a vessel of male authority and desire and the impossibility of accomplishing that dream. Saying she went crazy because her dad beat her is like saying Ahab went crazy because he really didn't like whales very much.

quote:

But again, lack of self-sustenance just cannot be seen as "refusal to accept husband/father instruction". It's really a disservice to those themes: a woman has to kill herself in order to affirm some individuality and agency? Is this the message?

It's a disservice to feminism if the message is that a woman can only die if she doesn't want to be instrument to a man. It's a sick message.

It's only a sick message because you lack the basic inner moral courage to realize its actual implications. Here is a hint. Get this: millions of women around the world are going to live their entire lives under a system of nigh unbearable male oppression and there is absolutely nothing they will ever be able to do about it. I am sorry if that's not a happy ending but that is the entire point of the book you insipid poo poo.

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 22:33
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

knees of putty posted:

Lots of women in the west find themselves unable to just divorce or leave. That's why places like women's refuges exist.

Good point

Lunchmeat Larry posted:

in what way is the tree stuff a "revelation" anyway

I really think, not even being a prick, this guy only understands fiction in the context of cliches. He cannot understand that a explanatory scene at the end of the novel is not always supposed to be a twist or big reveal but that it can instead be a final cementing of narrative theme.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jun 30, 2016

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 22:52
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

So now you're patronizing *me*, how nice. You are used to that high moral perch, I see.

I can see how the childishly simplified psychology in the book has an appeal for you.

You don't get to spend the whole thread accusing everyone of masturbatorily pretending to analyze a "fraud" book to make themselves feel better about themselves and then get pissy about being talked down to

Abalieno posted:

(sorry for not taking this seriously, but you either try to make a specific argument, or an universal one. If this is a story of a specific woman, ok. But then it can't also be some universal metaphor that has to be valid outside its context. You cannot on one had say "it's specific Korea culture", and at the same time "it's the predatory nature of society".)

Why can a novel not simultaneously exist in the personal, cultural, and global sphere?

Abalieno posted:

Ok, quaint Korea it is then. I guess becoming trees is easier or more desirable than getting a divorce in Korea.

Why do you think getting a divorce would solve the problem that makes her want to become a tree?

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jun 30, 2016

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 23:11
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

If not in contradiction.

You cannot say on one hand "you can't understand this because it's Korean culture", and on the other say it's an universal theme. If it's universal then it's valid universally and it isn't anymore "Korean"-only.

Up thread someone said:
"it's weird to assume a South Korean author is writing for a Western audience"

Ok. So it's not universal anymore. It's either or.

A novel having a context for a global reader and a local reader is not a contradiction. A single novel has several simultaneous interpretations dependent on the subject positioning of the reader engaging with the text. It's basic Post-Structuralism.

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 23:25
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

That's why it's a bad feminist message, because it pictures a woman who's NOT independent and is killing herself since she can't find a way out of her hole. She's a woman who's unable to be independent, not a woman who's NOT ALLOWED to be independent by the patriarchal society, as the feminist message would ideally make her.

Why would you possibly think only a pro-active woman who struggles nobly against patriarchal society should count for "ideal" feminist literature? By that logic the Yellow Wallpaper, An Untamed State, The Bluest Eye, etc. are all not "ideal" feminist novels.

Not everything has to be The Handmaid's Tale

quote:

When she's in the hospital refusing to eat and refusing to speak to her sister there are no more "predatory males" around her to complain about. She's ALONE. And she's going to die without help. There's no "society" oppressing her. The "society" already forgot she even EXISTS.

You completely missed the point of this section and I would explain it again but I feel you would probably just ignore it again.

* # ¿ Jun 30, 2016 23:52
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

Nope, please explain.

Saying she should stop being crazy because the asylum is not "society" is a literal Catch-22. If the asylum were an escape from society, she would no longer be insane and thus be released back into the patriarchal society where she would just go insane again. You would know this if you ever actually read the middle portion of the book because this is exactly what explicitly happens. The whole reason for her wanting to become a tree is because she already tried to find a resolution to an irresolvable conflict, briefly succeeded, but in the end only became even worse in her failure. Her wanting to become a tree is no longer about her desire to escape patriarchy or society, its about wanting to completely escape all human responsibility because she is unable to deal with the irresolvable necessity of predation.

The whole point of the third chapter is not about giving a big "reveal" about Yeong-Hye wanting to become a tree. The point of the third chapter is the way in which Yeong-Hye's response to the burdens of society are contradicted with her sister's response to those same burdens. Her suicidal nature is explicitly ironic because its showing that Yeong-Hye's final desperate attempt to escape from the predatory nature of human existence has only made her a greater predator of her sister.

tl;dr - she wants to become a tree because it means she no longer will consume of the lifeforce of anyone other than herself but it ironically only means she has become a consumer of her sister in the same way the men of her life were consumers of her

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jul 1, 2016

* # ¿ Jul 1, 2016 00:06
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
I have no idea why you think any reader is applauding or supporting her in the third chapter. The ending is not a victorious statement about feminism and no one is sitting around lauding the profundidity of the metaphor, its about the impossibility of easily resolving the central conflict of the book

* # ¿ Jul 1, 2016 00:19
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

So, even working from this angle I'm not sure what kind of positive message the book wants to send.

You almost got it, just a little further

* # ¿ Jul 1, 2016 00:25
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Khizan posted:

Jesus gently caress me Christ.

I'm like "Oh poo poo, the BoTM thread hit 3 pages this months, I should read it" and then it's just three pages of Mel yelling at that one spergy gently caress.

Yeah sorry I went overboard. Look at it this way though, its a book good enough to justify fighting about for three pages.

At least there was some really good discussion from other people in-between that right?

* # ¿ Jul 1, 2016 11:12
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Toph Bei Fong posted:

Feminism isn't necessarily comforting or uplifting. All of these, despite being terribly depressing works, are extremely feminist in nature because they depict the situation as it is, and ask the reader to confront why it is so. It can be a call to action.

Yeah, one of my favorite recent feminist novels "An Untamed State" by Roxane Gay ends with explicit message "It's never going to be ok"

* # ¿ Jul 1, 2016 13:32
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
I am not one to reject a book for having elf wizards outright but I do have to admit elf wizards tend to be something of a red flag for me

* # ¿ Jul 1, 2016 23:33
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

Hey, I'm back and there are still a few things that I'd like to discuss.

gently caress

* # ¿ Jul 5, 2016 17:16
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
Ok fine I will be nice

Abalieno posted:

I still believe that the woman's mind broke. And the more time passes the more it breaks, autonomously and not because of some patriarchal society that presses on. It's a descent into mental illness and self-harm. She's not autonomous anymore, she's not claiming individuality and agency by making her choice, she's just sending a SIGNAL THAT SHE NEEDS HELP. She needs help putting the pieces back together. But because she's surrounded by horrible people, the only help she gets is a shove. In the final part of the book this woman has completely shut down herself inside. She doesn't speak anymore to the world. She's removed from reality because (like Malazan's Mhybe) she's trapped in a "dreamworld". She shuts in. Now, the only way to survive is trying to breach that wall, trying to connect with her, and try to bring her out again, because otherwise she will only wither and die, exactly as all things that do not connect anymore to the outside world and that don't continue that taking/giving relationship. You give you take, the exchange keeps you living, because "life" is that, a symbiosis with an environment while trying to preserve your sense of self and sustenance. But she's locked in, trapped in that dreamworld and, left alone, she only descends further into that dream, the deep end.

Completely sincerely, do you suffer from mental illness or do you have a close loved one who suffers from mental illness?

Your steadfast insistence on putting her behavior in the grounded and specifically clinical suggests to me your own subject positioning makes you very drawn to this sort of interpretation. That's not a bad thing, mind you. Every reader brings their own background into a reading, but the emphasis you put on this reading makes me feel like there is something very personal about this interpretation.

Abalieno posted:

Both women are equally broken and sharing the same story. They are mirrored. But one dies, whereas the other lives. Why? Because one woman descended into herself. She didn't have a "real" husband to care for. She didn't have a real life to begin with. So she slips into her dreamworld where she isolates herself from everything else, until she dies. Further downward the spiral. But her sister, who's moving down the same path since they share the same beginning, has her son. The son is a life anchor to the world. A responsibility that keeps her "sane", in the sense that the son keeps her functional and connected to the outside world. She can't as easily cut the ties to her son as her sister cut her ties to her husband.

And that's why, ultimately, it's very shallow: the sister is saved by the power of love for her son.

I don't think there is a single line of text in the entire book to justify this interpretation.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jul 5, 2016

* # ¿ Jul 5, 2016 17:20
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

Well, Malazan actually has undead raptor wizards that roam the world in their flying mountain fortress, and magic swords that contain portals to other dimensions (spoiler).

Donaldson's says ( http://www.nyrsf.com/2015/03/fantas...-truth-s-p.html ):

Notice also that other quote:

“Fantasy is the most intelligent, precise, and accurate means of arriving at the truth.”

To be blunt, do you know what they call Fantasy that has meaningful literary elements? Literature.

Fantasy and Sci-Fi exist as a marketing term, not as an actual literary distinction. If your book is being sold as SciFi its because its publisher has already looked at it and determined it fits into one pre-determined market better than the others. And yes, "literature" fits into this distinction too.

There is plenty of "literature" indistinguishable from "fantasy" or "scifi" if taken purely on merits of plot and themes. Blindness by Jose Saramago is my common go-to example. For a book to be sold as fantasy means the publisher has already looked at it and decided it was a certain kind of book for a certain kind of reader. I already know for a fact I am not that kind of reader and I am not interested in that kind of book.

Abalieno posted:

Donaldson's says ( http://www.nyrsf.com/2015/03/fantas...-truth-s-p.html ):

Jesus if this is what counts as intellectual discourse in Sci-Fi no wonder people trash it

Abalieno posted:

WARNING: they have more than the 135 pages of The Vegetarian and actually require some concentration and effort to be understood.

A. gently caress you, I've read my share of behemoths, quality is not measured by size.
B. If you can barely make a meaningful interpretation of a 135 page novel why brag about reading an 800 page one.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jul 5, 2016

* # ¿ Jul 5, 2016 17:30
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Abalieno posted:

If her husband and Yeong-hye hadn’t smashed through all the boundaries, if everything hadn’t splintered apart, then perhaps she was the one who would have broken down, and if she’d let that happen, if she’d let go of the thread, she might never have found it again.

Your own quote man.

Your own quote.

* # ¿ Jul 5, 2016 20:39
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

A human heart posted:

I don't think anyone should pay attention to what the author of a book called "Lord Foul's Bane" says about literature.


I am caught up on how weird it is try to define Post-Modernism from a quote by an out of print university publication from 60 years ago instead of, say, something from Jean-Francois Lyotard or Foucault.

Or the fact that he claims to be a scholar of Faulkner while repeating one of Faulkner's most famous ideas and acting like he came up with it himself.

This whole paper feels like somebody walking into a Ford factory and claiming to be a genius because he just invented the wheel. This is freshman level literary analysis pretending at genius. It is also wildly insecure and superficial.

EDIT: Also lol that half of his citations are of himself.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jul 5, 2016

* # ¿ Jul 5, 2016 23:44
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Minor point because I think that book sucks but technically it's a deliberate satire of the genre and the corniness of that name is intentional.

Is his article supposed to be a satire of a self-important dilettante trying to inflate his own ego in the face of crippling insecurity

Because if so, loving bravo

* # ¿ Jul 6, 2016 00:00
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Well, marketing isn't the definer of quality. There is *some* stuff marketed as SF that is still worth reading as "literature." Lord Dunsany springs to mind as the clear example.

Personally I wouldn't include Malazan in that category but that's just my opinion. A year or so I put extra apostrophes in the Malazan thread title and nobody noticed for months.

What I meant was that literature and scifi don't actually exist. My larger point is that any human idea pops if we squeeze it hard enough. Art, literature, the novel, even language itself is a loosely conceived idea that only exists because most of his can sort of agree with what it means when we say it. If you try to deconstruct the differences between "literature" and "genre fiction" you inevitably going to disentangle thousands of assumptions about class, merit, thought, ethics etc. In the end, there is nothing really objective that makes Shakespeare more literary than a Mexican takeout menu. Its just all a big wobbly jenga tower of assumptions we make about ourselves and the world around us.

Which is why articles like "Why fantasy is just as serious as literature" are tedious. Literature isn't actually some objective diamond of human creativity we can measure and aspire to. Everything we think about right now as "genre" are really just marketing terms. SciFi, Fantasy, Romance, Literature, are not actually designations of quality of theme, they are descriptors of the people it is assumed will like the book. Modern genre is about identifying the reader more than it is about defining the text itself.

* # ¿ Jul 6, 2016 00:10
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# ¿ Dec 3, 2024 18:41
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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/chandlerart.html

Any genre term will, as you say, pop if you squeeze it hard enough, but the corrollary to that is that almost any genre has something in it that's worth reading. There's something in the local Barnes and Noble fantasy section that you'd profit from reading, almost certainly.

Oh yeah I don't really disagree with that. However, every time I've read a fantasy book that people swear is great I have been left underwhelmed. I've done Tolkein, Martin, Gaiman, etc and just been kind of blah. Hell, I've even given total garbage a shot like Piers Anthony and Terry Brooks.

Honestly I have considered giving the BOTM this month a shot just for the sake of branching out. I just do not know if I want to put the time into something I may not end up enjoying or finding meaning from. I just do not think I am the kind of reader intended for that genre and I have kind of given up trying to let people prove to me that I am.



Franchescanado posted:

Finished up reading, and noticed that this thread hasn't really explored much of the implications in the sister's chapter.

Did anyone else feel like the sister took advantage of her out of some type of punishment, or cruelty?

She comes to her sister's house to find that her husband has raped/taken advantage of her mentally ill sister who's grasp on reality is scant, and instead of just arresting/punishing her husband, she has the emergency response team basically attack her sister. They grab her, strap her down, pull her away as she kicks and screams, and the sister silently watches from afar, admonishing her as if she deserves it, justifying that it's "for her own good".

She seems to feel more regret for her husband's actions because it made her lose her husband instead of how her sister's been a victim in this situation. She thinks about how much of a good wife/daughter she's been, and thinks about how impotent she's been in any interaction where her sister's been a victim (with moments reflecting on her sister's husband, her own husband, and her father), and it always seems to steer back to how it's her sister's fault, and not her own for never helping or standing up for her.

It's interesting, because she sits and tries to force-feed her sister things that are healthy and that her sister should enjoy, like watermelon, and she reflects on the memories that the foods bring of happier days, as if this will cure her sister from the inside out, but can't grasp the reality that the damage is done. It's always been someone else that's hurt her sister, as if her own impotence didn't contribute. Her sister's devouring itself from the inside from the world's cruelty, and she can only be bothered/work up the courage to see her once a week at most, once a month at least.

There's a point where the sister thinks about how they had the same upbringing, but the father only abused Yeong-hye, never her or her brother. She reflects that she could have done something, but sees the cruelty as inevitable. As if standing up to the abuse or trying to seek help would only cause more cruelty, or be useless.

While I do not think her actions were as deliberate or malevolent as you describe, I do generally like this interpretation.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Jul 6, 2016

* # ¿ Jul 6, 2016 12:28
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