Review Written and Edited by Peter Buller
Vegetarianism is paradoxically bound to both escape life's cruelties and further one's connection to it; or, maybe this is just my projection of those with carnivorous lifestyles. Regardless, this remains a contradiction that will incessantly mar the path of those pursuing vegetarianism, in spite of the plethora of (possibly) sound reasons to avoid eating meat. Our preoccupation with the consumption of flesh or vegetable manner seems to only complicate the connection between life to the sacred, rather than resolve the tension of life's double-bind to violence and intimacy. Han Kang's Booker prize-winning novel, The Vegetarian, explores the murky nuances of this contradiction. Her novel examines vegetarianism through the primal, animalist influences pulsing through our veins, and basks in the dark resplendence of the dream world.
