The Vegetarian-book review

I finished reading Han Kang's ‘The Vegetarian’ in March, but I am still digesting it in May. It has been a confounding read, it indicates to be one thing and then morphs into something unexpected.

I picked up the book knowing well in advance that ‘vegetarianism’ is not the focus but rather a plot device to highlight the conflict between individual choice and the pressure of a conformist society. On surface food choices may seem innocuously personal but food is a shared experience. It has a strong social component, therefore the choice of a woman to embrace vegetarian lifestyle in a predominately meat-eating, conformist, patriarchal Korean society can set the stage for a conflict.

The precipitation is sudden, there is a dream, a gory dream and overnight our protagonist, Yeong-hye decides to quit eating meat. The book doesn’t give a real voice to the protagonist, there is no trajectory to follow her from point A to point B. The aftermath is narrated from the viewpoint of the husband who is confounded by the sudden change.

Hers is a silent rebellion against the idea of a good wife who cooks to please the husband. Hers is a silent rebellion against the idea of good daughter who fulfills her marital duties to honor her parents. I can fathom this angst but her rebellion goes beyond her social construct and morphs into grotesque violence on herself. She quits meat and spirals towards physical disorders and gets diagnosed with anorexia and schizophrenia. This makes you question her motivation. Her decision is not an act to emphasis her choice to live life on her terms. Hers is a different choice, she chooses to renounce "the very life that her body represented".

I didn’t see that coming..

The other thread of narration is from the viewpoint of Yeong-hye's elder sister. I see the role of the elder sister in the nature of ‘compare and contrast’, best summed up in her moment of reflection :“She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She’d been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she’d never even known they were there…”

At this point, I wonder if ‘renunciation’ and ‘escapism’ in the face of oppressive norms and expectations is the theme we are building towards. But may be not, because in this ostensible bleak and defeatist setting there is one recurring theme-the pursuit of the protagonist to live more naturally and free. Her decision to become vegetarian was almost literal, she wants to 'become vegetation.'
She is repulsed by her human form associated with cruelty, it oppresses her soul. She feels natural ease and happiness at having leaves painted on her naked body. She wants to internalize that display. In the mental care facility she stands still like a tree hoping to transform into one.
She aspires for a different life and dies in pursuit of that freedom. To understand her psyche, one needs to feel from the heart and empathize with her.

Yet I am unsure about my own feelings for her..
We don't hear her narrative, we try to interpret her through her dreams, through her interactions with the people around her. However all her actions ultimately tie up to the one question she asks of us towards the end: Why, is it such a bad thing to die?” and a part of me is unable to reconcile the violence of her choice.

Thinking, fast and Slow-Book review

The author starts with a confession of a modest goal (enrich talks at the office water coolers) and then proceeds to reveal his decades of research on human cognition -how we make decisions, choices and memories. There are two systems, he posited, one conscious and slow and involved, the other devoted to jumping to conclusions, mostly subconsciously. The book fleshes two characters(System 1 & System 2) who embody these systems and we get to understand their individual traits and the dynamics of their interaction.

This cognitive model also helps explain illusions such as anchoring, non regressive predictions and overconfidence. The operative model of our mind makes us susceptible to these biases and in most cases we are not even aware of it. 

This is an extremely smart book, quite balanced in building its case and discussing the implications of the result. It requires attentiveness to work through the various experiments illustrated in the book to explain the different theories and ideas. Also sometimes you need to summon personal experiences to evaluate if the theory explains your individual behavior.
In the course of reading the book, there were times when the book seemed to decode my motivation for action or inaction in my daily decision making. 

If you are trying to make sense of the 2016 US presidential election, the book provides very useful framework to interpret human rationality, gains & losses perception, biases and data interpretation.

Human existence is defined by our mortality, rationality and emotionality ; our societies are shaped by the sum total and in turn feedback to the individual. Don’t worry the book doesn’t indulge in such convoluted logic, this is just my random musing inspired by the book. 

This is a well researched and logically articulated book. I am in complete awe of Daniel Kahneman's work, with his focus on understanding individual decision making, he has developed a framework for institutional decision making and public policy discourse.

As I flipped the last page, the one thought that surfaced in my brain was what am I going to do about it, now that I know how ‘it’ works? 

I guess just stop and look closely whenever I press 'Submit'!(and  submit,,,)

The Grapes of Wrath-Book review

The book is essentially a looking glass into the largest migration in American history within a short period of time. Between 1930 and 1940, approximately 3.5 million people moved out of the Plains states due to drought conditions and migrated towards the West coast only to find that the Great depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left. The large scale worker movement created demand supply imbalance, depressed earnings and created conditions rife for exploitation of the displaced migrant workers.

The novel is a commentary of the period with poverty, migration, labor rights and public policy as the key themes of the narrative using the trials and tribulations of a fictional family-the Joads from Sallisaw Oklahoma, who drove in a Hudson Motor car company saloon converted to a truck along highway 66 to reach California. When they finally reach the Promised Land after personal tragedies and loss, what they witness is unwelcome social treatment, colluding business interests and hostile law enforcement.
To a great extent the world interprets human history in terms of the stories, poems and pictures. The brilliance of the book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ is that it distilled the undeserved poverty and displacement of the self-respecting White American Joad family as representative of the collective history of the nameless multitudes that lived the era..

Although simplification of history comes with its own perils, what we get in the novel are unfaultable heroes (the insufferable Ma Joad and Tom Joad the son who breaks the law but has a heart of gold). The writer doesn’t veil his sympathy for migrants and workers' movement so we have a clear annotation of the good vs. evil clash.
When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]." He famously said, "I've done my damnedest to rip a reader's nerves to rags."

I guess when I weigh the book against the stated objective of the author, I agree that the book has served its purpose.

Book review: Les Misérables

“He should have effaced from the existence the word which the finger of God has nevertheless inscribed upon the brow of every man-Hope...”
I had lost hope that I was ever going to spend a lazy weekend snuggled with a good book on a rainy day. But with a new kindle, roomies all away over the weekend with the apartment to myself, Les Misérables in hand and the little patter of the intermittent rain outside I just lived 'that day'!
The book is impressive with its detailed research about the French history that forms a strong backdrop of the novel and the emotional poignancy of the inner conflicts of the characters and all the threads that run in parallel and come together in the end.

I was impressed with the depth of research and description and analysis of the battle of Waterloo. To be honest I just skimmed those pages in my haste to finish the novel but i wouldn't call them irrelevant.  Same with convents, we get a glimpse of the history and a slice of philosophy/beliefs/personal convictions as the plot narrated the irony of a character that has lived the life of a convict and then running from his captors’ drops into a convent in the dark night. The characterization of Paris as it plays a confidant, then a hiding place and then the hot bed of the French revolution gives a candid glimpse of the city and Hugo’s relationship with the city. He calls Paris home- a place where you seem to know the most and yet a place that changes so much that you can never really claim to know her.

There are moments of sheer beauty in the book, moments of identification as the characters deal with their inner conflicts and dilemmas; the poignancy of human struggles for the relationships that define our existence. However the poignancy of the moment when Jean returns home after Cossette’s wedding and pulls out the little clothes he had bought for her when he first rescued her as a small child, and weeps into, touches the deepest chord- how do you just let go..?

These are few other quotes that made it to my diary:

"One would have said that he was hesitating between the two abysses-the one is which one loses one's self and that in which one saves one's self. He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that hand..."

"It’s a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How all-sufficient one finds it! How being in possession of the false object of life-happiness, one forgets the true object-duty...”


Then there are those gem of sentences which succinctly say all in the fewest words possible.
"There is a way of avoiding that resembles seeking..." & then I again smiled when I read the following lines:
"The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a young girl it is boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is simpler. It is two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each of other's qualities", I am not sure if it’s a sign of 'true love' but my two cents would tip in favor of courtship :)

The entire gamut of emotions, the fickle fate alternatively playing the good and bad Samaritan, the historical depth, literary beauty, insightful analysis of human character and the symbolism(the candles) all made me love the book!