Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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‘Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way’

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

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I visited Seoul in March for a flash holiday and on my way back, I stopped in a bookstore at Incheon airport. In their small English section, the only books they provided were English translations of books by South Korean authors or travel guides for the country. No Tim Cook biography, no Mitch Albom, no Dan Brown or whatever else you’d typically find in an airport bookshop. I found that so clever — restricting the English-language offerings to art created by South Koreans. This capitalistically […]

Well.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

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Well, this was a thing. This book is told in three parts, from three different perspectives: Mr. Cheong, Brother-in-law, and In-hye. All three parts, told over the course of about three years, are centered around a woman named Yeong-hye. She is in what appears to be a fairly loveless marriage with Mr. Cheong, who seems to pride himself on doing as little as possible. He works a job that pays him the most without requiring him to work hard. He’s not attracted to Yeong-hye, and […]

Bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “veg out.”

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This is a sticky book.  It’s kind of stuck in my imagination.  I keep turning it over in my head, feeling a little closer to picking up what Kang was putting down.  It’s clever but unassuming, sharp, subtle, violent and serene.  I don’t really know what to do with it, and that makes me like it more.  (I’ll include a few tiny spoilers in this review, but it might be best to go in cold.) Set in South Korea (this is a translation of what was […]



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