“The Vegetarian: A Novel” by Han Kang

This a short, humorous, and disturbing book originally written in Korean. It won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. It is ostensibly about a woman who one night has a dream and becomes a vegetarian. She becomes a new woman, unconcerned with her duties as a wife, daughter, or sister. Or, for that matter, with the world at large. Her husband is confused and disturbed by this turn of events. He tries his best to wait out this phase, but eventually realizes that the weirdness will never end. The book is divided into three sections- narrated by her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister. She gradually drifts more and more from the material world into her own reality. Life, filial duty, and social responsibility are examined from a Korean perspective. The eroticism is bubbling and disturbed. Things get weirder and weirder as the plot progresses. And so it goes.