The Curse of Muziris (Hamish Morjaria)

Dont get me wrong - The Vegetarian is a well written book that touches upon difficult topics in a raw, unvarnished, almost cruel way. It does not spare you and is not kind to your sensibilities. It is divided into 3 parts and each part is like a whip lash - each harder and delivered with more force than the last one. I just wasnt prepared for it.

The short book of 183 pages is divided into 3 parts, each part narrated by a different character, but it takes the story forward. That is it is not the same incident narrated from different perspectives, but the linear narrative told by different people who play a key role in that part of the book.

Yeong Hye is a simple girl married to an ordinary guy living an unremarkable but not unhappy life. He provides for her, she works to add to the family income, does all her "wifely" duties in the kitchen and bedroom and does not expect much else from life. Till she has a dream. The dream prompts her to want to change her lifestyle and become vegetarian, much to the chagrin of her husband. This is a strange dietary choice for people around her, though they do discuss the fad of many people turning vegan as a choice. While her husband is an a**hole about this, he gulps it down but what he cannot accept as easily is her refusal to have sex with him. Of course this results in repeated marital r*** (pls be prepared as it is very triggering). All other characters in the family - her parents, her sister, her brother-in-law, her brother and his wife deal with this change in a neutral or a dysfunctional manner. Matters come to pass when her father, the authoritarian male who can’t accept someone that too a daughter, deciding things for herself, and tries to physically force meat down her throat. 

The second part is narrated with the brother-in-law in focus, who fantasizes about his wife’s sister ie Yeong Hye. He is some sort of artist looking for his muse and finds that inspiration in the now divorced Yeong-hye or more specifially, her body. Then begins lurid details of his artistic production that involves a lot of body painting, nudity and borderline abuse. This gets over when her sister and his wife finds out about this. 

The third part is narrated by her sister In-hye, who takes charge of her Yeong-hye, abandoned by everyone else but her. We learn that Yeong-hye is now committed to an institution where they are trying to treat her mental illness. But now this has deteriorated a lot, to the point that she is refusing food or any other form of nutrition, vegetarian or otherwise.  We also learn about all that she has gone through and understand a bit about the mountain of trauma that is piled up inside her.

While the book is really short, it hits the gut viciously as you realise how messed up everyone is - especially the men in it and how patriarchy screams through every action of theirs. From a father who didn’t think twice before whipping his daughter, to a husband who thought raping her was his right, a brother who does not care, a brother in law who uses her to fulfil his fantasies, despite knowing that she is mentally ill - there is none who can redeem himself in the reader’s eyes.   

There is absolutely no part of the book that can be read without a pained expression on the face, without feeling sick in the stomach or without wanting to pull out a gun and shoot a character. It is a dark, heavy, disturbing read, of the kind I have not read in many years…. and I have read some.