The Vegetarian by Han Kang

 The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith

"Kang belongs to a generation of writers who aim to discover secret drives, ambitions, and miseries behind one's personal destiny [The Vegetarian] deals with violence, sanity, cultural limits, and the value of the human body as the last refuge and private space."

-Tiempo Argentino

1- The Vegetarian

" Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way." Page 11

"I had a dream. "

"Her voice was surprisingly clear. " page 16

"Dark woods. No people. The sharp pointed leaves on the trees, my torn feet. this place, almost remembered, but I'm lost how. Frightened. Cold. Across the frozen ravine, a red barn-like building Straw matting flapping limp across the door. Roll it up and I'm inside, it's inside. A long bamboo stick strung with great blood-red gashes of meat, blood still dripping down. Try to push past but the meat, there's no end to the meat, and no exit. Blood in my mouth, blood-soaked clothes sucked onto my skin.

Somehow a way out. Running, running through the valley, then suddenly the woods open out. Trees thick with leaves, springtime's green light. Families picnicking, little children running about, and that smell, that deli-cious smell Almost painfully vivid. The babbling stream, people spreading out rush mats to sit on, snacking on kimbap.  Barbecuing meat, the sounds of singing and happy laughter.

But the fear. My clothes still wet with blood. Hide, hide behind the trees. Crouch down, don't let anybody see. My bloody hands. My bloody mouth. In that barn, what had I done? Pushed that red raw mass into my mouth, felt it squish against my gums, the roof of my mouth, slick with crimson blood.

Chewing on something that felt so real, but couldn't have been, it my face, undoubtedly, but never couldn't. My face, the look in my eyes. seen before. Or no, not mine, but so familiar... nothing makes sense. Famil-iar and yet not... that vivid, strange, horribly uncanny feeling." Page 20

"Have I done something wrong?"

I prized open her clenched right hand. A bird, which had been crushed in her grip, tumbled to the bench. It was a small white. eye bird, with feathers missing here and there. Below tooth marks that looked to have been caused by a predator's bite, vivid red bloodstains were spreading." Page 60

2- Mongolian Mark

however much he thought back on it, he couldn't convince himself that it has actually happened-it was more like en scene from some bizarre play. page 74

The only thing that was especially unusual about her was that she didn't eat meat. This had been a source of friction with her family from the start, and since her behavior after this initial change had grown increasingly strange-culminating in her wan-dering around topless her husband had decided that her vegetarianism was proof that she would never be "normal" again.

"She was always so submissive-outwardly, at any rate. And for a woman who wasn't quite all there to start with to be taking medication every day, well, she's bound to get worse, and that's all there is to it."page 77

"When it was all over, she was crying. He couldn't tell what these tears meant-pain, pleasure, passion, disgust, or some in-scrutable loneliness that she would have been no more able to explain than he would have been to understand. He didn't know." Page 89

"Only then did he realize what it was that had shocked him when he'd first seen her lying prone on the sheet. This was the body of a beautiful young woman, conventionally an object of desire, and yet it was a body from which all desire had been eliminated. But this was nothing so crass as carnal desire, not for her - rather, or so it seemed, what she had renounced was the very life that her body represented. The sunlight that came splintering through the wide window, dissolving into grains of sand, and the beauty of that body that, though this was not visible to the eye,was also ceaselessly splintering … the overwhelming inexpressibility of the scene beat against him like a wave breaking on the rocks, alleviating even those terrifyingly unknowable compulsions that had caused him such pain over the past year." Page 92-3

"Why is it you don't eat meat? I've always wondered, but somehow I couldn't ask." She lowered her chopsticks and looked across at him. "You don't have to tell me if it's difficult for you," he said, fighting all the time to suppress the sexual images that were run-ning through his head.

"No," she said calmly. "It isn't difficult. It's just that I don't think you'd understand." She raised her chopsticks again and slowly chewed some seasoned bean sprouts." It's because of a dream I had." Page 97-8

3- Flaming Trees

"You're going to Ch'ukseong Psychiatric Hospital, right?" page 129

"Look, sister, I'm doing a handstand, leaves are growing out of my body. roots are sprouting out of my hands... they delve down into the earth. End-yes, I spread my legs because I wanted flowers to bloom lessly, endlessly from my crotch, I spread them wide ... " page 133

It wasn't long before she realized something: perhaps the one she'd so earnestly wanted to help was not him but herself. Was it not perhaps her own image — she who had left home at nineteen and gone on to make a life for herself in Seoul, always entirely under her own steam — that She had seen mirrored in this man's exhaustion. page 137-8

"After her husband left them, Ji-woo would often ask her, "Is there a dad in our family?" It was the question he'd asked her every morning even when her husband was still around, so infre-quently did the boy actually see him.

"No," she would answer shortly. And then, soundlessly: "No one at all. There's only you and me. That will have to be enough, now." Page 140

"When did all of this begin? She sometimes asked herself in such moments. "NO — when did it all begin to fall apart?" Page 141

"Even as a child, In-hye had possessed the innate strength of character necessary to make one's own way in life. As a daughter, as an older sister, as a wife and as a mother, as the owner of a shop, even as an underground passenger on the briefest of journeys, she had always done her best. Through the sheer inertia of a life lived in this way, she would have been able to conquer everything, even time. If only Yeong-hye hadn't suddenly disappeared last March. If only she hadn't been discovered in the forest that rainy night. If only all of her symptoms hadn't suddenly got worse." Page 145

" those moments when her sister's single-lidded eyes would narrow and turn completely dark, when that innocent laughter would come rushing out of her mouth. "Do you know how I found out? Well, I was in a dream, and I was standing on my head … leaves were growing from my body, and roots were sprouting from my hands … so I dug down into the earth. On and on …  I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch, so I spread my legs, I spread them wide ..."

Bewildered, In-hye looked across at Yeong-hye's feverish eyes. "I need to water my body. I don't need this kind of food, sister.

I need water." page 154

"Yeong-hye's lips twitched almost imperceptibly, "I'm thirsty." he whispered. "Give me some water." 

Yeong-hye cut her off. "They say my insides have all átrophied, you know." In-hye was lost for words. Yeong-hye moved her emaciated face closer to her sister. "I'm not an animal anymore, sister." she said, first scanning the empty ward as if about to disclose a momentous secret. "I don't need to eat, not now. I can live without it. All I need is sunlight."

"What are you talking about? Do you really think you've turned into a tree? How could a plant talk? How can you think these things?"

Yeong-hye's eyes shone. A mysterious smile played on her face.

"You're right. Soon now, words and thoughts will all disappear. Soon." Yeong-hye burst into laughter, then sighed. "Very soon. Just a bit longer to wait, sister." page 159

“I heard something," Yeong-hye had said, lying hooked up to the drip. "I went there because I heard something calling me … I don't hear it anymore now …  I was just standing there waiting"

When In-hye asked, "What were you waiting for?," a fever came into Yeong-hye's eyes. Her right hand was the one with the needle in it, she reached out with her left and grabbed In-hye's hand. In-hye was shocked by how strong her grip was.

"It melted in the rain …  it all melted …  I'd been just about to go down into the earth. There was nothing else for it if I wanted to turn myself upside down again, you see." page 165-6

"In-hye stands quietly and observes the scene. Anything sharp or narrow that could be used to pierce or cut, anything with a long cord that could be wrapped around a throat, is forbidden Partly this is to prevent the patients from harming others, but the scans their faces, each of them bent over their hands, absorbed in main concern is that they would want to harm themselves." Page 176

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Trilogy by JON FOSSE

 rilogy by JON FOSSE

Translated by May -Brit Akerholt

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Wakefulness

Asle and Alida 

"Asle and Alida were wandering the streets of Bjørgvin." Page 3

"It's late autumn, it's dark and cold, and soon it might start to rain as well - we have to have somewhere to live, she said" page 4 and 8

Olav's Dreams 

Olav and Åsta

where are we going, Alida says

I don't know, Asle says

we'll go to where we end up, she says     We'll go where the road leads us, he says

Page 85

with the finest bracelet in his hand, in the yellowest gold with the bluest of blue pearls,

She's standing there half hidden behind the curtain.

weariness

ˈwirēnəs

Fghjb B jjggfdd

"I saw them hanging him and I saw him hanging there, he says

and Alida thinks that she and Asle are still sweethearts, they are with each other, he is with her, she with him, she

in him, he in her, Alida thinks, and she looks out across the sea, and in the sky she sees Asle, she sees that the sky is Asle, and she notices the wind, and the wind is Asle, he

is there, he is the wind, if he doesn't exist, he is still there and then she hears Asle saying that he is there, she sees him there, if she looks out across the sea she'll see that he is the sky she sees there above the sea, Asle says, and Alida looks and of course she sees Asle, but not just him, she sees herself too there in the sky and Asle says that he too exists in her and in little Sigvald and Alida says that yes he does, he always will and Alida thinks that now Asle is alive only in her and in little Sigvald, now she is Asle in life, Alida thinks, and then she hears Asle saying I am there, I am with you, I am always with you, so don't be afraid, I will follow you, Asle says, and Alida looks out to the sea and there, on the sky there, she sees his face, she sees it like an invisible sun, and then she sees his hand, it lifts up and it waves to her and Asle repeats that she must not be afraid and he says that she must take good care of herself and little Sigvald, she must look after herself and little Sigvald as best as she can, and then, before too long, then they'll meet again before too long, Aslesays, and Alida feels his body close to hers and she feels his hand stroking her hair and she strokes his hair" page 152-3

"Ales thinks, and Alida looks at Ales and she thinks that she notices that she is there, of course she does, and perhaps she is tormenting her daughter by being there, and she doesn't want that, why would she want to tor-ment her own daughter, she doesn't want to torment her own daughter at all, her, her good daughter,  her oldest daughter, " page 169-170

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Vika     Dylgja       Bjørgvin 

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So far, four Norwegian writers have won the Nobel Prize in Literature:

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson – won in 1903.

Knut Hamsun – won in 1920.

Sigrid Undset – won in 1928.

Jon Fosse – won in 2023.

Åsta, Norway

here are some interesting and distinctive facts about Jon Fosse, beyond just the Nobel Prize:

Minimalist style: Fosse is famous for writing with very simple words, lots of repetition, pauses, and silence. What is not said is often more important than what is said.

“Fossean” rhythm: His prose and drama have a musical, hypnotic rhythm, influenced by prayer, breathing, and waves. Many readers say his texts feel like listening rather than reading.

Writes in Nynorsk: He writes in Nynorsk, a minority written form of Norwegian. This was a cultural and political statement, helping raise its literary status.

Deeply spiritual (but not religious propaganda): Although he converted to Catholicism later in life, his work explores faith, doubt, death, and grace in a quiet, non-preaching way.

More famous as a playwright (at first): Before his novels became widely known, Fosse was one of the most performed living playwrights in the world, especially in Europe.

Influenced by Samuel Beckett: Like Beckett, he focuses on waiting, repetition, loneliness, and stripped-down language—but Fosse is warmer and more emotional.

THE YEARS BY ANNIE ERNAUX

 

THE YEARS BY ANNIE ERNAUX 

Translated by Alison L. Strayer

All we have is our history, and it does not belong to us.

-José Ortega y Gasset

Yes. They'll forget us. Such is our fate, there is no help for it. What seems to us serious, significant, very important, will one day be forgotten or will seem unimportant. And it's curious that we can't possibly tell what exactly will be considered great and important, and what will seem petty and ridiculous [. . .]. And it may be that our present life, which we accept so readily, will in time seem strange, inconvenient, stupid, not clean enough, perhaps even sinful...

-Anton Chekhov

Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett

PARADISE by Abdulrazak Gurnah

PARADISE by Abdulrazak Gurnah

For Salma Abdalla Basalama

"Yusuf had heard the boys say that the Germans hanged people if they did not work hard enough. If they were too young to hang, they cut their stones off." page 7

" They made up names for the places their parents came from, funny and unpleasant names which they used to abuse and mock each other. Sometimes they fought, tumbling and kicking and causing each other pain. If they could, the older boys found work as servants or errand runners, but mostly they lounged and scavenged, waiting to grow strong enough for the work of men. Yusuf sat with them when they let him, listening to their conversation and running errands for them." page 7

He was already twelve. To his amazement she did not let him go this time. Usually She released him as soon as his struggles became furious smacking his fleeing bottom as he ran. Now she held him, squeezing him to her steeping softness,  saying nothing and not laughing. The back of her bodice was still wet with sweat, and her body reeked of smoke and exhaustion. He stopped struggling after a moment and let his mother hold him to her. Page 13

You'll come and trade with us, and learn the difference between the ways of civilization and the ways of the savage. It's time you grew up and saw that the world is like ...  Instead of playing in dirty shops. A smile geew on his face as he spoke, a predatory grimace which made Yusuf think of the dogs that prowled the lanes of his nightmares. page 52

" When I think of truth, I see your face,
And every other face is nothing but a lie.
when I dream of happiness, I feel your caress.
And I see envy burning in everyone eye."  page 54

"Everwhere they went now they found the Europeans had got there before them, and had installed soldiers and officials telling the people that they had come to save them from their enemies who only sought to make slaves of them. It was as if no other trade had been heard of, to hear them speak. The traders spoke of the Europeans with amazement, awed by their ferocity and ruthlessness. They take the best land without paying a bead, force the people to work for them by one trick or another, eat anything and everything however tough or putrid. Their appetite has no limit or decency, like a plague of locusts. Taxes for this, taxes for that, otherwise prison for the offender, or the lash, or even hanging. The first thing they build is a lock-up, then a church, then a market-shed so they can keep the trade under their eyes and then tax it. And that is even before they build a house for themselves to live in." page 72

"Where is this garden? Kalasinga asked. 'In India?  have seen many garden with waterfalls in India.Is this your paradise?Is this where the Aga Khan lives?" page 80

"The east and the north are known to us, as far as the land of China in the farthest east and to the ramparts of Gog and Magog in the north. But the west is the land of darkness, the land of jinns and monsters. God sent the other Yusuf as a prophet to the land of jinns and savages.Perhaps he'll send you to them too."  page 83

"Each day the land changed on them as they descended from the high mountain ground. The settlements grew less clustered as the country dried out. Within days they were down on the plateau and their column raised clouds of dust and grit with every step. The scattered scrub took formidably gnarled and twisted forms, as if existence was a torture. The songs and spirits of the porters also dried up as they contemplated the unkind country they were entering. They came to life when they saw huge herds of animals in the distance, arguing bitterly among themselves as they debated their identities. In those first days, Yusuf's stomach turned to water and his body ached with exhaustion and fever. Thorns tore into his ankles and arms, and his flesh was covered with insect bites." page 116

"Yusuf could not bear to look on the incredible horror of the wounds, swollen now with disease. He wanted life to end at the sight of such a pain. He had never seen or imagined anything like it. They found bodies everywhere, in the burnt- out huts, near the bushes, under the trees." page 127

"look at their happiness, he said, unsmiling. "Like a mindless herd of beasts approaching water. we're all lik that, small-minded creatures misled by our ignorance. What is their excitement for? Do you know?" page 129- 130

"Never trust the Indian!" Mohammed Abdalla said angrily. " He will sell you his own mother if there's profit in it. His desire for money knows no limits. When you see him, he looks craven and feeble, but he will go anywhere and go anything for money.
Uncle  Aziz shook his head at the mnyapara, admonishing him for his impetuosity. 'The Indian knows how to deal with the European. We have no choice but to work with him." page 133

"Then one day that devil Muhammad Abdullah come and took me and my sister away, and brought us here. we were  to be rehani until our Ba could replay his dept. He died very soon after that, my poor Ba, and Ma and my brothers went back to Arabia and left us here. They just left us here." page 203

" Get on with it " Mzee Hamdani says always. 

" I know the freedom you are talking about. I had that freedom the moment I was born. When these people say you belong to me, I own you, it is like the passing of the rain, or the setting of the sun at the end of the day.  The following morning the sun will rise again whether they like it or not. The same with freedom. They can lock you up, put you in chains, abuse all your small longings, but freedom is not something they can take away. When they have finished with you, they are still as far away form owning you as they were on the day you were born." page 224.  (    It means real freedom is inside a person — no one can truly take it away, even if they imprison or control you.)

"When she was seven years old, my poor stupid Ba, may God have mercy on him, offered her to the seyyid as part of the payment. And I was to be rehani to him until she was of an age to be married, unless my Ba could redeem me before then. But he died, and my Ma and my brothers went back to Arabia and left me here with our shame. When that devil Mohammed Abdalla came to collect us, he made her undress and stroked her with his filthy hands." page 231

" He would say to her: If this is Hell, then leave. And let me come with you. They've raised us to be timid and obedient, to honour them even they misuse us. Leave and let me come with you. We're both in t middle of nowhere. Where else can be worse? There would be no wall garden there, wherever we go, with sturdy cypresses and restless bush and fruit trees and unexpectedly bright flowers. Nor the bitter scent orange sap in the day and the deep embrace of jasmine fragrance night, nor fragrance of pomegranate seeds or the sweet herbaceous grasses in the borders. Nor the music of the water in the pool and the channels. Nor the contentment of the date grove at the cruel height of the day. There would be no music to ravish the senses. It would be like banishment, but how could it be worse than this?" page 233-34

" I did her not wrong. I sat with her because she invited me in. My shirt was torn from behind, Yusuf said, his voice shaking in an unexpected and annoying way. 'That show. I\Was running away.'" page 239

THE WILD IRIS by Louise Glück

(The Wild Iris, Louise Glück)

Notes from book:

"THE WILD IRIS

At the end of my suffering

there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death

I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.

Then nothing. The weak sun

flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive

as consciousness

buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being

a soul and unable

to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth bending a little. And what I took to be birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember

passage from the other world

I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns

to find a voice:

from the center of my life came

a great fountain, deep blue

shadows on azure seawater." Page 1

"Who else would so envy the bond we had then as to tell us it was not earth

but heaven we were losing?" page 44

"EARLY DARKNESS

How can you say

carth should give me joy? Each thing

born is my burden; I cannot succeed

with all of you.

And you would like to dictate to me,

you would like to tell me

who among you is most valuable,

who most resembles me.

And you hold up as an example

the pure life, the detachment

you struggle to achieve-

How can you understand me

when you cannot understand yourselves?

Your memory is not

powerful enough, it will not 

reach back far enough-

Never forget you are my children.

You are not suffering because you touched each other

but because you were born,

because you required life

separate from me. " page 45

"the first rains of autumn shaking the white lilies-

When you go, you go absolutely, deducting visible life from all things

but not all life,

lest we turn from you. "page 55

"SEPTEMBER TWILIGHT

I gathered you together,

I can dispense with you-

I'm tired of you, chaos

of the living world-

I can only extend myself

for so long to a living thing.

I summoned you into existence

by opening my mouth, by lifting

my little finger, shimmering

blues of the wild

aster, blossom

of the lily, immense,

gold-veined-

you come and go; eventually

I forget your names.

You come and go, every one of you

flawed in some way,

in some way compromised: you are worth

one life, no more than that.

I gathered you together;

I can erase you

as though you were a draft to be thrown away,

an exercise

because I've finished you, vision

of deepest mourning." page 60