An unlikely pairing I'll grant you, but I think that's what makes it interesting. Both books deal with the level of social control directed at women in East / South East Asia (South Korea / Japan) but in radically different ways.
The main character in The Vegetarian one day takes the decision to stop eating meat, a decision viewed by her horrified husband and family as an intolerable combination of madness and defiant refusal, and they immediately set about taking increasingly desperate and disturbing measures to re-establish control over Yeong-hye's diet and her life. Kang skillfully explores ideas of consent, control and autonomy in a bleak but really good novel set in one of the world's most misogynistic societies.
Convenience Store Woman is on the face of it at least much shallower, but I think has more depth to it than is obvious. Keiko is a woman in her 30s who, like the author, has spent 18 years working part-time in a convenience store to the bafflement and horror of her family and those around her. Not only does Keiko lack career ambitions, a boyfriend or husband or children, she appears not to want them at all. Everyone makes it their business to 'fix' her, efforts in which Keiko willingly acquiesces in her desire to be 'normal'. What I really like about it is that having moulded Keiko more to the person they want her to be, those around her are disappointed with the results - not least her new boyfriend - and take her to task over it. It's as though Murata has used total obedience as a form of malicious compliance, relentlessly asking "who do you want me to be now?" as a way of demonstrating the ultimate futility of trying to completely control another human being. Murata also touches on the evolution of relationships in Japan and the increasing rejection of marriage and sex, particularly by those (women) who get very little out of them.
Has anyone else read both?
