This is an excerpt from the book The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.
“May I ask you something?” I said, still looking at him.
“Of course,” he answered.
“How does it feel to remember everything? To have everything that the rest of us have lost saved up in your heart?”
“That’s a difficult question,” he said, using his forefinger to push up the frames of his glasses and then leaving his hand at his throat.
“I’d imagine you’d be uncomfortable, with your heart full of so many forgotten things.”
“No, that’s not really a problem. A heart has no shape, no limits. That’s why you can put almost any kind of thing in it, why it can hold so much. It’s much like your memory, in that sense.”
“So you have everything inside you that has disappeared from the island?”
“I’m not sure about everything. Memories don’t just pile up—they also change over time. And sometimes they fade of their own accord. Though the process, for me, is quite different from what happens to the rest of you when something disappears from the island.”
“Different how?” I asked, rubbing my fingernails.
“My memories don’t feel as though they’ve been pulled up by the root. Even as they fade, something remains. Like tiny seeds that might germinate again if the rain falls. And even if a memory disappears completely, the heart retains something. A slight tremor or pain, some bit of joy, a tear.”
He chose his words carefully, as though weighing each one on his tongue before pronouncing it.
“I sometimes wonder what I’d see if I could hold your heart in my hands,” I told him. “I imagine it fitting perfectly in my palms, soft and slippery, like gelatin that hasn’t quite set. It might wobble at the slightest touch, but I sense I’d need to hold it carefully, so it wouldn’t slip through my fingers. I also imagine the warmth of the thing. It’s usually hidden deep inside so it’s much warmer than the rest of me. I close my eyes and sink into that warmth, and when I do, the sensations of all the things that have disappeared come back to me. I can feel all the things you remember, there in my hands. Doesn’t that sound marvelous?”
“Would you really like to remember all the things you’ve lost?” R asked.
I told him the truth. “I don’t know. Because I don’t even know what it is I should be remembering. What’s gone is gone completely. I have no seeds inside me, waiting to sprout again. I have to make do with a hollow heart full of holes. That’s why I’m jealous of your heart, one that offers some resistance, that is tantalizingly transparent and yet not, that seems to change as the light shines on it at different angles.”
“When I read your novels, I never imagine that your heart is hollow.”
“But you have to admit that it’s difficult to be a writer on this island. Words seem to retreat further and further away with each disappearance. I suspect the only reason I’ve been able to go on writing is that I’ve had your heart by my side all along.”
“If that’s true then I’m glad,” R said.
I turned my palms up and held them out. Then we stared at them for a time, without so much as blinking, as though I were actually holding something in my hands. But no matter how hard we looked, it was painfully clear that they were empty.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
The Memory Police – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.
A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.
As April is Women’s History Month, I’ll be sharing book lists with a focus on books considered classic feminist texts and other books by women authors.
Are you hoping to read more award winning books? While also wanting to read more books by women?
Here’s the perfect list for you. Here are six books by women that have recently (within the last 10 years) won international prizes!
I have included a diverse collection of prizes to showcase a range of genres and book recommendations.
Here’s a list of books with women authors that have won an award in the past 10 years.
The Vegatarian by Han Kang 2016 Man Booker International Prize
Olga Takarczuk Won the Novel Prize for Literature in 2018 Two books to highlight are: Flights & Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction
Network Effect by Martha Wells 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Tomb of Sand 2022 International Booker Prize
Keep reading to find out more about each one.
1. The Vegetarian – 2016 Man Booker International
by Han Kang Translated by Deborah Smith
Year Published: 2007
Storygraph Categories: fiction, contemporary, literary, dark, sad, tense, medium-paced
Language: Korean
Importance: Winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize
The Vegetarian was published in 2007 in Korea, with the English version published in 2015. This is Han’s second book that has been translated into English.
The Vegetarian is considered the biggest win for Korean translated literature since the book Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, which won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.
Olga won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2018 for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”. She was the first Polish female prose writer to win the Nobel Prize.
Here are two of her novels that have been translated into English.
Importance: Won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018
This is a book of vignettes that are all narrated by a “nameless female traveller.” There are 116 vignettes in the book, varying in length with some only one sentence and others up to 31 pages.
Flights has gotten quite a bit of literary attention. In 2008, it won the Nike Award, Poland’s highest literary award. Then after it was translated, it won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018.
Summary (from Goodreads):
From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.
Importance: Shortlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize
The title of the book comes from William Blake’s poem call “Proverbs of Hell.” These are the specific lines:
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
William Blake
Source: Proverbs of Hell
It was shortlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize, and as mentioned above the author won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The main character of the novel is a middle aged woman, which is quite rare, but very enjoyable to read.
Summary (from Goodreads):
One of Poland’s most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights.
Importance: Winner of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction
Susanna Clarke is well known for her debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell from 2004. After her debut novel was published, she became ill with chronic fatigue syndrome, which made writing torturous for her. Piranesi is her second novel, published 16 years later.
The title, Piranesi, alludes to an Italian artist from the 18th century named Giovanni Battista Piranesi. He produced a series of prints prints entitled Imaginary Prisons that depict large, intricate architectural structures.
Piranesi was a finalist for the Hugo Award and nominated for a Nebula Award in 2021. Both awards are for works within the genres of science fiction and fantasy.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
Importance: Winner of the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Martha Wells is well known for her Murderbot series (The Murderbot Diaries), a science fiction series about a part human and part robot construct called a Security Unit.
Network effect is the fifth book in the Murderbot series. The first book is called All Systems Red.
The first four books in the series are quite short, whereas this fifth book is much longer. It has been described as “… if the first books were episodes in a four-part TV miniseries, then ‘Network Effect’ is the feature-length movie with the bigger budget and scope, and it is no less enjoyable.”
So far I’ve only read the first book (due to a very long hold time line at my library), but I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Murderbot returns in its highly anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel.
You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you’re a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you’re Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.
—
I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.
When Murderbot’s human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.
Importance: Winner of International Booker Prize in 2022
Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize in 2022, making it the first novel translated from an Indian Language to win the prize.
The English version of the book was published by Titled Axis Press, a small non-profit publishing house that focuses on work by Asian and African writers.
The main character is an 80-year old woman! I think it’s important to read stories both from diverse authors and about diverse characters, which would include a range of ages. I’m really excited to read more books with older women main characters.
Summary (from Goodreads):
An eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention – including striking up a friendship with a hijra (trans) woman – confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more ‘modern’ of the two.
At the older woman’s insistence they travel back to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.
Rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Geetanjali Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.
If you spend much time on booktube, booktok, or other book-social media areas you’ve probably heard of some of these book awards.
When I started trying to understand which was what, it got to be a bit overwhelming as there are so many book awards out there. But that also means you can find awards for almost any category you want to read.
This is a quote from the book The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.
Quote by Yōko Ogawa, “Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn’t afraid to say “we don’t know.” For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn’t have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
The Housekeeper and the Professor – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem–ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.
She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him.
And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.
Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor’s mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities–like the Housekeeper’s shoe size–and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.
The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.
This is an excerpt from the book The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.
The Professor loved prime numbers more than anything in the world. I’d been vaguely aware of their existence, but it never occurred to me that they could be the object of someone’s deepest affection. He was tender and attentive and respectful; by turns he would caress them or prostrate himself before them; he never strayed far from his prime numbers. Whether at his desk or at the dinner table, when he talked about numbers, primes were most likely to make an appearance. At first, it was hard to see their appeal. They seemed so stubborn, resisting division by any number but one and themselves. Still, as we were swept up in the Professor’s enthusiasm, we gradually came to understand his devotion, and the primes began to seem more real, as though we could reach out and touch them. I’m sure they meant something different to each of us, but as soon as the Professor would mention prime numbers, we would look at each other with conspiratorial smiles. Just as the thought of a caramel can cause your mouth to water, the mere mention of prime numbers made us anxious to know more about their secrets.
Evening was a precious time for the three of us. The vague tension around my morning arrival—which for the Professor was always our first encounter—had dissipated, and Root livened up our quiet days. I suppose that’s why I’ll always remember the Professor’s face in the evening, in profile, lit by the setting sun.
Inevitably, the Professor repeated himself when he talked about prime numbers. But Root and I had promised each other that we would never tell him, even if we had heard the same thing several times before—a promise we took as seriously as our agreement to hide the truth about Enatsu. No matter how weary we were of hearing a story, we always made an effort to listen attentively. We felt we owed that to the Professor, who had put so much effort into treating the two of us as real mathematicians. But our main concern was to avoid confusing him. Any kind of uncertainty caused him pain, so we were determined to hide the time that had passed and the memories he’d lost. Biting our tongues was the least we could do.
But the truth was, we were almost never bored when he spoke of mathematics. Though he often returned to the topic of prime numbers—the proof that there were an infinite number of them, or a code that had been devised based on primes, or the most enormous known examples, or twin primes, or the Mersenne, primes—the slightest change in the shape of his argument could make you see something you had never understood before. Even a difference in the weather or in his tone of voice seemed to cast these numbers in a different light.
To me, the appeal of prime numbers had something to do with the fact that you could never predict when one would appear. They seemed to be scattered along the number line at any place that took their fancy. The farther you get from zero, the harder they are to find, and no theory or rule could predict where they will turn up next. It was this tantalizing puzzle that held the Professor captive.
“Let’s try finding the prime numbers up to 100,” the Professor said one day when Root had finished his homework. He took his pencil and began making a list: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97.
It always amazed me how easily numbers seemed to flow from the Professor, at any time, under any circumstances. How could these trembling hands, which could barely turn on the microwave, make such precise numbers of all shapes and sizes?
I also liked the way he wrote his numbers with his little stub of a pencil. The 4 was so round it looked like a knot of ribbon, and the 5 was leaning so far forward it seemed about to tip over. They weren’t lined up very neatly, but they all had a certain personality. The Professor’s lifelong affection for numbers could be seen in every figure he wrote.
“So, what do you see?” He tended to begin with this sort of general question.
They’re scattered all over the place.” Root usually answered first. “And 2 is the only one that’s even.” For some reason, he always noticed the odd man out.
“You’re right. Two is the only even prime. It’s the leadoff batter for the infinite team of prime numbers after it.”
“That must be awfully lonely,” said Root.
“Don’t worry,” said the Professor. “If it gets lonely, it has lots of company with the other even numbers.”
“But some of them come in pairs, like 17 and 19, and 41 and 43,” I said, not wanting to be shown up by Root.
“A very astute observation,” said the Professor. “Those are known as ‘twin primes.’”
I wondered why ordinary words seemed so exotic when they were used in relation to numbers. Amicable numbers or twin primes had a precise quality about them, and yet they sounded as though they’d been taken straight out of a poem. In my mind, the twins had matching outfits and stood holding hands as they waited in the number line.
“As the numbers get bigger, the distance between primes increases as well, and it becomes more difficult to find twins. So we don’t know yet whether twin primes are infinite the way prime numbers themselves are.” As he spoke, the Professor circled the consecutive pairs.
Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn’t afraid to say “we don’t know.” For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn’t have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
The Housekeeper and the Professor – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem–ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.
She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him.
And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.
Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor’s mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities–like the Housekeeper’s shoe size–and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.
The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.
This is a quote from the book Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot.
Quote by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, “Her mind was made up. Or, more accurately, a stubborn resolve had taken root.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
What would you change if you could go back in time?
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
This is an excerpt from the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, translated by Ilse Lasch.
That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”
In front of me a man stumbled and those following him fell on top of him. The guard rushed over and used his whip on them all. Thus my thoughts were interrupted for a few minutes. But soon my soul founds its way back from the prisoner’s existence to another world, and I resumed talk with my loved one: I asked her questions, and she answered; she questioned me in return, and I answered.
“Stop!” We had arrived at our work site. Everybody rushed into the dark hut in the hope of getting a fairly decent tool. Each prisoner got a spade or a pickaxe.
“Can’t you hurry up, you pigs?” Soon we had resumed the previous day’s positions in the ditch. The frozen ground cracked under the point of the pickaxes, and sparks flew. The men were silent, their brains numb.
My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn’t even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing—which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. “Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Man’s Search for Meaning – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man’s Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.
This is a quote from the short story The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Ronald Wilks.
Quote by Nikolai Gogol, “But nothing is lasting in this world. Even joy beings to fade after only one minute.”
Have you read this story? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
The Overcoat – from a collection of short stories – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Nikolai Gogol was born in the Ukraine in 1809. Vladimir Nabokov wrote of his work that “after reading Gogol one’s eyes may become gogolized, and one is apt to see bits of his world in the most unexpected places.” He died in 1852 after subjecting himself to a severe regime of fasting. “The Overcoat” and “The Nose” are two of Gogol’s finest works. “The Nose” is a masterpiece of comic art, and “The Overcoat” is considered one of the greatest short stories ever written.
This is a quote from the book Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
Quote by Sayaka Murata, “The long-forgotten silence sounded like music I’d never heard before.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
Convenience Store Woman – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers’ style of dress and speech patterns so that she can play the part of a normal person.
However, eighteen years later, at age 36, she is still in the same job, has never had a boyfriend, and has only few friends. She feels comfortable in her life, but is aware that she is not living up to society’s expectations and causing her family to worry about her. When a similarly alienated but cynical and bitter young man comes to work in the store, he will upset Keiko’s contented stasis—but will it be for the better?
Sayaka Murata brilliantly captures the atmosphere of the familiar convenience store that is so much part of life in Japan. With some laugh-out-loud moments prompted by the disconnect between Keiko’s thoughts and those of the people around her, she provides a sharp look at Japanese society and the pressure to conform, as well as penetrating insights into the female mind. Convenience Store Woman is a fresh, charming portrait of an unforgettable heroine that recalls Banana Yoshimoto, Han Kang, and Amélie.
This is a quote from the book The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith.
Quote by Han Kang, “She watches the streaks of rain lashing the window, with the untouched steadiness unique to those accustomed to solitude.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
The Vegetarian – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism.
His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister’s husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming – impossibly, ecstatically – a tree.
Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
Note, you may want to check trigger warnings before reading this book. You can find some details on the book’s trigger warnings here.
Have you ever wondered why people continue to fight to survive in the harshest conditions? As I was reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, he discusses how having a personal meaning for life motivates people to stay alive even in the harshest conditions like concentration camps.
As a psychologist and concentration camp survivor, Viktor is able to reflect on his time in the camps to understand what motivated people to survive against all odds.
Humans can endure far more than you can imagine. Unfortunately, concentration camps showed how much people can survive and what people are willing to do to each other.
There’s this fascinating line from the book that talks about how all the doctors and medical professionals found out that the textbooks lied to them. It turned out that they really could stay awake longer or could do more work with less food and water than they ever thought was possible.
It’s a terrible thing to have experienced. People don’t want to live through hardship or see how much suffering they can endure. None of us want a life that forces us to be resilient or show strength.
But I also think we are all far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. When push comes to shove, we will find a way to survive.
Finding their motivation
Concentration camps show the extreme of what humans have gone through, which is why it was an interesting place to see why people continued to fight to stay alive. It provided an opportunity to see what truly motivated people to survive.
Sometimes people discuss how the pursuit of pleasure is the meaning or focus of life. But in a concentration camp, there’s no longer any pleasure. So pleasure can no longer be a viable reason for why people live and survive.
As Viktor is a psychologist and concentration camp survivor, he was able to take an intimate look and reflect on what helped people survive and why some were able to persist through it all.
You need meaning to survive
As mentioned above, Viktor is a psychologist and after surviving the concentration camps he came up with his own theory about life called logotherapy. Logotherapy is a theory that says everyone needs meaning in their life to survive.
Life doesn’t revolve around the pursuit of pleasure or a grand ideal, but rather that everyone needs some kind of meaning in their life.
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Your personal meaning can be anything — a person/relationship, a belief, your work/art/contributions, a higher ideal/religion, etc. There’s no one meaning to life, but everyone has their own. It can be whatever you think is meaningful or brings purpose to your life.
Everyone needs meaning and without it, people often lose the will to live. In the concentration camps, once people lost their focus or meaning, they often lost the will to live. For instance when they lost all hope or all of their family, or if the war didn’t end on the date they expected (maybe because of a dream or some sign), they often became so discouraged they stopped fighting to live.
Viktor talks about how difficult it was to watch people lose hope and their meaning for life. It was obvious when people gave up their will to live.
But there were many who had a reason to keep fighting. Each person’s reason or meaning was unique but everyone had something.
Meaning is completely personal and unique
As mentioned above, your meaning can be anything — a person, a belief, your work/art/contributions, a higher ideal/religion, etc. It’s anything that provides meaning or purpose to your life.
Everyone’s meaning is unique and personal. There is no universal meaning, just a universal need for meaning. Your religion or personal values maybe your personal meaning for life, but that doesn’t apply to everyone.
It think it’s powerful to understand that your meaning for life isn’t the same as everyone else’s. Even if your belief in making the world a better place (or any other value driven purpose) is what gives you meaning and may be the most important part of your life, you likely don’t share that with others. Some people may share a similar meaning to you, but everyone’s meaning is unique and manifests in their own way.
I feel like many disagreements stem from mismatched priorities or the level of importance placed on the topic. You may feel like it’s the most important thing (especially if it directly affects you), whereas others may not place the same value on it or simply value something else more. The difference in value can lead to feeling like others don’t care, but maybe it’s a matter of them caring about other topics more.
Finding your meaning
You need to discover your own meaning, whatever provides you with a purpose. There is no right or wrong meaning to life, nor any singular correct meaning; anything that works for you can be your meaning for life.
If you are unsure of your meaning for life, I would encourage you to take time reflecting on what’s most important to you and why you’re living this life. I personally love journaling, it helps me sort through my thoughts. You can read about the power of journaling and writing in my previous post HERE.
Meanings can also evolve or change throughout your life. It may not stay constant. As you change, grow, and develop, your values and meaning may also change. It’s important to revisit and re-evaluate what gives your life meaning.
The only true danger is when you have no meaning for your life. That’s when people are at the highest risk for giving up completely. If you feel like life is meaningless, please speak to a medical or mental healthcare professional.
Final thoughts
I found this book really interesting. It took the very difficult topic of concentration camps and looked at it through a psychological lens. This was much more a philosophical or psychological book about the importance of having meaning in your life rather than a book purely about concentration camps.
If you’re looking for something purely about the concentration camp experience or World War II, this may not be the right book for you. But if you’re looking for a discussion on the meaning of life and why people fight to stay alive, then this is the right book for you. If you’re interested in why people are able to endure extreme situations and what keeps them motivated, then I would recommend this book.
I think if you approach the book with the right mindset, you can gain so much from it. Personally, I found it sparked a lot of thoughts and reflections on my own life and how others live.
I really appreciated how it emphasized that everyone’s meaning for life is unique rather than trying to justify a universal meaning for life. We’re not all the same and it makes sense that we’d each have our own motivation for life.
