2016 Interview with Hangang Draws Attention
Explaining the Reason for 'Violent' Scenes
After Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the reactions of celebrities who had read his works in the past have been reexamined. Singer Kim Chang-wan once described Han Kang's representative work The Vegetarian as "terrible" while reading it.
The video of Kim Chang-wan uploaded on May 11 by the YouTube channel 'KBS Inmulsajeon' is gaining renewed attention. As of the 15th, it ranked 6th among trending videos.
The video is a clip excerpted from the KBS program TV, Reading Books - Meeting Han Kang, the 2016 Man Booker Prize Winner, which aired in May 2016. At that time, Han Kang, who had gained international fame by winning the Man Booker Prize, read excerpts from his novel and discussed them with host Kim Chang-wan.
Kim Chang-wan attracted attention by expressing his honest impressions while reading The Vegetarian. The passage he read was from the second part, narrated from the perspective of Young-hye’s husband, depicting a scene where Young-hye is having a meal with her family. The family forcibly tries to shove meat into Young-hye’s mouth after she declared herself a vegetarian, and the novel describes this scene in detail.
Regarding this, Kim Chang-wan frowned and said, "I won’t read further. It gets too terrible," adding, "What are they doing shoving meat into their daughter’s mouth? No matter how much of a novelist you are, how can you imagine something like that?"
Han Kang admitted, "It is true that this scene is terrible and uncomfortable," but emphasized, "In a novel composed of three parts, this scene is important enough to be revisited from each narrator’s perspective."
Eventually, Kim Chang-wan picked up the book again but grimaced once more, complaining, "How can I read this? Should I even read it?" Han Kang laughed and said, "Please don’t read it. I’m sorry for causing you distress."
Han Kang explained the reason for the detailed depiction of violent scenes in The Vegetarian, saying, "I am sensitive to violent scenes. When I watch movies about Auschwitz, I sometimes vomit or feel sick for days," and added, "Violence is what I fear and struggle with the most, so I had no choice but to express why this person (Young-hye) finds it difficult to endure violence through violent scenes."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
