I read The Vegetarian during a day-long trip on buses, trains and planes, starting at about 8 o'clock in the morning, finishing when the plane touched down an hour late at my final destination.



Readers, be warned: this experiment should not necessarily be repeated, it may cause utter distress and embarrassment.



8 o'clock, inner city bus in a major German city:



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



I laugh out loud, and gather some su

I read The Vegetarian during a day-long trip on buses, trains and planes, starting at about 8 o'clock in the morning, finishing when the plane touched down an hour late at my final destination.



Readers, be warned: this experiment should not necessarily be repeated, it may cause utter distress and embarrassment.



8 o'clock, inner city bus in a major German city:



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



I laugh out loud, and gather some surprised looks in the "pre-morning-coffee" crowd on the bus. My reaction is somewhat inappropriate, both with regards to my setting and to the fact that this book takes a turn that is NO LAUGHING MATTER! Before buying a coffee-to-go on my first train ride of the day, I already choke on my own laughter, realising that the first of the different narrators is one of the most selfish, uncaring, brutal male prototypes imaginable, and the story is developed from his point of view, which is a magnificent stylistic feature.



10 o'clock, crammed local train moving into the conservative countryside:



While I read about an atrocious case of physical abuse in the name of patriarchal power, leading to mental breakdown as well as family dissolution, shivering at the passive fictional bystanders watching the violence in voyeuristic fascination, the train prepares for its final station and a group of Asian tourists are lining up in the corridor to leave the train. An elderly Bavarian man tells his wife and grandchild that there is no use getting off their seats as long as (enter derogatory word for Japanese in German which I still am too angry to repeat) are clogging the train. Fuelled by the effect of patriarchal superiority complex I read about just a second earlier, and by the fact that the Asian setting of the novel makes it somehow closer to the situation I am experiencing in real life, I literally see red and turn to the old man, just a casual racist as there are legion everywhere, and ask him if he is aware that all people have the same right to this train? He mumbles something, trying to explain that it is a fact though. They are standing there. Yes, it is a fact that people are standing in the train, trying to leave. Only a racist makes a derogatory remark on their origin (which, by the way, doesn't have to be Japanese at all, just because he thinks so). That is how patriarchy and racism work, and I was shaking when I left the train, as much because of the conflict I had had myself, as because of the enhancing effect of the brutal novel on my fragile equilibrium.



12 o'clock in a local village, without cash:



While the story evolves into a case of mental disease and a rare form of anorexia nervosa, I start to feel like I am starving myself. Where do you find anything to eat in a village that doesn't accept credit cards, and that thinks vegetarianism means taking the meat off the regular plate?



14 o'clock in a local train, other direction, still no food, hallucinating over a chocolate bar:



While the train stops for a police action (the story doesn't provide any further information on that matter, unfortunately), and I see minutes pass, worrying I might miss my plane, I look outside and see beautiful landscapes with trees and flowers in abundance, while reading about violent sex acts carried out in a most disturbing way, by protagonists with flower patterns painted all over their bodies. I feel slightly uncomfortable to read the book in a public space now, hoping not to draw any attention to myself. It is intense reading. No quotes.



17 o'clock at an airport, waiting, I have food and water and a spot to myself, locked away in the security area:



And that is a good thing, because now the story moves between dream and reality, between now and childhood trauma, between guilt and shame. How can you possibly be a woman in a world dominated by male rules and male violence? In a hospital for mental health, the vegetarian tries to change into a plant in order to escape the carnal pain that has defined her life from the beginning. And in her sister, she plants a seed of doubt. What if she is not the strong one, after all? Just the one hiding behind a polished surface, having demured, but not lived?



20 o'clock, on a plane, constant background noise as a mother struggles to keep her two toddlers quiet (without success) while the plane has been delayed twice before finally heading to the North:



The screams that fill the claustrophobic aircraft cabin resonate in the silent pain of the main character trying to erase the traces of humanity in herself. The story is hardly bearable on a regular day, but after 12 hours of exposure to public transportation, it hits you in the stomach and makes you feel nauseous.



22 o'clock, touchdown, last lines.



"The look in her eyes is dark and insistent."