“There is a nice allusion to go in Han Kang’s novel, The Vegetarian, winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize,” writes Tony Koslow. On page 164 (2016 US paperback edition translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith):
There’s been a time when she could spend hours like this, weighing up all the variables that might have contributed to determining Yeong-hye’s fate. Of course it was entirely in vain, this act of mentally picking up and counting the paduk stones that have been laid out on the board of her sister’s life.