This has been on my to-read list for a few years now and today I’ve finally gotten around to reading it.
I feel that Bazterrica chose well to tell this story from the point of view of Marcos, one of the middlemen at one of many slaughterhouses, whose job it is to curate, purchase and sell “head” (humans raised for consumption). To tell the story any other way would have lessened the impact; there’s a cool detachment permitted while following the story from Marco’s POV that doesn’t subtract from the horror of this dystopian civilization. You can feel his heart breaking and he’s all the more likeable because of it.
Something that I did find curious about myself while reading this, was the scene that actually brought tears to my eyes and gave me pause didn’t concern cruelty to the “head” but rather to domesticated dogs. The mention of >!cats and dogs being burned alive by the hundreds!< made me feel physically ill, and I struggled emotionally during the scene >!with the teenagers brutally killing the four puppies!<.
This is probably a fairly normal desensitization, as nobody enjoys it when *the dog dies*, but I also wonder if some of my lack of shock is contributed to having been vegetarian then pescatarian for many years; I KNOW already what cruelties humans are capable of, and swapping pigs and cows for human beings isn’t that far of a leap. Which is what makes this such a plausible and horrific novel.
It’s a powerful, shocking novel – fully deserving of the praise and hype surrounding it and I would recommend this as a must-read especially considering it’s relevance today – exploitation, capitalism, industrialized farming, religion and family.
The only thing that I did not appreciate with this novel was that some parts are rather dry, though this could simply be due to translation. 4.5/5.
*Tender is the Flesh is a dystopian novel by Argentinean author Agustina Bazterrica. The novel was originally published in Spanish in 2017 and translated by Sarah Moses into English in 2020. Tender is the Flesh portrays a society in which a virus has contaminated all animal meat. Because of the lack of animal flesh, cannibalism becomes legal. Marcos, a human meat supplier, is conflicted by this new society, and tortured by his own personal losses.*
by Potion27