Review by fitzreadsbooks - Tender Is the Flesh

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fitzreadsbooks 's review for:

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

5.0

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The brutality of this novella makes it at once masterful ans immensely difficult to read. We see through many of the characters the way that cruelty is justified and normalized as long as it advances the comfort of those with the money to benefit from it. Marcos’ sister and her family is a prime example of this, as they are more in tune with what is trendy and popular than with what is ethical or humane. The government, too, controls how cannibalism is and can be discussed. The media narratives justify cannibalism as long as the people being eaten are those who are lesser. It’s a fantastically gory metaphor for the way capitalism profits off of a socioeconomic divide and benefits from the existence of lower and higher classes of people. The victims of this system don’t have a name or a voice, and those in the business of human slaughter do everything they can to reduce these people to numbers, not humans.

The main character, I think, is the most fascinating part of the novella, and his characterization is what made this a five-star read for me. Throughout the novel Marcos seems aware of the humanity of the individuals being slaughtered and consumed. He privately rejects the government’s narrative about the necessity of cannibalism. But at the same time, he benefits from this system, knowingly facilitating the consumption of human lives in order to fund his own life. He actively acknowledges this dissonance, too, but does nothing to change or stop it. And ultimately, he uses Jasmine— a woman who can hardly consent to what’s happening— to give him the child his wife couldn’t, then gets rid of her the moment she has served her purpose. Marcos was sickening in his hypocrisy and active role in the system despite recognizing its active harm and cruelty. He exacerbates the theme of the way people are used and exploited under capitalism by confronting us with the implications of our complacency with the system despite understanding its harms.

I think that this novella is a fantastic example of how horror can take societal issues to the extreme and force us to face the problems in our modern-day society by intensifying what has become normalized until the issue can no longer be ignored. The novella was brutal and gory and difficult to get through, but those qualities are what make it so effective as a commentary on our own lives.

Content Warnings