Tender is the Flesh
Agustina Bazterrica
The flesh of animals has become poisonous to humans. Unbelievably, the only source of protein left is ‘special meat’. Otherwise known as meat from ‘heads’, there are specially bred humans that are used only for meat and hides. Marco’s job is to check and maintain their quality. And yet, gifted with a beautiful head, Marco isn’t sure if humans are still valid meat.
This is a rich novel that is intended to be confronting and powerful, but is instead I found it off putting. It seemed like a train wreck from the start, and yet I kept hoping for a satisfactory conclusion. Instead what I read made me feel irritated and grossed out. Also there were parts (such as Marco’s ?affair? with the butcher) that I didn’t understand the importance of. This is literature, not light reading. It demands attention and thinking that I just didn’t have the space to give.
Some of the imagery in this novel was very disturbing. For me, it was reading how the pregnant humans had their limbs removed so that they couldn’t kill their own fetuses. See, now, doesn’t that say to a ‘head’ farmer that you shouldn’t do that? To my knowledge, no animal currently harvested for meat does this.
Maybe I missed the point of this novel? Should it have humanised the (non-human) meat industry for me? Unfortunately growing up as a beef cattle farmer’s daughter, I’m pretty pragmatic about meat, and where it comes from. I knew all those beef burgers and lamb chops by name before they were meat, and it never bothered me.
I didn’t realise that this was originally translated from Spanish (the author is Argentinian). That’s not something to hold against it – I’m honestly pretty sure that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it regardless of the language. It’s supposed to be a critique on meat eating, but I interpreted it as an actual hypothetical situation. It turned me off reading in a way similar to the way that The Biggerers did (again, maybe I missed the point?).
A high flaunting novel that missed the mark for me. I finished reading it, but was left disgusted and dismayed. I think the answer from me is ‘yes’ I would do cannibalism if you told me that I had to, in order to survive. But I wouldn’t accept human meat that’s been bred for the purpose.
Faber Factory Plus Ffp | 31st March 2020 | AU$27.99 | paperback
The Optimist is a play. So why did it become an audio book? Two reasons. The first has to do with my education after I became a history professor. With a mother and uncle both fired from their jobs for being Communists, I’d already had a first-hand education in how the world works. Although I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, perhaps I wanted to hide in the educational ivory tower, away from the unpredictable real world. I really, really got that wrong.
The Optimist becoming an audio book is the logical end of this story. Since this is most assuredly one of those times when truth is stranger than fiction, doing a factual article for some magazine or journal looked like a sure way to pile up rejection notices. Actually one playhouse turned down The Optimist because an artistic director thought the Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn reappearance was unbelievable. With the help of the professional, talented actors who portray these people, my hope is listeners will find The Optimist both convincing and enjoyable.
This memoir almost moved me to tears with the hopelessness and frustration that leaked out of its pages. How could no-one help Lucia when she was obviously in so much pain? Surely bleeding from the vagina should always be treated as serious. I guess that this was some years ago, when endometriosis and Crohn’s Disease were poorly understood, and even more poorly treated.
This book left me with an incredibly bad mouth feel. I felt violated and unsatisfied, and frankly a bit offended! This is a vague retelling of Macbeth, but Macbeth was time-appropriate, and Shakespeare! Death and madness are no longer ‘normal’ (and therapy will help with avoiding both of those things).
This has what could be called a ‘slow burn’. There’s no real action, and no real climax to it. There are hints at the Orzone behind the Emperor Mage but that’s about it. It’s like the first Harry Potter books where the focus was on learning, and let’s face it, those books were my favorites for that reason!
I’m not really sure how old these kids are. Teenagers? I thought that I read somewhere that they are in junior high, but they certainly seem to have a lot of freedom in school for that. I’m a great believer in the power of education, and they don’t seem to spend much time at school! The only class they seem to do is art, and while I think it’s really important for expression, it’s not the only way to express yourself.
A Spotlight with RJ Parker to promote his latest novel in the Requiem series.
Writing the Requiem series
I read this trilogy in very short order – so short that I’m not going to bother reviewing the individual novels. That being said ,the first novel was a standout in my mind, while the other two novels dropped off in quality and consistency.
