Three books in now and I have to say that my friend has some really dark taste. And yes, I see the pun in that first sentence. It should make sense to you, too, if you’ve read Agustina Bazterrica’s acclaimed dystopian novel, Tender is the Flesh.
I’ve also seen online where people are calling this a horror novel, which, if ever adapted for the screen (God, I HOPE NOT), it would certainly be very gory. I see it as it’s been labeled, a dystopian novel. I don’t know how far into the future, we are presented with Marcos somewhere in South America, though what he endures in the norm everywhere now. Many years back there was a deadly virus found in animals that killed humans who consumed them. In order to wipe it out, all animals were killed. In a quick recover though, cannibalism was soon institutionalized and quickly standardized with strict processes in place. That’s good because you wouldn’t want just anyone killing anyone they wanted because they were hungry. But also…vegetarianism?
A lot of well made points were brought up in this novel, and they’re certainly things that the government are currently doing, just in different ways. I also have no doubt that this dark, dark idea will definitely be a reality at some point. Hopefully not in my lifetime. Anyways, there’s a large part of the population, Marcos included, who think that the virus is fake and made up by the government to control poverty, etc. One could easily parallel this with COVID, although I tend to lean more towards that being a conspiracy theory. It is crazy just how accurate Bazterrica’s observations are given that she wrote this book seven years ago. I know the theories presented in this book could probably be applied to a lot of different things that the government has overseen in the past, but COVID, given how recent, is the first event to come to mind.
All of that plays into a more intimate story with Marcos, who’s essentially second in command at a prestigious processing plant. I’m sure you can guess that they’re processing people and not animals, though it’s crazy how vocabulary can desensitize the craziness of what these people are doing. You can tell Marcos is desensitized to a certain degree, but he does appear to have many more empathetic reactions than most of the people he encounters day to day. You can see that in the actions he takes when he is gifted the highest grade “product” to make up for some bad business. Though Marcos takes things a bit further and in the current world, an illegal manner. Marcos has endured a lot in his lifetime, and though I thought I had him pegged from the beginning, the end will surely shock most.
This novel is certainly not for everyone, but if you’re interested, it’s a quick and thought-provoking read.