Tender is the Flesh: Terrifying fiction that parallels reality

Outside the confines of our daily human-animal space and mindset, the most truly beautiful affirmation of life exists on the earth, in the sky, in the water.

Within our exquisite and fragile universe, much suffering and injustice exists. Humans are the most dangerous predators on Earth. Humans prey on the life source, the earth. Humans prey on non-human animals. Humans prey on humans.

Agustina Bazterrica’s novel, Tender is the Flesh, is a potent and engrossing page-turner. Bazterrica’s world is frightening fiction because it is a recognizable parallel to our very own reality.

Adapting a vegan lifestyle is part of, but not the endgame of Tender is the Flesh. Her written mural is about the constant cycle of violence perpetrated by humans from time immemorial to the present day and a terrifying portent of a possible future.

Bazterrica renders a world devoid of animals. Because of a virus, all animals have died or have been murdered (including companion animals). The systematic mass extermination of animals for food has simply been restructured and replaced with a methodical breeding and mass slaughter system of humans as food.

With the obliteration of non-human animal life, Bazterrica depicts a human society that has devolved into a species with a complete absence of conscience, compassion, empathy, and morality.

In this realm, hunting reserves still thrive. Humans are game. Hunters proudly smile for photographs posing with their conquests. Human heads are trophies mounted on a wall. Hunters gather to celebrate and eat their freshly cooked blood sport reward.

Although Bazterrica’s passages on human experimentation in laboratories are not as fiercely explicit as other topics, they are equally horrifying. Her idea is very congruent with the unreliable and unnecessary torture of non-human animals used for scientific research. Also, they are a flagrant reminder of the cumulative horrors that comprised The Holocaust.

These highly lucrative enterprises are government sanctioned with oversight, including quality control inspections. Cannibalism and human breeding is legal, however, the Black Market still exists and human violations of the rules are punishable by death at a Municipal Slaughterhouse.

In the most gripping encounter in the book, Bazterrica introduces the notion of cannibalism mixed with an extremely startling hint of psychological vampirism. This scene alone exposes the darkest nature, the monster, that truly exists within humans.

Bazterrica simply sums it up:

“The human being is the cause of all evil in this world. We are our own virus.”

Within our global society, there is a severe disconnect between humans and humans, humans and non-human animals, plus humans and our planet. Oddly, humans ignore, re-write, and repeat history in different manifestations.

Instead of evolving, we waste time on the mundane and frivolous aspects of life and blind ourselves to matters that should concern us and garner full attention. People ignore the tragedies that befall animals and humans in real life on a daily basis, yet bloodlust and sadism is a human’s way of escapism.

As individuals, as communities, we have choices. Be conscious. Be informed. All of our actions and non-actions have consequences.

Take time to envision the multitude of non-human animals and plants in regard to their relationship with each other.

Take time to contemplate your life in relationship to the lives of non-human animals and thriving ecosystems.

We must treat each reciprocally connected relationship with the utmost respect and compassion.

Sentience and intelligence extends far-far beyond our immediate environment. Recognize it. Understand it. Cherish it. Protect it.