- Community Books
- Horror Stories
- Tender Is the Flesh
Discussion
Topic: Tender Is the Flesh
So I have not read it yet, but I’m about to start Tender Is The Flesh, and I have a question. Is there a major theme or message other than the obvious one about considering vegetarianism? I don’t want to take anything away from that, but I myself eat meat and I know it’s probably going to feel a bit preachy. I guess im just wondering if there’s anything else I can take away from the book. #horror #tenderistheflesh #dystopian
7 comments
Sarah Brown Honestly there's this weird sort of "[virus] truther" vibe about this book that I didn't like at all (MC comes off as an anti masker and narrative implies he's right). Mostly an anti-factory farming perspective - there's a bit about oppression (a few bits about how the lower classes experience things differently and the debt forgiveness angle that comes up near the end) but overall this was a miss for me.
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Zach I dont think trying to liken this book to covid is fair to it at all, its not even close to whats actually happening in the story.
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Sarah Brown @g_sam I mean I am not saying that the author is antivax or anything! (Idk anything about her) I'm just saying a lot of the rhetoric used in the book by the MC which is sort of implied to be true in the way things play out is the same stuff you hear at those rallies and I found it off putting.
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Zach There isnt, thats not what this book is about at all. It touches a bit on the opposite almost, the main character dwells briefly on how not even knowing its human meat stops people from eating meat. The main focus of the book is a fable like message about how polite words for things can enable behaviors we'd otherwise find inexcuseable. That, with governmental control/mass brainwashing sprinkled in.
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Gabi I just finished last night, and there definitely is commentary about the meat industry, but it didn’t feel preachy. There are themes other than just words and euphemisms, like moral corruption, conformity, capitalism, etc.
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Carolina Almeida Bury I know that the main idea of the author was about vegetarianism, but when I read I saw much more a criticism about capitalism and how society dehumanize people for money.
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Gabi I went into worried I wouldn’t get anything out of it, but I noticed the theme of capitalism as well as a lot of others. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
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Bella Wang honestly, I didn't even think about vegetarianism as a theme. I thought of it more as how we "treat people like meat". I felt like the author was making a point about class. I don't want to spoil anything if you haven't read it, but in it we see that rich people get to be extremely cruel to the "special meat"; as you'll see them be referred to. also, the slaughter industry tailors to there high status people. I think this represents how in our society, the rich can step on the disadvantaged...
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Bella Wang .. and major corporations exploit those in need to earn the business of the rich
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Brittany Kesselring I read the book about a month ago. I thought the message behind the story was more about the psychological struggles one faces when exposed to trauma regarding the past and current morally reprehensible acts that are recently found to be justified and largely participated in by the general populous. Basically, it's about a man's struggles to heal from the past and his psychological struggles regarding the present while trying to decide if he should or shouldn't succumb to the evil that surrounds him. It's also just gross to read and an obvious statement by the author that eating meat and slaughterhouses are morally wrong.
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Lauri Weinberg I feel that it is a reflection of how we currently treat animals and how truly close we could come to cannibalism given how we currently live.
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Marilyn Parkinson Sounds like a “take off” from an old movie. “Soylent Green” starring Charleton Heston and Edward G Robinson. 1973 movie that used the story from a novel written a few years b4.
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