Jenna
Jenna asked:

This question contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

To answer questions about Tender Is the Flesh, please sign up.
Brett Minor It HAD already been explained that these things happen. However, here it is to make it more personal and force you into the perspective of the protagonist. He had just lost his father, his wife is estranged and he found a little joy in playing with these puppies.

Then, they are violently ripped from him senselessly because of the violence of the present world and its new philosophies.

So, this was not a rehashing of the same statement.

On the other hand, the author may have been pushing for the reader's extra sympathy or disgust as well. Despite entire chapters being dedicated to detailed slayings and cruel experimentation of actual humans , there are some people who don't have the intended reaction until it is depicted as being done to an animal.
MacLeod Jay I absolutely agree-I think for some reason this was one of, if not the only part of the book that was unreadable for me: with the rest I understood what I signed up for, whereas this seemed like it forced the last safe place in a very bleak world to become the darkest and cruellest, as the violence was so much more 'unnecessary in that it served no purpose under any pretext. Glad I wasn't the only one.
Liam Ostermann I can't understand how a paragraph or two of cruelty to puppies is so much more disturbing or unnecessary then pages about humans being bred and slaughtered for food - particularly as everyone accepts that the whole basis for it is bogus.

I think the author was trying to show that sentimentality for a animal is meaningless when it doesn't apply universally.
Image for Tender Is the Flesh
Rate this book
Clear rating

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more