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Giacomo Kyle asked this question about Tender Is the Flesh:
What's your take on the ending? It seems it was a twist to reveal that the protagonist never truly had feelings for Jasmine and always just wanted to use her so he could have another child with Cecilia, since she couldn't carry and raise a healthy one. But earlier in the book, it mentions that the protagonist is "incapable of killing the female in his barn." So did something change in him?
Liam Ostermann I think it made perfect sense within the whole drift of the novel - if he really was different, if he saw any of the heads, even Jasmine, as human the…moreI think it made perfect sense within the whole drift of the novel - if he really was different, if he saw any of the heads, even Jasmine, as human then he couldn't continue living within the world as it was. No one could possibly have such beliefs and continue functioning in a society like that. Nor could they bring a child into it if they really believed the world they lived was based on a obscenity.

Or maybe they could. Maybe the author is making us look at what we accept, at least those of us who are the lucky per cent at the top of the economic pyramid, the vast numbers who live and die in lives of appalling want and suffering. We ignore it - once it was far away in 'poor' countries that we sent charity to; now it is in shanty towns on our cities streets. We ignore and get on with our lives, occasionally disturbed but most of the time we ignore and have plenty of reasons why we can and should. This novel just tears off illusions and excuses back to first causes and actions. Like all good dystopian literature should.(less)
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Tender Is the Flesh
by Agustina Bazterrica
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