AGUSTINA BASTERRIKA
Exquisite Corpse
translation by Christina Theodoropoulou
ed.. Pataki, page 272

People destined for slaughter have their vocal cords surgically removed at an early age so that they cannot communicate with anyone.

Exquisite Corpse is a shocking book. There can’t be a reader who will read it “indifferently” or just try to see “where it’s going”. Those who take it in their hands will, willingly or unwillingly, take part in a journey very deep inside, to where our most ugly, most secret thoughts are born. It is impossible not to be imbued with this novel: it is so strong. And so original.

Everything is clear from the first pages. Basterica immediately takes us into the drama, without any narrative/dramatic effects, without any prologue or any scientific explanation. He informs us that the virus infects all animals on the planet, so they must be killed so that they do not infect us. All without exception. Whether it’s pets, or wild animals, or pets. So, among other things, people were left not only without a beloved animal, but also without meat. Something they can’t stand. A huge planetary problem that is being solved by the global legalization of cannibalism. From now on, people will eat people.

This is exactly what happens in the ultimate dystopia of the Buenos Aires-born 1974 writer. And in fact, this is done “correctly”, with clear and strict regulations from the state: people for consumption are no longer considered as such, they are grown and reproduced on special farms that meet certain standards, and slaughterhouses accept them, kill, slaughter them, and then they process the human flesh, as slaughterhouses do today. In fact, people destined for slaughter have their vocal cords surgically removed at an early age so that they cannot communicate with anyone. People to be eaten descend to the level of farm animals and stay there. May be.

Basterrika will tell about all this in great detail, and there are many pages where the cruelty of her heroes “crosses the line” and they are truly shocking. For what barriers does man and culture have when he happily breaks the greatest taboo of all? It should be noted that the book is not an allegory about “overpopulation” and lack of food, which in any case is not true: our planet can comfortably “feed” many more people than we live today. But it has to do with the limitations of our morality, with our cruelty towards other beings, with the Evil we have within us, and with how easily or hard we allow it to fill us up and suffocate us. Or how much and under what conditions we can possibly resist it, like the main character of the novel, a vegetarian who works as a manager of a model meatpacking plant. A man who is tormented by the loss of a child. And at the same time, a man who, unexpectedly for himself, will face a huge opportunity: to save the “head”, the “female”, the female animal, which he will accept as an unexpected gift and hide in his house. risking being discovered and bringing him to the slaughter right now. A joyless topic that the author speaks about in simple prose, without exaggeration or excess – prose beautifully translated into Greek by Christina Theodoropoulou.

On the opposite side of the book – as far as the plot allows us – we find Luca Guantanino’s “Bones and All That” with Timothée Salame and Taylor Russell, two “man-eating vampires”, two children born cannibals, born “different” – here we really have dealing with a strange parable about diversity – and they have to cope in a world that does not suit them. A film that, despite the plot, is a pleasure to watch, as the adventures and romance of two wonderful protagonists tempt us, making us forget what they want from us and how much danger they are in – again from us.