Fionnáin apžvelgė autoriaus Ana Paula Maia knygą Of Cattle and Men
An endless conveyor belt of violence
5 žvaigždutės
Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia takes place entirely in a slaughterhouse and neighbouring factories dedicated to meat. The smell of blood suffocates from the first page to the last, and as a reader I felt more and more hemmed in, like the cattle that only wish for an escape. The protagonist is a cow killer with a conscience who is almost robotically methodical in his work, and his ethic is complex and nuanced. He feels that killing must be done, yet seems to deplore it.
Questions of autonomy and agency abound throughout this story, both for the humans (only men work here) and the animals. Neither seems free, and both are trapped by a larger system that hems them in on all sides. The possibility of agency eventually falls to the cows, who seem to gain a taste for freedom from one another after a mixed-up delivery …
Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia takes place entirely in a slaughterhouse and neighbouring factories dedicated to meat. The smell of blood suffocates from the first page to the last, and as a reader I felt more and more hemmed in, like the cattle that only wish for an escape. The protagonist is a cow killer with a conscience who is almost robotically methodical in his work, and his ethic is complex and nuanced. He feels that killing must be done, yet seems to deplore it.
Questions of autonomy and agency abound throughout this story, both for the humans (only men work here) and the animals. Neither seems free, and both are trapped by a larger system that hems them in on all sides. The possibility of agency eventually falls to the cows, who seem to gain a taste for freedom from one another after a mixed-up delivery of animals from warring states leads to some uncanny animal behaviours. Maia's storytelling and presentation of complex metaphor is immense and deep, creating a world that is both broad and intensely narrow, and trapping the reader in a chamber where the world's entanglement with systems of death seems very small. The result is an amazing book, perfectly written and chillingly prescient.