Now, I'm not saying book itself lacks substance, but it's substance does not extend as far as the cruelty of the book's world goes.
I understand that for some, bleakness itself is a kind of entertainment. In the same way people like torture-porn film, it's just kind of fascinating in a morbid way.
And sometimes bleakness and cruelty is meant to say something, either about the world or the people in it. And maybe that's what was intended here, but I didn't find it compelling or resonant or just "true" in any meaningful way. I do believe humans can be cruel and that the world is indifferent to us, but the cruelty in "Tender is the Flesh" felt absurd.
This is a dystopian novel, and many of the genre are clearly unreal, but have a ring of truth. For instance, The Handmaid's Tale seemed impossible, but all the restrictions on women's rights could be found in some culture in the real world.
And while Tender is the Flesh might be considered an allegory for the factory farming of animals, there are many instances of banal evil that we don't even do on animals. For instance, one character keeps a human in their cooler – alive – to take off pieces to cook "fresh". Nobody is dismembering a living pig piece by piece in their walk-in.
Could I believe there are some psychos like this in the world? Yes. Could I believe there is a global society willing to accept and embrace it? Not even a little bit.
by Censius