The Future

        Between climate change and the general state of the world, the future can be scary to consider. Where will we be in 10 years? 50? Will we make it another 100? 

     The answer is: most likely yes. With the rapid rate of scientific advancement, some good old human ingenuity, and a sprinkle of good luck everything should turn out fine. Once we've made it that far, though, things will have changed a good deal, and those changes can be scary to consider too. 

    Tender is the Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica, explores one of these potential futures. When a virus that is lethal to humans infects the world's wildlife, humans choose to take the preventive measure of wiping out the animals. The world's population survives, but they are left with one big question: "What are we going to eat?" The answer for most is "special meat," otherwise known as human flesh, though going vegan is still an option. 

    The novel follows Marcos, the manager at a human slaughterhouse. Despite his occupation, he is one of the aforementioned vegans, and while he bears witness to the slaughter of countless factory-farmed humans he spends much of his time trying to actively dissociate. A lot of Tender is the Flesh's fear factor comes from the sheer amount of brutality inflicted on humans, but what's even more disturbing are the lengths to which the practices have been normalized. From Most Dangerous Game style man-hunts to in home coolers for storing live "head," also known as humans, for those looking for the freshest cuts.

    Throughout the novel, Bazterrica weaves a plot thread that might make you believe that there may be some sort of silver-lining to all of this, that reconciliation is still possible. Just as you are turning the final pages, though, the thread is severed. All hope is lost, you are left to wander in the dark. The future is scary.

    But it doesn't have to be that way. 

     Under the Eye of the Big Bird, by Hiromi Kawakami, looks even further into humanity's future. What exactly this future holds is revealed through a series of interconnected short stories, and the mix of intrigue and satisfaction that each story's reveal gave me made up for a large portion of my reading enjoyment. Even as time has passed, though, I still think about this book, so I can assure you that it's not all instant gratification. This is all to say that this book may best be enjoyed blind, so if you have any interest in reading it I recommend you call up Eagle Eye and order a copy (We probably have some on our shelves). Spoilers can't ruin the best stories, though, so feel free to read on regardless.

    Under the Eye of the Big Bird's stories follow humans in strange circumstances. Some of them use numbers for names. Others live in isolation, only being visited by another person occasionally for the purpose of procreation. People are occasionally visited by younger versions of themselves. The lucky ones have psychic powers. It's revealed about halfway through the book that all of them are part of a grand experiment to evolve humanity, one that started out of necessity millennia ago and will continue for millennia to come. 

    Kawakami takes full advantage of the story's time frame to both give us some glimpses into humanity's speculative future (my favorite potential evolutionary branch are the super chill plant people) and show us how the appearance of these extraordinary individuals might be received. Despite how far-fetched some of the ideas in the novel may get, what Kawakami is really looking to explore is human nature. What drives us? What scares us? How far will we go to secure our own future? Under the Eye of the Big Bird may not provide clean answers to these questions, but the ones it does offer are certainly quite interesting.

    The last story of the book follows the two final members of humanity. There's an inherent sadness in reading about the last two girls in the world growing up, but there's also something pure in those pages, something like serenity. The future Kawakami envisions is uncertain, but unlike Tender is the Flesh it is not without hope. 

    The future might be scary, but that's not all it has to be.