El sabor de un hombre

by Slavenka Drakulić

Tereza y José son dos extranjeros en Nueva York. Ella es una joven escritora polaca, y ha ido a estudiar literatura inglesa. Él, un antropólogo brasileño interesado en el canibalismo, prepara un trabajo sobre la experiencia de los jóvenes que sobrevivieron a un accidente de aviación en los Andes alimentándose con los cadáveres de sus compañeros. No tienen nada en común, excepto, quizá, su diferencia. Están solos en una ciudad y en una cultura que les es ajena, y hablan entre sí en una lengua que no les pertenece. Y la extrañeza de este idioma prestado, en el que ninguno de los dos tiene un pasado, una historia, los lleva a desconfiar de todo lenguaje que no sea el del cuerpo, los ritos silenciosos de un amor que no ignoran es temporal, transitorio José tiene mujer y un hijo en Brasil, Tereza un amante en Polonia y al que se entregan con una pasión sin reservas, atrincherados en un pequeño apartamento. Pero el amor puede ser también un «hambre divina», insaciable, y muy pronto Tereza descubrirá que jamás podría soportar la separación, que para ella es impensable que la vida de ambos continúe por caminos diferentes, más allá de ese presente extático, de ese goce absoluto que ya tiene los días contados. Y su muda, desesperada obsesión, la llevará a encontrar la manera de que José pueda ser suyo para siempre.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Novels, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Adult, Womens

208 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Slavenka Drakulić (1949) is a noted Croatian writer and publicist, whose books have been translated into many languages.

In her fiction Drakulić has touched on a variety of topics, such as dealing with illness and fear of death in Holograms of fear; the destructive power of sexual desire in Marble skin; an unconventional relationship in The taste of a man; cruelty of war and rape victims in S. A Novel About the Balkans (made into a feature film As If I Am Not There, directed by Juanita Wilson); a fictionalized life of Frida Kahlo in Frida's bed. In her novel Optužena (English translation forthcoming), Drakulić writes about the not often addressed topic of child abuse by her own mother. In her novel Dora i Minotaur Drakulic writes about Dora Maar and her turbulent relationship to Pablo Picasso, and how it affected Dora's intellectual identity. In her last novel Mileva Einstein, teorija tuge she writes about Einstein's wife Mileva Maric. The novel is written from Mileva's point of view, especially describing how motherhood and financial and emotional dependence on Einstein took her away from science and professional life.

Drakulić has also published eight non-fiction books. Her main interests in non-fiction include the political and ideological situation in post-communist countries, war crimes, nationalism, feminist issues, illness, and the female body. In How We Survived Communism; Balkan Express; Café Europa she deals with everyday life in communist and post-communist countries. In 2021, Drakulic wrote a sequel to Café Europa, Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism. Drakulic wrote the history of communism through the perspective of animals in A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism. She explores evil in ordinary people and choices they make in They Would Never Hurt a Fly War Criminals On Trial In The Hague, about the people who committed crimes during the Croatian Homeland war. On the other side, in Flesh of her flesh (available in English only as an e-book) Drakulić writes about the ultimate good – people who decide to donate their own kidney to a person they have never met. Her first book, Deadly sins of feminism (1984) is available in Croatian only: Smrtni grijesi feminizma.

Drakulić is a contributing editor in The Nation (USA) and a freelance author whose essays have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Review Of Books. She contributes to Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Internazionale (Italy), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), The Guardian (UK), Eurozine and other newspapers and magazines.

Slavenka Drakulić is the recipient of the 2004 Leipzig Book-fair ”Award for European Understanding.” At the Gathering of International Writers in Prague in 2010 she was proclaimed as one of the most influential European writers of our time.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'IMPULSO A INCORPORARE L'OGGETTO DEL DESIDERIO


”Hiroshima mon amour”, il film di Alain Resnais del 1959 dal romanzo omonimo di Marguerite Duras.

Tra L'impero dei sensi e Hiroshima mon amour.
Ma soprattutto prossimo a Trouble Every Day, più abbondante speziatura di episodi di cronaca macabra, Drakulić racconta l'incontro di due corpi umani in una New York nuova per entrambi.
Sottolinea il loro essere stranieri alla città e stranieri l'un l'altro, polacca lei e brasiliano lui, comunicano col loro inglese imperfetto ed estraneo, terzo, come se fossero su un territorio neutro.

Ma, il linguaggio dei sensi supplisce alla differenza di lingua, l'unione dei corpi, la simbiosi della carne funziona a meraviglia anche se si viene da due parti opposte del pianeta: non servono troppe parole per amarsi, desiderarsi, cercarsi, tenersi, penetrarsi, divorarsi.
Fino all'estremo.


”Trouble Every Day”, il film di Claire Denis del 2001, con Vincent Gallo e Béatrice Dalle.

Se ogni separazione è sempre anche un pochino morire, perché non spingere il concetto fino alle conseguenze più estreme?
Se il desiderio d'amore è la fusione assoluta di anima e corpo, perché non inglobare ingerire e digerire letteralmente l'amato bene?

Drakulić come al solito scrive con una penna che ricorda un bisturi: entra, penetra, divarica, esamina, sviscera, analizza, focalizza.


”L’impero dei sensi”, il film di Nagisa Ôshima del 1976.

Ma questa storia d'amour fou, in alcune parti un po' ripetitiva, è il suo libro che ho amato di meno: scarso interesse per l'argomento probabilmente.
Fino all'ultimo ho sperato che il racconto si trasformasse in un incubo, in un sogno, che restasse nel più tranquillizzante territorio dell'ambiguità.
Fino all'ultimo ho sperato che la protagonista mantide si rivelasse vittima di allucinazioni. Ma così non è stato.

Brava Drakulic anche in questa prova, per me meno riuscita, che però credo possa avere fan appassionati.


’Amanti’ di Luna Hal.

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay so i am actually going to write a review for this now, so all you people who voted for the BLURB on the back of the book might want to revisit this and make sure you still like what i'm saying here. because it might get unsavory.

"If love is wanting what's best for the other person—and romance is wanting the other person—then this is the ultimate romance novel. It should be a warning to men: when women lack a sense of self, everyone is in danger." - Gloria Steinem

okay, i am rereading this right now.

***********************************************

this book is still great, many years after i read it for the first time.

let's face it - you see the name of the book, you see what shelf i have slapped it on - it isn't too big of a surprise to announce flat-out that this is a book about cannibalism.specifically, cannibalism of one's love-object.

the book itself addresses bloodstains and death and the deceased lover on page 4, and cannibalism specifically on page 19. these are not spoilers.

this is a story of obsessive love taken to the utmost, and turned into sacrament, into the appropriation of the entirety of the beloved. and it is a flat-out jaw-dropper.

Sometimes I wish there had been some insurmountable technical obstacle to stop us from drowning in each other. We were like two desperate, surrounded terrorists, barricaded inside an isolated house and determined not to fall into the hands of the authorities alive. In the end they shoot each other in the mouth. This destructive energy, with which we isolated and absorbed each other, had emerged at our very first encounter, an energy on which we both fed and which could only grow and become increasingly insatiable.

how is it that marguerite duras is the reigning queen of the cerebral erotic and this lady can't even get her book to stay in print? it is completely unfair. to me, this is the height of eroticism, this fills in the holes duras seems to stubbornly insert between her characters with her porous prose. this is the ideal love story for a nineteen-year-old girl obsessed and hell-bent on self-destruction.

the character in this is not nineteen, but twenty-nine, but when i was nineteen or twenty-one and hell-bent on becoming my lover, to close us off from the rest of the world and just live inside each other, this was the book that spoke to me.

but i have to disagree with ms. steinem with the blurb that i chose to reprint here. upon reading this book again, i don't know how this character can be said to "lack a sense of self." she is a relatively successful woman - with a published book of poetry (although two unpublished), she has left her native poland to come to new york to work on her doctorate, she has successfully obtained men she has wanted and refused men she has not. this is no puppet. and as for the final act - it is she herself who makes this choice, a decision he has been judged by her to be too weak himself to make.

she has a very strong sense of self. and her self is hungry.

on the one hand, yes:

All my desires were directed toward, subordinated to, the one desire to be with him, to be together forever. Two naked, smooth souls which at one moment would completely dissolve and become one. I felt that not a single part of me had autonomy any more. I was without weight, without substance, as if I had been sucked empty. I depended on him, on his desire, touch, chance smile, on the warmth deposited in the small recesses between us. I knew that I did not exist without him.

and yet, if anything, jose is the one without a sense of self. he is married, away from his pregnant wife and child in brazil on a research grant in new york to continue his research into, what else? - cannibalism. although he is not given a voice between these covers, he seems to be pulled between the two women, rarely making any firm declarations or decisions. he is acted upon time and again. he loves, he is beloved, but his resolve is weak. eventually, he slips into complete stasis, as his time in new york runs out and he will have to go back home to his family.he retreats, he does not act.

and then all decisions are taken away from him.

is his infatuation as deep as her own? is she just a fling to him? she always says "we" when she talks of their love, but does his love run as deeply as hers?

To think about the future implied life without Jose, and as soon as we met that had seemed absolutely pointless. We could not continue to live apart. We had both been aware of this sentence almost from the beginning, although we had not fully understood what it meant. In entering this apartment, we were both entering another life. Our previous lives suddenly turned into the distant past which occasionally upset us, bothered us and dragged us down towards some kind of invisible abyss.

the infatuation appears to be mutual, but we are only given half the story.

this is a story of two lovers who came together by circumstance in a country not their own, without a common language. all their interactions are in english, a "borrowed language," their backgrounds so untranslatable. in this arena, their bodies become their mutual mode of expression.

I laughed and said I had never seen the jungle, except in movies, and that it seemed menacing enough on the screen, like some sort of huge man-eating organism. He consoled me by saying he had never seen snow except in the movies. The dirty slush of New York had been his first experience of it and there was no way I could conjure up for him the crisp snow on a mountain slope, a window caked with hoar-frost or a frozen forest. But it did not console me. When he mentioned a river, I would imagine a green or lead grey surface of water. To which he would respond that rivers are yellow or green like emeralds, and for a moment, it was a game. If only we had the time, perhaps we could have overcome this rootedness in separate languages. I think it can be done. But then he would have been somebody else, and ours would have been some other relationship. Perhaps the inadequacy of words and our fear of losing our way in the labyrinth of language, our fear of misunderstanding, actually fed our mutual hunger for the body.

their lack of a shared language causes jealousy:

...in those few moments my fear grew into hate, into the strong silk thread of hate. I saw myself tightening that thread around her throat, which was spilling out words for the last time, the bewitching unknown Portuguese words which were forming an impenetrable circle around Jose.

but they always come back to each other through the bonds of food and sex, the two frequently paired.

so you see, there was no choice.

this is an utterly gorgeous story of obsession and the drive to keep one's beloved close, to actually internalize the lover inside oneself.

however: what a fucking waste, right?? the only parts of him she actually eats are his fingertips and some arm-flesh?? there were practical reasons, sure, but come on, girl - starving children in africa and all that - finish your meal!

i mean, obviously i have given a lot of the story away, but i maintain that these are things evident from the outset, and the joy of reading this book is her sparkling prose and the journey the character takes, not the destination.

seriously - find it and read it.
it is (do i dare??) delicious.

come to my blog!

[Maja (The Nocturnal Library) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slavenka Drakulić wastes no time writing novels that are widely acceptable. If you ever come across one of her books, make sure you are ready to embrace the unexpected. Her stories are powerful descriptions of the most basic human nature: love, fear, survival and life.

The Taste of a Man is one such story. It’s a story about the impossibility of love and the denial of loss, about the boundaries of sanity and about the things we are ready to do for the person we consider our own. It’s a story about the Divine Hunger.

Unlike so many of her other novels, this one is not based on a true story (and for that we are grateful). Instead it is based on deepest parts of our nature, hidden for millennia under strongly ingrained morals of our civilization. It’s like a game of Have you ever we all played as children:
- Have you ever taken something that doesn’t (and can never) belong to you?
- Have you ever loved someone so much that you would rather take their life than let them live without you?
- Have you ever abandoned sanity because of love?
- Have you ever felt that we are confined by the rules of our civilization that tell us how to live, breathe and love?


This is NOT trivial literature. If you do not have an open mind, please choose another book. If you do not have the patience for the subtlety of human communication and relationships, you won’t appreciate this book. But if you are able to open your mind AND your heart to these powerful sentences, they might just change your life. They will most certainly change the way you think about love.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

It’s not so much a matter of, If your plane crashed in the Andes (etc) would you eat the flesh of a human being? and it’s not so much a matter of, Is the Eucharist an instance of cannibalism? and it’s not even so much a matter of what we have in this novel, the question, Can you join his flesh to yours by eating him, become one with him, forever intertwined with your Love? Rather, it is a question, Would you eat Human Flesh for the mere pleasure of it? Because that is the live question vegetarians are asking, Whether the suffering of animals (our flesh production methods are incontrovertibly pain=centers, for the most part) is worth the bit pleasure you might take in a Prime Rib? I mean, taking pleasure in the variety of human flesh, the difference between a Menschlich Rib Roast (because, as with ‘pig’ and ‘pork’, ‘steer’ and ‘beef’ we need different words and a different language for the thing on the plate and the thing on the street) and a Shoulder Roast ; the difference between a Vegetarian’s flesh and the flesh of a McDonald’s district manager ; the difference between my Vietnamese neighbor’s headcheese and the Leberwurst of my local barber. These kinds of things would come up.

Because cannibalism-for-survival is prima facia justified, just like self-defense. Cannibalism as religious ritual is no=problemo! And the ingestion of one’s Lover is a universal fantasy, not performed only because of its impossibility and self-defeating structure. But eating for pleasure? One begins to suspect that the taboo is not in the eating but in the taking pleasure. If that is true (and it is always pleasure and desire which are regulated) then shouldn’t we take Drakulić to task for having taken pleasure in creating a first-person narrative about a cannibal? ....yes, I’ll pull out that card... just like we take Nabokov to task for having taken pleasure in creating a first-person narrative about a pedophile. Is one taboo stronger than the other? More repulsive than the other? Both are practiced (if that’s the word) by other cultures somewhere, that is by cultures which are not responsible for our own manner of regulating desire and pleasure and thus the anthropological fallacy. I mean, Drakulić gets a pass and Nabokov doesn’t? What if Drakulić wrote a piece about the centrality of aesthetic bliss in her fictioning? What if Drakulić says there is no purpose to a novel beyond its pleasure? Do we chasten Nabokov only because he dared flaunt his pleasure? Do we believe that Nabokov really wanted to boff little girls? Do we really believe that Drakulić wants to eat a man for breakfast?

One more--; Drakulić has a book, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed -- Nabokov could have had a book, How We Survived the Revolution and Discovered Aesthetic Bliss.

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Food was part of our intimacy, our union, as important as touching itself”. The ‘Taste of a Man’ is a dark chilling story incorporating cannibalism as a pathway to amalgamating a sexual union- - two bodies as a whole.

Tereza fell in love with Jose the moment he walked into her life. A passionate stormy affair over food and sex made Tereza want him even more. She devoured his touch, his smell and every bit of the existing passion. Tereza wanted Jose- mind, body and soul. Tereza wanted him to animate her from inside her body. But Jose had other plans. Untoward circumstances brought devastating betrayal to Tereza throwing her into an abyss of madness. Finally, deranged obsession propelled Tereza to do the unthinkable.

Do I pity Tereza? Was Tereza’s obsession some kind of demonic hunger of physicality or an act to achieve spiritual immortality of love or just sheer insanity? I do not know. All I wonder is how someone can love so passionately with such gusto that irrationality overrules reality. Drakulic sure know how to pen a haunting novel.

[Sandra Nedopričljivica · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ljubav daje čovjeku apsolutnu vlast nad drugim ljudskim bićem."

Ne slažem se niti bi tako smjelo biti. U ljubavi mora postojati uzajamnost, prepuštanje, poštovanje... Mogla bih do sutra dalje nabrajati. Međutim, nije pojam ljubavi isti za svakoga. I upravo o tomu piše naša Slavenka.

Kad se sve skupa zbroji i oduzme, mogla bih čak i razumjeti glavnu likicu - njoj ljubav znači posjedovanje. Ona ne zna drugačije voljeti. Moj si ili ničiji. Ova vrsta "ljubavi" meni je strana, ali to što Slavenka radi je čudo. Jedva sam čekala kako će se ovo sve skupa rasplesti, iako sam davno prije naslutila.

Teško bih ovo preporučila osobama s lošim želucem (i živcima), ali onda bi one bile zakinute za prekrasan stil pripovijedanja (bez obzira na mučnu horror temu). Dakle, čitajte (nemojte istovremeno konzumirati hranu), izdignite se iznad teme i uživajte u Slavenkinim čarolijama.

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is one creepy, disturbing book. found it at library in fiction section while looking for something else...the orange Penguin spine made me pull it. the "fatal attraction" comparison prompted me to check it out...i enjoy a good "thriller" every now & again but i was completely unprepared for the gross descriptive closing to this book. the first half was okay...the characters were so crazy that it was kind of entertaining to watch their development. but the ending...ugghh. it actually made me feel kinda sick to my stomach...wow! not sure if i'd recommend this one to anyone.

[Tonkica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaze se da je sve dozvoljeno u ljubavi i ratu... Hm, dalo bi se o tome! Gdje se povlaci granica normalnoga? Da li je ono sto mi osjecamo ljubav? Ja sa svojom zadovoljna! ;)

[Tonkica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaze se da je sve dozvoljeno u ljubavi i ratu... Hm, dalo bi se o tome! Gdje se povlaci granica normalnoga? Da li je ono sto mi osjecamo ljubav? Ja sa svojom zadovoljna! ;)

[Ozmar Pedroza · Rating 4 out of 5]

"En los labios aún me ardía el beso helado de José"
"Olvidaré, olvidaré todo lo que no sea importante. Excepto lo que llevo en mi interior"

Slavenka Draculic expresa magistralmente el punto de vista de Tereza, una mujer que ha sido atrapada por el goce absoluto de una pasión tan carnal que le duele como un hambre insaciable, y que lo único que la aterra más que esta necesidad es el miedo a la separación.

De esas historias donde el amor, más que un sentimiento romántico, es una necesidad.
Absolutamente recomendada para quienes les encanta leer relatos con un final impensable y tan humano como el acto mismo de comer.

[Ⰰⱃⰿⰰⱀⰴ Ⱆⰾⰴⰵⱃⰻⰽⱁ Ⱅⰵⱄⰾⰰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Profil
Zagreb, 2003.
Izdanje sabranih djela Slavenke Drakulić.
Predgovor Andree Zlatar nije ništa posebno. Dosta je pozitivistički nastrojen, lame. Zlatar tu progovara o marginalizaciji suvremenih hrvatskih spisateljica, djelomično bih se složio s Andreom Zlatar, no ne bih sada o tom društveno-književnom fenomenu, bacimo se na samu književnost.
Jezik je kvalitetan, u potpunosti odgovara stilu visoke književnosti, dok je istodobno prihvatljiv masama. Jezične aktualizacije su učestale, primjerice:
"Čula sam glasove, smijeh- kao da se tamo gore nešto slavi. Vjerojatno su svi bili bili na okupu, čitava obitelj i prijatelji. I Jose je bio tamo, u trbuhu te žute kuće... utopljen u baršun portugalskog jezika..."
Jezična aktualizacija, iz navedena primjera, se ogledava u aktualiziranim metaforama, koje su, kao što je očito, baš kulerske.
Konstrukcija romana se oslanja na unutarnji monolog koji čini cjelokupan tekst romana. Time u romanu postoji isključivo dijegetička razina komunikacije, naraciju izlaže homodijegetički pripovjedač.
Ime glavne likuše se spominje samo jednom u romanu, ona je Poljakinja Tereza koja je ufaćkala Brazilca Josea. Na kraju ga je i pojela. Što je bilo baš zločesto od nje.
Psihologizacija je vrhunska, temeljita, stupnjevita i živopisna.
Opisi rezanja Joseova mesa su izrazito naturalistički, bilo mi ih je teško čitati. Zbilja ne podnosim krv, a ni nasilje. Ni u životu, ni u tekstu.
Ljubav ubija; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaMm9.... Roman tematizira onaj najmračniji aspekt ljubavi, želju za posjedovanjem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJPhA.... Ljubav je jaka stvar, duboka, baš kada je mračna. Ljubav ne može biti usmjerena prema ljudima, svijetu, prirodi već prema partikularitetu, jednoj jedinoj osobi. Žižek u bačenoj poveznici na jezgrovit način iskazuje onu pravu ljubav. Ljubav je kolonizacija i eksploatacija. A opet, možda ja i Žižek nemamo sreće u ljubavi, pa tako razmišljamo. Ali sumnjam, ne u to da nemamo sreće, već u to da je ljubav nije mračna. Itekako je mračna. Zato je Teresa popapala Josea, a i meni je time dala ideju. Uostalom, uskoro ostajem bez iksice, morat ću početi kuhati...
Svaka čast Drakulićki!
Pročitajte!

[Saga · Rating 1 out of 5]

So how do you write a review on a book you really hated?
As far as I got, maybe like half of the book and there weren't a single dialog.
Though I read a spoiler that basically said that basically said that the main character Tereza ate her lover. A boring and annoying book to read

[Sasha]

Smut! And yet, perfectly intelligent friends like Hesper and El really like it!

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slavenka Drakulić (probably better known as a journalist than novelist) writes sparse and intense novels, often with a profound sense of loss or desperation and incompleteness; her feminism is one of women left partial by the world in which they try to live fully. In this the third of her novels I have read, she recounts a tale of a deeply felt and more than slightly desperate love affair between Tereza, a Polish graduate student in New York for a semester working on metaphysical poets, and José, a Brazilian anthropologist whose research grant has brought him to the city to explore Catholic Church responses to the 1973 Andes air crash where the survivors only did so by eating the dead. They meet by chance when Tereza picks up a book, Peggy Reeves Sanday’s Divine Hunger, from José’s pile in the library.

(Reviewer’s note: it is difficult not to include plot spoilers…. so apologies if this seems elliptical or enigmatic)

Their second meeting ends with a three day ‘lie in’ in José’s university accommodation broken only by his outings to collect food (food and love –the central motifs and images of the book) and very quickly he moves into Tereza’s East Village sub-let for a relationship that is all consuming, broken only by José being summoned to San Francisco when his Sao Paulo based wife and son visit her sisters. This is the tale of only two characters – José’s wife Ines plays a minor role in Tereza’s narration, part as rival part as ally, all as fantasy; former lovers provide some depth to the characters, but aside from José’s suggestion to move in, this is Tereza’s story with José paying a much more passive role, responding to Ines’s summons, completing Tereza’s partiality – but it is important that she is not inadequate, just seeing herself as incomplete and desperate for José to finish her.

Drakulić has been described as having a style akin to Marguerite Duras, and while this is apt it does neither of them justice. In this case, the subjects of study of both are, I think, important – with the metaphysicals place on that margin between early modernity/renaissance efflorescence and romanticism, whose craving of the language of love as a spiritual form, extending and supplementing Tereza’s ontology of self and José’s study of divine hunger, of anthropophagy, makes his passivity and lack of agency deeply unsettling as the narrative grows.

The blurb on my edition describes an ‘ecstatic and terrible conclusion’ (a fitting description) but Drakulić wraps it all in a banal and mundane frame as Terezea cleans the apartment getting ready for her return to Warsaw at the end of her grant, and in doing so sets up a radical disjuncture between the ordinariness of domestic labour and the ecstasy of the end of the affair. In its fundamentals the story is simple – a sabbatical romance develops to an intense level and ends at the completion of the study/research breaks – but Drakulić’s story-telling abilities mean that it unravels as a narrative of recollection told in the midst of its termination while the balance of poetic and flat stylistics means that ecstasy and the terrible is both smoothed out and intensified to become concurrently ordinary and extraordinary as Tereza’s actions become both mundane and explicable.

Not a book for the easily disturbed or squeamish, but a treat for the rest of us. It was a one-sitting book.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down. It is about a relationship between Tereza, a Polish graduate student, and José, a Brazilian anthropolgist, who meet in the New York Public Library. (Bonus points for library-based romance!) His research examines the belief of cannibalism as a sacrament, and the novel is written from her perspective, during a span of four days where she is deep-cleaning her apartment and reflecting on her relationship with José, which has come to a close.

The first 175 pages of the book are compelling - well-written, erotic, highly-charged with emotion, obsession, and desire. The author is obvious about what happens between Tereza and José throughout the novel, but doesn't really spell out the very graphic details until the end. If cannibals and flesh consumption bother you, this is not the book I'd recommend. The last 30-40 pages or so are very hard to read, even knowing what was coming. I guess it is kind of like some sexual fantasies - far better kept in the realm of the imagination than played out in the messy, stinky, reality that will eventually demand a good bleaching.

What follows is an examination of the characters that includes a
I think it wouldn't be as disturbing if I felt like José was as much of a party to the cannibalism as Tereza thinks he is. I think his drinking is typical grief about a relationship he can't stay in, and she manages to interpret it as consent to eat him. These are two very different things. Also disturbing is frequent mention of sexual abuse she suffered as a child, which is not presented in a way that condemns it. She clearly never understood it to be abuse, and to me this colors her perspective of the need for flesh toward uncomfortable rather than sexy.

Loved this little bit about words, unrelated to the story:
"It strikes me that in our everyday lives we use words like frozen food from the supermarket. We defrost them quickly in our mouths and they come out ready to serve. It is only different when I write, because then I pick, prepare and cook them myself. Some I use raw, others I sprinkle on the text like marjoram or pepper, like aromatic spices."

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is half erotica and half crazy obsessive horror story. I give this book a 2.5 as somethings seem to be lost in translation.

The tale starts off with an all encompassing love affair between two foreigners thrown together by their otherness. The book proves that seduction starts with the mind. Since they are from different countries with two vastly different cultures, the only thing that binds them is food and sex. They are bound by their sexual frankness of past exploits and fuels their sexual fire for each other. Although Tereza wants the affair to last forever in the present moment, Jose life intrudes into the perfection of the present when his wife summons him to SF. Jose exudes male sexuality that women find irresistible. Tereza believes she communicates with Jose on a physical level that does not necessitates verbal communication.

At this point, Tereza obsessive love turns dangerous in wanting to keep her lover in the present she has homicidal thoughts combined with endocannibalisim thoughts of ingesting the loved one. Tereza's obsession is so all-encompassing that she believes that she has more of a right to him than his wife, Inez. She equates their separation with death.

I would characterize Tereza as a sociopath for cold-blooded premeditated murder of Jose but the end of which because she was so in love with him that she wanted to possess him completely by endo cannibalism. What made her able to execute the murder in her mind was her Catholic faith of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of God. She actively visualizes the murder before it happens. She chooses poison and pillow suffocation as her weapon of choice. What started as a ritualistic hunger turns into animalistic hunger for human flesh. In the end, she takes the fact that she is getting sick as a sign that Jose has successfully incorporated into her.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The narrative is absolutely perfect. Anyone who has ever been deep deep into the rabbit hole of obsessive love will appreciate the lengths the narrator goes to keep her lover near. The only reason I don't give this five stars, is because the writing is not great. While it starts of amazing, the tone just floats along at an even pace. No buildup. I feel like the story could have been so much better had the author done one or two last revisions/restructuring edits.

[Shatterlings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t really know if this brilliant or awful, parts made me feel quite queasy. Is it a love story or is it horror, I really don’t know that either. It’s like the bell jar crossed with American psycho, and I didn’t particularly like either of those. Now I want to read something light and fluffy though.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.

[Nia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Res dober stil, ampak body horror je pomoje najnižje na mojem osebnem seznamu literature, ki bi jo spoštovala ali v njej lahko uživala. Ogabna knjiga. Vem, da je to point. Men to ni point. Nisem mazohistka. Brala sem to več kot en mesec, ker sem se ji izogibala haha. Čeprav bi rada uživala v Slavenki očitno ne morem. Ena Virk predstavitev še, pa smo :,)

[Robert Gustavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a long, long time ago, and I suspect it might be the type of book that does not read as well as you get older. It was a beautifully written -- somewhat too polished, in fact -- story of a woman dismembering the corpse of her lover, occasionally snacking on it, and finding ways to dispose of the various parts.

I have quite fond memories of this book, and heartily recommend it to anyone who does not roll their eyes at the basic premise.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a pretty out-there plot. Two foreign grad students in New York meet cute in the library, fall into sexual obsession, and she decides the only way to possess her man completely is to kill him and eat his flesh. So she does. I'd ordinarily say that was a pretty big spoiler, but the narrator (the female student, Tereza) tells you herself pretty much right off the bat.

It was actually a pretty absorbing story but it gets very, very gross near the end.

[Boris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitivno najbolji roman iz pera hrvatskih autorica, koji sam dosad pročitao. Da je prvi dio romana bio jednako upečatljiv kao drugi, bilo bi to savršeno. Ugrešićka piše odlično, znalački. Izuzetna priča o kanibalizmu koja se može i treba čitati na više razina. Teško da je itko ikad tako opisao neutaživu potrebu spajanja tijela i tjelesnog s duhovnim. Bacam se odma i na idući njezin roman...

[Madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, basically, this is a very compelling book and everyone should read it. I mean, it does what it says on the tin, really?

[René · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pero el dolor se evaporará con el tiempo, exactamente igual que el olor.

[Beverly J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning book. So well written at times I had to put it down and savor the moment. Grateful I was able to experience such.

[Orfeo entre Letras · Rating 5 out of 5]

No tengo suficientes palabras para explicar mi experiencia con este libro, pero necesito intentarlo.

El amor nos da el poder absoluto sobre una persona? Esa frase se me quedo tan pegada.
Porque a mi percepción pasa, y pasa mucho, el amor nos otorga poder, uno del que no deberían abusar. Sin embargo, en la novela esta frase tiene demasiado poder, porque hablamos del hambre divina como arte amatorio, el canibalismo como un símbolo del amor.
Auténticamente la protagonista no es mala, es una chica que sin lenguaje inventa el suyo con su pareja a través del cuerpo y comprenden la importancia de la comida.

Se besan, se devoran, se muerden y sangran como una pareja dispuesta a fusionarse con el otro, aunque es ella quien decide superar la realidad para cumplir con su fantasía. Por fin tocarlo por dentro...

No lo voy a negar, el libro es repetitivo y profundiza más y más, la autora quiere que entiendas 50 mil veces el por ella hace lo que hace y a la vez que te desagrada cuando la entiendas mejor. Pero te desagrada porque te hizo estar en sus zapatos. ¿Me habré dado a entender intentando explicar este juego literario?

Para bien o para mal, terror o no, esta historia tiene muchos niveles y en 200 páginas explota verdaderamente el tema del canibalismo sin morbo, lo hace con ganas de explorar la naturaleza moral del mismo.

[Boris Laketić · Rating 2 out of 5]

29-godišnja naratorka je u detinjstvu bila izložena seksualizovanom nasilju od strane muškaraca van porodice. Od detinjstva ima migrene. Majka joj je bila emotivno hladna, otac često odsutan zbog posla. Kada iz rodne Poljske dođe u Njujork na tromesečni postdiplomski tečaj, oseća se kao tuđinac. Seksualna veza sa brazilskim kolegom Žozeom prerasta u pravu ljubav, kakvu dotad nije doživela. Roman postiže emocionalni intenzitet u prikazu erotike jednog prožimanja u kome verbalna komunikacija ne igra skoro nikakvu ulogu. Ali Žoze je oženjen, u Brazilu ga čekaju žena i dete, a njegova stipendija takođe ističe za tri meseca. Naratorka već na početku nagoveštava šta će se na kraju desiti: kako bi ostala zauvek sjedinjena sa Žozeom, ona će ga usmrtiti i pojesti! Krajnje agresivne implikacije ovog čina naratorka dosledno poriče, ističući isključivo erotski aspekt (večna sjedinjenost sa Žozeom) uz spiritualnu nadgradnju (pričešće kao kanibalističko sjedinjenje sa Hristom). Pošto je već na početku više-manje jasno šta će se dogoditi, post festum pripovedanje gubi dramatski naboj sve do kraja romana, kada se iz sučeljenosti rečenog poricanja agresije sa detaljnim opisom komadanja Žozeovog leša motornom testerom i odnošenja komada u đubre rađa gnušanje i zapanjenost.

[Katarina · Rating 4 out of 5]

armie hammer tko?

(al ne ozbiljno; dosta dobro napisano - daje brutalan osjećaj paranoje i spuštanja u kaos s terezom - bilo je par rečenica koje su onako baš udrile, ali brate negdi na pola postane stvarno odvratno da sam jedva čitala.)

[Pablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

bueno a ver... pues... bueno... el sabor de un hombre...

está bastante bien escrito y hay momentos en los que te atrapa... en otros se hace un poco bola