Tenderloin

by Joy Sorman, Lara Vergnaud (Translator)

Can killing be an act of love? Hypnotic, gruesome, and exultant, Joy Sorman’s macabre ballet whirls from industrial slaughterhouses to the boutique butcher shops of Paris.

Pim is a delicate youth―stringy, solemn, and prone to bouts of unexplained weeping. When he enrolls in trade school as an apprentice butcher, his mentors have low expectations, but his lanky body conceals a peculiar flame: a passionate devotion to animals. In an industry that strives to distance the chopping block from the dinner plate, his ardor might seem like a handicap, but Pim rises through the knife-wielding ranks with a barely-tethered zeal. He scours blood from floor mats and stacks carcasses in the cold room by day. By night he tries to slake his appetites: at the table, over boudin sausage and steak tartare, and in bed, with women whose flanks, ribs, and haunches he maps as they undress each other.

Pim’s professional successes mount but his cravings gnaw. In the library he teases out histories, like the blood-drinking forerunners to vampirism or the Medieval trial of a killer pig, sentenced to death by hanging. Meat crowds his waking thoughts. Even as he carves ripe flesh from exquisite bone, he labors to close the gap between man and beast―to be seen, understood, even loved, by a primordial mind. Will this ravenous obsession yield to madness, or to ecstasy?

With shades of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Joy Sorman’s Tenderloin is an ethical foray, fever dream, and paean to an ageless hunger. Vegetarians and carnivores alike are invited to feast at this sumptuous literary table. After all, we are what we eat.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Thriller, Horror Thriller, France

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Joy Sorman, l'auteur du texte, a publié aux éditions Gallimard, Boys, boys, boys (Prix de Flore 2005), Du bruit (2007)... Elle est aussi l auteur d un essai (en collaboration), 14 femmes, pour un féminisme pragmatique (Gallimard, 2007) et chroniqueuse pour la télévision et la radio (Paris Première, France Inter). Son recueil de nouvelles Gros OEuvre, paru chez Gallimard en mars 2009, porte sur la maison et l habitation. Elle vit à Paris.

Reviews

[Vicki Herbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

We've Got to Get Ourselves
Back to The Garden...

TENDERLOIN by Joy Sorman

No spoilers. 4 stars. As a high school student, Pim's life was transformed by an educational video on becoming a butcher by trade...

Pim didn't aspire to butchery...

He just wanted to get out of school, find a job, and just get on with his life...

Pim began his apprenticeship, though no one thought he'd succeed. He was tall but too skinny, and he constantly and randomly cried for no apparent reason...

When having sex with women...

Pim would use his hands to locate and mentally identify the ladies' various cuts of meat, so to speak...

His hands...

... would guarantee Pim a bright future. He'll leave the college degree jobs to someone else. He prefers dirty and concrete jobs...

Pim's apprenticeship included a trip to the slaughterhouse as well as a live-in stay on a farm, where livestock were lovingly raised but ultimately headed for slaughter...

2 years later...

Pim is the best and most famous butcher in all of Paris, indeed, in all the world...

Butchery begins when the animal meets its end in the slaughterhouse...

There...

The animal is transformed from carcass to edible food. There will be cries and blood, and the twitching meat's screams...

In the beginning...

Killing for food was a private affair between man and beast. Now, there are many intermediaries, and they continue to multiply...

Pim's dream is to get back to The Garden...

This was a weird little tale that was a cross between TENDER IS THE FLESH by Agustina Bazterrica and PERFUME: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind (Both are also excellent stories)

Warning to some readers: graphic depiction of animal slaughterhouse killing

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I meant to only read the first page, but I could not stop there. This was, by far, one of the most original stories I've ever read. A man dedicated to the art, the craft of butchering meat. But like most people obsessed with perfection, Pim realizes that once he has achieved his life's dream, there has to be more. Pim devises a plan to truly unlock the highest form of butchery.

What an absolutely gruesome and disturbing tale--yet, it was told so eloquently--I was fascinated. The prose is accessible and unique, Joy Sorman has a superb storytelling voice...like I was watching an award-winning A24 movie.

Of course I saw Jesse Plemons in this role. He played a butcher in the 3rd season of Fargo opposite his real life wife, Kirsten Dunst. He was perfect in this movie for my mind.

Major triggers for animal lovers. Explicit slaughterhouse/butchering details. Very difficult to stomach, in fact--I was already leaning into a plant-based diet and now I'm going full-on.
This book makes Tender is the Flesh feel like child's play.

[endrju · Rating 4 out of 5]

A disgusting piece of literature. Descriptions upon descriptions upon descriptions of killing domesticated animals, slaughterhouses and carving up and devouring the animal flesh. What works here is not that though it's very effective, but pushing the interrelated concepts of maleness, ethnicity (Frenchness, Barthes would say), and food (beefsteak and 'frites', Barthes again) over the line in the final pages (man the hunter hunting cows in the "primeval" nature of semi-rural France), which show how ridiculous such social formation is. Not less murderous for it, but ridiculous nevertheless.

[Riello · Rating 2 out of 5]

Horror dla wegetarian.
Jeżeli ta książka miała mnie poruszyć, to niestety się nie udało.

[Elise Houk · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd, but enjoyable read! A well written book! Pim’s obsession and dedication to his craft, mixed with graphic animal slaughtering images made me think more about humans’ relationships to their meat. It also reminded me how far advanced humans have become and yet how close we still are to our animal instincts.

[Dosia · Rating 2 out of 5]

???

[Carina Stopenski · Rating 5 out of 5]

an excellent meditation on mortality and meat. slow-paced and at times dense, but incredibly reflective and visceral.

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

And thus we complete the slaughterhouse book holy trinity 🙏

Tenderloin is a French novel about an awkward lanky guy called Pim who wants to become a butcher. And he’s really good at it. So good it becomes his entire life and soul, to the point where he can’t sleep with a woman without comparing the parts of her flesh to a juicy steak or rump.

I loved the idea of this book but found the writing to be slightly flat. It also ran out if steam quite quickly as there isn’t really a plot, more of a character study, and so when you get past meeting Pim and learning who he is there isn’t much more to latch on to. I think the book would have hit the mark if it included a bit more horror or crossed the line into madness/murderous territory and it felt like Pim never fully felt crazy enough which is what I really wanted.

However I really enjoyed the commentary on the relationship between humans and meat and how we learn to separate them both, but also how uncomfortable it can be to marry the idea of a live animal and meat together in your head. I really enjoy horror fiction which focuses on the meat industry and slaughterhouses - I think being a vegan I find absolute horror in the idea of meat on a daily basis, and so having it explored in fiction is one of my favourite things to read because I understand it and it effects me differently to other forms of horror. Compared to Tender is the Flesh and Of Cattle and Men, this one was a lot tamer but also more introspective that those two and looks more at the psyche than crossing into the horror boundary, which I didn’t mind as it’s more of a literary fiction book anyway.

I hope we get more books like this from translated authors as they are so interesting and exploring the relationship between humans and food is an endless topic which has so many avenues to explore.

[Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un livre remarquable qui donne envie de manger une bonne entrecôte!
j'ai adoré!

[Andria Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC. 3.5 ⭐ rounded up.

[Lorin (paperbackbish) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Restless Books for my free ARC of Tenderloin by Joy Sorman — available Apr 15 in the US!

Read this if you:
🥩 are looking for an unconventional "horror" novel
🥓 want a fast, unique read that's pretty introspective
🍗 can handle graphic descriptions of meat and animal dismemberment

Translated from French by Lara Vergnaud 🇫🇷

Pim has dreams of becoming the greatest butcher in the world, and he's well on his way. We trace his journey from apprenticeship through the opening of his own shop in Paris, yet he yearns for something more to set him apart from the rest. His obsession will drive him to the brink, hopelessly entwining love and slaughter in Pim's mind.

This was such a strange and unique little novel. I'd classify it as a type of horror, but the most horrific thing about it is the fact that there isn't any — it's just detailed descriptions of everyday butchery and animal slaughter. It's kind of wild how something so regularly occurring and readily accepted in society can be so atrocious to read about.

But what is the point of this story, you ask? I'm not really sure. I can tell you that it made me never want to eat beef ever again. I think the descent into Pim's obsession is pretty fascinating, especially how he views his murderous craft as a form of love and care. I wish the ending had been maybe a tad more dramatic, but overall I was pleased by my time spent in this grotesque world of meat.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

[Margaux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un roman surprenant, original, très dérangeant aussi, qui ouvre la réflexion sur nos habitudes de consommation de viande... Des réflexions auxquelles on ne pense pas toujours, tant on est habitués a en manger, et pourtant manger de la viande est présenté comme une pratique non-anodine, tant du fait que les animaux sont sacrifiés pour nourrir l'humanité que du fait que le vivant se transmettrait au vivant lors de la consommation.
La perspective du boucher qui aime les bêtes comme un maniaque, et en particulier les animaux d'élevage plus que les animaux domestiques, parce qu'ils sont rentables était intéressante aussi... Ambivalence d'amour et de cruauté, quelle passion...
La violence du métier de boucher, la pénibilité du métier avec son environnement froid et métallique, on n'y pense pas tous les jours non plus.
On s'interroge sur le message que l'auteure a voulu nous transmettre, était ce une dénonciation de la viande (tant l'écriture est crue et sanglante, sans concession, on se dirait qu'un véritable végétarien ne penserait même pas a nous faire un tel récit ?), ou seulement un plaidoyer pour plus de bien être animal ? Ça reste mystérieux a mes yeux
J'ai trouvé ce roman très ennuyeux au départ, l'écriture peu fluide, les termes techniques de boucherie énumérés étaient lassants, mais au bout de ma lecture, je trouve que ce roman est innovant.

[Ash · Rating 2 out of 5]

This lil book took me a long time to get through. The subject matter was challenging for me so I’m not surprised it took that long. I loved the writing and I found it interesting looking through the eyes of a butcher that found beauty in his profession when I was expecting a cold and sterile interpretation.

That being said I HATED the ending. The last 15 pages were so incredibly frustrating to me. Pim, who had been depicted as an artist for his butchery just off and decides to get drunk, free some cows and then hunt one? I know this was probably supposed to be somewhat a descent into madness and losing oneself but honestly, what the hell. It was completely out of character and there wasn’t even really a buildup of these actions (sure he was reading cannibal books but that’s just like a Tuesday for me). I was enjoying the ride, although it being a bit disgusting and hard to read, up until this point. 2.5 ⭐️

[Connor K · Rating 4 out of 5]

really dug this one! was on edge the whole time bc i wasnt sure if pim's love for steak was going to escalate to cannibalism but im not mad that it didnt. just very interesting premise bc this isnt an area of society (butchers) that has a light shone on it frequently although so many of us eat steak. we just eat beef all the time while rarely thinking about, in depth, where it comes from. also veryyyy interesting that jonathan safran foer is thanked by the author bc although hes super annoying, he did write one of the most well-known books about the meat industry since the jungle so like authors who write about meat find each other?

[Athousandeyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rip Pim you would’ve loved tma 18

[Meliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

honestly with a rating as low as this i expected this to be really bad but it’s honestly not. it reads a lot like Tender is the Flesh but specifically the slaughterhouse segments of the story and without the cannibalism. Tender is the Flesh is clearly trying to get you to go vegan while pretending it’s saying something about sexism and this is also trying to get you to go vegan but it’s less judgmental and more realistic about it.
this books main theme is that our protagonist is a butcher who has a strong respect and love for animals, a noble butcher if you will, and as he goes through his training to become a professional butcher his mind kinda breaks from how brutal the slaughterhouse system is until he realizes the best way to consume meat is the way god intended, you have to fight that cow to the death. it’s an interesting idea and tbh if the book fleshed out some of its other ideas more (like the fact that our protagonist gets naked and goes through the slaughterhouse as if he was a pig or the idea of altering your body to look like an animal) and cut out the stuff about his dating life i think it would’ve been really solid. not just unique but genuine in its moral while still being decently gruesome.

while tender is the flesh is a go vegan story pretending to be a feminist story this is a go vegan story that acknowledges the real crime isn’t eating meat, it’s industrializing the process so that’s pretty neat!

[Chuck Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novella was a chore to read, not due to the difficulty of the prose or subject matter or anything, but just for the simple fact that it was just not interesting. Yes the way Joy Sorman wrote about butchering and how the animals were killed was graphic at times, but it wasn’t disgusting or anything.

I found the story was, to be frank, just not very interesting. I stayed with the story because I kept thinking something was going to happen, and nothing out of the ordinary really did. Pim was a weird dude for sure, but being obsessed with your craft, is not anything crazy.

The ending was really unsatisfactory as well. His “big thing” to change butchery, wasn’t really that crazy and felt really underwhelming after reading 100+ pages about how obsessed with his craft he was. I honestly expected something more daring to be the final conclusion.

Overall, I wish I had stopped reading this earlier, this novella just really wasn’t worth it.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Joy Sorman's Life Sciences which was published in English by Restless Books in 2021. Tenderloin is an earlier work, although only just published in the U.S, and her writing style is still really engaging, however, other aspects of this novel didn't work quite as well.

The book centers on Pim, a young Frenchman who is training to be a butcher. The novel follows him from his college courses, an internship and after his graduation as he progresses and excels at the art of butchery. Joy Sorman makes it clear that it is an art, portraying the skill and sweat that Pim pours into his work while never moralizing about the profession. This applies to the novel even when she takes us with Pim to the slaughterhouse. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the descriptions of the journey from animal to packaged meat will turn off many a meat eater, but it isn't gratuitous or over dramatized. It's clear that she is critical of industrial meat production, but it never feels as though she is saying, eating meat is bad.

Pim is a strange character who becomes more so as his obsession with butchery grows. There are hints at several points in the novel that this could turn into something horrific, or at least unhinged, but by the last fifteen or so pages of the novel, very little has really happened and the ending itself felt anticlimactic. I didn't need a big event and am generally not a plot focused reader but there needed to be more than just a description of a life.

Joy Sorman's writing is a delight to read so this short novel was not a chore to finish but it almost felt like an extended short story where very little happens, and the ending is puzzling. As a vegetarian, the subject matter did give me pause but rarely did I feel the need to skim and am glad I read it. It just needed a bit more meat on its bones! (sorry ;))

[Amy ☁️ (tinycl0ud) · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Animals are exemplary when it comes to dying but they don’t know that. You have to like the animals that teach us how to die because we’re all going to die the same death, no one will be spared, animals tell us there’s no way out, for them like for us, we’re all corpses in the end.”

I think this book would appeal to meat-lovers, like if you enjoy eating steak or fancy imported pork or you care about the types of cut, this could be really insightful for you. For me, I don’t eat mammals and haven’t since I was eleven so reading this book just made me feel queasy, what with the extremely vivid and detailed descriptions of how cows and pigs are raised and slaughtered then transformed into meat that you buy at the supermarket. NGL I thought the guy was a siao lang, that he finally snapped from the isolation and went dancing around with hunks of meat in a cold locker. I’m not much of an animal rights activist but I think if I was on the fence before, I’d probably swear off meat the next day. One good thing is that this book did not go where I thought it’d go, so there’s no cannibalism or murder. Just a guy and his love for meat.

The protagonist is a man named Pim, who starts out as a butcher apprentice in Ploufragan. He’s eccentric to begin with, which I guess makes him very well-suited for the job. You need a certain level of single-minded determination to get good at butchery. He soon excels in it, wins awards at competitions, and manages to open his own butcher shop in Paris and make a name for himself. But he doesn’t care about all that—fame, money, girls, it’s all just inconsequential background noise to him. Pim is interested in one thing and one thing only: meat. He wants to transcend contemporary butchery and return to a blissful primal state when man had an intimate relationship with the meat he consumes. This leads him back to the farm where he first developed his deep love of the animals meant for death, and he commits an act that would not make sense to the world but means everything for him.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Admirable writing and translation. However, this is not for the faint of heart/stomach or the vegetarian. It's almost a fairytale in which our hero, Pim sets out to be the best butcher in the world, in the French tradition. After high school he signs on for an apprenticeship and quickly devotes his full self to his goal - "Pim imagines himself a knight in shining meat." (20) To his credit, he is devoted, meticulous, an avid, engaged learner, and he quickly ascends among other students. To really know the profession, he learns all facets: the slaughterhouse (pretty graphic in its process description), and he lives for a time on a farm with a breeder of cows. No task or encounter is beneath him and he truly has a love and appreciation for the animals he will assemble (disassemble?) into food. He also has a great respect for the French culinary tradition and wants to prepare only the best cuts. He reaches another goal of leaving his Normandy home region and setting up shop in Paris. Ultimately he may be a little too obsessed and it is unclear if he has given too much to his aspirations by the end. "Will this ravenous obsession yield to madness or ecstasy?" (book blurb) Not meant to be a realistic narrative, the book is more an exploration of artisan labor, and a look at the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals. It could also be read as a modern verison of Sinclair's "The Jungle" to question the scale of consumption in our world. Lots to talk about, but lots that wouldn't want to be talked about. Tripe, anyone?

[Era Papieru · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jestem rozczarowana. Sama wiem jak wielkim przeżyciem potrafi być wizyta w rzeźni. Byłam, widziałam – nie polecam. Coś, co zapowiadało się na historię z wielkim „łał”, okazało się dziwnym tworem o pogłębiającej się obsesji Pima na punkcie mięsa, gdzie bohater, co rusz dochodzi do budzących wątpliwości i często będących w opozycji do siebie wniosków. Czy zabijanie zwierząt jest sposobem, aby nie wyginęły? A może wręcz przeciwnie – utrzymuje je w ryzach, aby nie odebrały człowiekowi należnej mu pozycji w świecie.

Scena z włamaniem jest…no właśnie – sceną. Trwa ułamek książki i w dłuższej perspektywie wydaje się nie mieć wpływu na dalszą fabułę. Fabułę, która przepełniona jest opisem poszczególnych części mięsa (co dla niektórych ludzi może być niesmaczne, a dla mnie było…nużące) oraz podkreśleń jak to Pim kocha zwierzęta (co też zaczyna być w pewnym momencie drażniące). Po przeczytaniu nie doszłam do zaskakującej puenty, zakończenie nie wbiło mnie w fotel i raczej nie zapamiętam tej pozycji zbyt długo. Jeżeli zaś mogłabym ją do czegoś porównać, to wydaje mi się, że inspiracją mogło być „Pachnidło”. Ko czytał ten wie jak bohater z pasją do zawodu zatracał się w szaleństwie. Tu motyw jest podobny jednak podobny nie oznacza tak samo dobry.

[Rebekkah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to Restless Books, Joy Sorman, Lara Vergund, and LibraryThings for the ARC of Tenderloin in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I am someone who really struggles with novellas, and that trend continued for this one. I had high hopes because my French speaking peers and friends seemed to have really enjoyed this novella. However, being translated into English, I can't help but wonder what was lost.

Great detail was given to the butchering of animals, but it was nothing severe. Pim was, to put it simply, weird. I kept thinking this would devolve into absolute depravity. There were instances where it could, but it never did. I read over a 100 pages of a man obsessed with butchery and making comparisons between humans and meat. It never went where it could have very easily gone.

This could very easily be a point of praise. Sorman did an excellent job subverting the "could be killer" aspect. However, I think if Pim were to be a killer and draw on that comparison, reading this may have been more worth my time. Ultimately, this novella culminated with Pim hellbent on changing butchery in the most mundane way possible - attending talks and conferences.

[Shelby Denison · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short novella delves into the unsettling world of a boy named Pim, who becomes a butcher and develops an increasingly disturbing obsession with meat. The story is, to put it mildly, strange. Pim’s fixation grows to the point where he fantasizes about being naked with the meat—setting a very peculiar tone for the narrative.

The author spares no detail when it comes to describing the meat process—from the slaughterhouse to the butcher’s block, even down to life on the farm. The level of detail is so intense that I felt like I was preparing for a meat-processing exam rather than reading a novella. While the writing style is solid and the story flows well, I struggled to grasp the overall purpose.

Why did I read this? Why was it written? What drives Pim’s obsession? So many questions, yet the story offers few answers. In the end, I have to admit that this book just isn’t for me. I’m unsure who the intended audience might be, but I’m clearly not it. If you’ve read this and found something deeper, I’d love to hear your thoughts—I can’t shake the feeling that I missed something along the way.

[David W. Cofer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a short (164 pages) and strange book. The story follows Pim as he decides to become a butcher. He enrolls in a butcher class and emerges as the best and most skilled butcher in the school. He wins awards and accolades for his skill in cutting meat. He later earns an internship on a farm where animals are raised. He becomes emotionally attached to the pigs and cows, even to the point of giving them names. However, this is not going where you think it might. This experience does not cause him to give up being a butcher, but makes his resolve even stronger to respect the meat that he cuts, trims, and carves up for his customers.

There are a lot of strange incidents in the book where Pim nuzzles up to a cow, lets the cow lick his face, etc. I never figured out what the author had in mind when writing this book. What was the purpose? Where was it going? One review compared this book to Animal Farm, but that is not accurate. Pim does not turn from being a butcher just because he developed an intimacy with the animals, but was even more determined to butcher the live animals himself. A strange book.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tenderloin is the sort of book without much of a plot, and has more to do with a concept. Through Pim, we learn about the process of preparing meat via Pim learning to become a butcher. Pim apprentices with a butcher, works on a farm, tours a factory where they kill and prep the carcass for the butcher and later, when he has his own shop, goes to a market to choose what meats he wants for his shop. 

Pim loves his job and loves the animals and the book asks us if we can love what we kill and consume. 

Mother Horror recommended this book and particularly for the crazy ending, so I was expecting something even more. I wouldn't call this  horror because the horror is in the everyday that we can't accept, or the horror is the reminding? In either case, I thought the ending was okay, but that there was still more for the book to explore - how we feed our animals, how we process dairy and eggs, how we cook. My favorite part was Pim in the market and how he examined the meat. My least that I can't understand his tears or him.

[Habiba Ihab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comme une bête de Joy Sorman est un roman à la fois captivant et dérangeant. L’écriture de l’auteure, précise et immersive, regorge de descriptions détaillées des abattoirs, du sang, des organes, et des gestes pratiqués sur les animaux. Ces passages m’ont profondément troublée, me poussant à m’interroger sur des aspects auxquels je n’avais jamais prêté attention auparavant.

Le style narratif rappelle celui d’un chef-d’œuvre cinématographique : des scènes fragmentées, presque indépendantes, qui s’enchaînent sans forcément être reliées de manière évidente. La fin, ouverte à l’interprétation, m’a laissée perplexe, avec une multitude de questions en tête.

C’est une œuvre forte, qui ne laisse pas indifférent. Je la recommande à ceux qui n’ont pas de problème avec des descriptions explicites de l’anatomie animale et qui sont prêts à réfléchir sur des questions morales et existentielles. Un roman unique qui mêle poésie brute et réflexion profonde.

[Kristin Mock · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, I love that Goodreads classifies Tenderloin as "Weird Fiction". I struggled to classify it in my own collection, but I eventually decided it falls under "Horror". The gruesome descriptions of meat and Pim's mindset toward the end are what ultimately did it for me. I spent much of this story debating if I am supposed to leave as a vegan or a cannibal and that alone made this novel fantastically horrific.

Tenderloin is a quick read that will take you on a journey of understanding not only the literal process of meat processing, but the spiritual side of it as well. Tenderloin gets you thinking not only about how humanity began eating meat, but how the process has changed over time and what that means. 

If you need something weird on your plate that you can't get out of your mind, and you don't mind visual descriptions of meat, this book is for you!

Thank you, LibraryThing, for a copy of Tenderloin!

Read more reviews at kristinmockbooks.com/blog

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an odd but ultimately very memorable book, short and blood-red. I like natural history, so I found the butchering details fascinating rather than repellent. "Tenderloin" even convinced me to visit a small-scale slaughterhouse to see what the process actually looks like — in fact in was a very well-run place used mostly by farm families raising a few of their own animals for meat. I imagined Pim by my side, deciding whether these cows and pigs had led dignified lives…
I read the book in both French and English. The translation is excellent. Also, if you're looking for a French book that's short and not too difficult (despite a little technical butchering vocabulary), this is a good choice.

[That Kanpuria · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book has a couple good things working for it and a lot not working for it.

The writing style is too dense, replete with jargon. It is consistent, but also gets rather boring after a while. Almost repetitive.

It's a short read. And you can finish it in one sitting. It has got that working for it.

The main character PIM is rendered slightly caricaturish. The narration of his routine obsession with butchering is too matter of fact. So much so that it contributes to the surrealism.
But it is a bit "overdone" :)

I think Of Cattle and men - written by Ana Paula Maia does a far better job while conveying home the same themes.

I wouldn't say I was disappointed. It's just that the promise that the book shows in the first few pages isn't kept when you finish it.

[Josephine McCormick · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.7, beautifully written but harsh subject matter. Follows a dedicated young butcher's love for meat. Thought this would escalate into another cannibalism book; instead a thoughtful depiction of craft and connection. Sorman's motivation?

"He happily leaves modernity's ghostly professions--marketing or communications--to others, will choose a dirty and concrete line of work." (10)

"They also teach us how to live, in excess, since beasts are man's fever: we will suffer just like them, we're large cuts of raw beef, our bodies escape us, slip between our fingers, slip out of our awareness." (96)

"...while a carnivorous love pours out of him, an insensate gratitude for the animals he loves and eats, that he loves and kills." (164)