Safe Return Doubtful

Translated by Sarah Moses

This dystopian horror tale postulates that humans have reverted to cannibalism after a virus has finished off animals. Credible scenario or not, and however seriously you take it, this is an intelligent musing on the future of mankind and a satirical contemplation on past inhumanities.

This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these…
Did you say knives?
Rotating knives, yes.
Are you proposing to slaughter our tenants?

I had Python in mind from very early on, and I think that’s the way to go with this.

Listen… chaps… there’s still a chance. I’m… done for, I’ve got a gammy leg and I’m going fast; I’ll never get through. But some of you might. So… you’d better… eat me.
What, with a gammy leg?
I’d rather eat Johnson, sir.

Reading it on any other level would be difficult, repulsive even.
But horror can fulfil that purpose, being an escapist entertainment, as in the 70’s Hammer films, and The League of Gentlemen. The latter especially bears comparison; Bazterrica uses the term ‘special’ to distinguish the meat, as with Hillary Bliss, and his ‘special stuff’.
Bazterrica is more subtle than Cleese, Palin, Jones, Chapman and Idle; she dares you to take her seriously, but with the catch. that if you do, you may not make page 50.
Is it in bad taste (pardon the pun)? I think that’s a matter of opinion, but certainly many won’t go anywhere near it. For me, I think its bold of Pushkin to have translate it – Sarah Moses – (it originated from Argentina) and publish it, and yes…unsurprisingly, I quite enjoyed it.