A punto de cumplir veinte años, René es enviado por su padre a una escuela algo peculiar para que, en vez de cultivar el espíritu, se adiestre en el castigo de la carne. El cruento aprendizaje que allí se le imparte, cercano al suplicio, culminará con un grotesco rito de iniciación del que René escapa. A partir de entonces, en una sociedad cuyo motor es la carne, tanto como fuente de placer como de dolor, la vida de René se convierte en una constante huida ya sea del legado de su padre y los adeptos al «martirio», ya sea de la sensualidad de la señora Pérez y sus extraños amigos, Powlavski y Nieburg. Pero hasta que acepte la naturaleza «cárnea» de su cuerpo, René se las verá con dobles de su padre y de sí mismo, intentará guardar su anonimato cambiando de trabajo y empleándose en un cementerio, y se verá acorralado una y otra vez por quienes se empeñan en conducirlo a la Sede de la Carne Acosada.

Cuban revolutionary literary artist and poet, Virgilio Piñera, pictured with another kind of Cuban revolutionary.

René’s Flesh by the Cuban poet, playwright, novelist and short story writer Virgilio Piñera (1912—1979). Instead of the Freudian triad of id-ego-superego, with this novel, surely one of the most irreverent novels ever written, we have the triad of meat-butchered-butcher at the butcher shop.

So, for instance, if one were to make a Piñeraian slip as opposed to a Freudian slip, one would say something like “This is one grizzle novel!” instead of “This is one grizzly novel!” Or “I’d really like to sink my teeth into this meaty book.” Or, on a trip to the grocery store: “Excuse me, madam, excuse me, sir, would you mind shifting your slabs of meat to the left so I can walk by?” Thus with meat and nothing but meat on the menu, would anybody care to serve up a slice of life as to how you would make your own Piñeraian slip?

As translator Mark Schafer remarks in his introduction, the word flesh and the word meat are interchangeable in the Spanish language, so anytime we English-speaking readers read “flesh” it can be understood as “meat” and vice versa. Therefore, using this linguistic rule to flesh out (no pun intended) Virgilio Piñera’s vision more completely, the novel’s title could be “Rene’s Meat.” I couldn’t agree more with another reviewer noting how this Cuban novel is not for the faint of heart.

What highlights the tone of the entire work can be seen when René, age twenty, is dropped off by his father at the school where he will receive his education in pain. René meets the school’s Headmaster, a brutish, mean-spirited thug by the name of Mr. Marblo, a large man who looks about fifty and “was as bald as a billiard ball,” – well, my goodness, echoes of another petty tyrant intent on inflicting torment, Mr. Kurtz from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Mr. Marblo points out to René the school’s motto: “Suffer in silence,” and then goes on to speak enthusiastically on how a student must suffer in order to learn and how knowledge must be beaten into a person without that person so much as uttering a moan, death rattle or even an ouch. (Darn, “suffer in silence” could be the motto for every football locker room, boxing club and military boot camp under the sun, not to mention scores of households where physical and emotional abuse abound).

René objects, claiming his doesn’t understand the reason he will be made to suffer in order to learn or why he requires punishment to better solve math problems or memorize history lessons. The Headmaster scoffs and replies he has heard students unload such a long-winded speech a thousand times before.

What irony, Virgilio! Long-winded? René spoke three short sentences. Anyway, Mr. Marblo then delivers his own lengthy speech about the school’s philosophy, the amazing results achieved by their well-tested methods and ends by telling René he will obviously be wearing a uniform.

You have to love this exchange, reminiscent of recruits entering forced military service or prisoners entering prison or inmates corralled into death camps: the authorities set the rules, however harsh or dehumanizing, and those under their charge must obey, no questions asked. Of course, in the spirit of the author’s black humor, this scene could also relate to a youngster’s entering military school or, where nuns still hit kids with rulers, the local parochial school.

When René scrutinizes the faces of those other new students, the neophytes, so called, who, like himself, are about to enter the school’s underground torture chamber, he detects how their faces are completely devoid of worry. Seen through the guise of the author’s penetrating black humor, such lack of worry or concern for one’s health and well-being speaks volumes about the previous training and rigid values these young men have all received from home and family. Ah, family! Suffer in silence, which is a positive spin on the wish to snuff out any sensitivity and the natural inclination we all have for pleasure, affection and intimacy.

As a first step of initiation, the neophytes are accosted by the second-year boys - all fifty, like hunting dogs, fling themselves at the neophytes and begin sniffing them up and down, head to toe. The author’s piercing insight as to how young people living in such a horrific environment are quickly reduced to the basest animal sense, sniffing with one’s nose.

In many respects, I am reminded of the training those youths received in ancient Sparta, the goal being to transform the tenderness of youth into hard, viscous military machines. Bye, bye gentleness and kindness; hello marauding, torture and killing, especially torture and killing, both valued as the ultimate aim of life.

Somewhat thereafter, the school’s professors, all adults, make their entrance. René can see they have truly wretched bodies, bodies he describes as rags and he wonders how men with such rags as bodies can be charged with the cultivation of youth. Good question, René! Observing how an adult’s body, misshapen and in many cases bloated and haggard, is the undeniable, physical evidence of a life turned against itself.

Another diabolical quality of the school is revealed: “spirit” is a meaningless term; all of life is reduced to flesh, body, and an unending human meat market. Is this perhaps the author’s bash against the philosophy of Castro and his Communism? I wouldn’t be surprised since Virgilio Piñera was branded as a pervert and criminal by the Cuban government.

But, but, but . . . the tale takes a decisive turn when René revolts against the school and everything the school represents. And René has an iron will. Predictably, the authorities call him a rebel, a hedonist (ultimate slam made by the guardians of the status quo), a student rebelling not out of pure fear as expected but rebelling out of pure contradiction. Unheard of. The authorities go even further, they label René abnormal and even worse, the most abysmal type: René is an eccentric.

René’s revolt against authority culminates in an absurdist version of the black mass and his immediate expulsion. Once beyond the school’s boundaries and out on his own, the story expands into wider dimensions of absurdist black humor, a black humor with an undeniable bite since René’s world is not that far removed from many features of our own. Again, a book not for the faint of heart. Cuban literary critic Alan Ryan wrote that Virgilio Piñera makes Stephen King look like Dr. Seuss. Truer words were never spoken. ( )

Cuban revolutionary literary artist and poet, Virgilio Piñera, pictured with another kind of Cuban revolutionary.

René’s Flesh by the Cuban poet, playwright, novelist and short story writer Virgilio Piñera (1912—1979). Instead of the Freudian triad of id-ego-superego, with this novel, surely one of the most irreverent novels ever written, we have the triad of meat-butchered-butcher at the butcher shop. So, for instance, if one were to make a Piñeraian slip as opposed to a Freudian slip, one would say something like “This is one grizzle novel!” instead of “This is one grizzly novel!” Or “I’d really like to sink my teeth into this meaty book.” Or, on a trip to the grocery store: “Excuse me, madam, excuse me, sir, would you mind shifting your slabs of meat to the left so I can walk by?” Thus with meat and nothing but meat on the menu, would anybody care to serve up a slice of life as to how you would make your own Piñeraian slip?

As translator Mark Schafer remarks in his introduction, the word flesh and the word meat are interchangeable in the Spanish language, so anytime we English-speaking readers read “flesh” it can be understood as “meat” and vice versa. Therefore, using this linguistic rule to flesh out (no pun intended) Virgilio Piñera’s vision more completely, the novel’s title could be “Rene’s Meat.” I couldn’t agree more with another reviewer noting how this Cuban novel is not for the faint of heart.

What highlights the tone of the entire work can be seen when René, age twenty, is dropped off by his father at the school where he will receive his education in pain. René meets the school’s Headmaster, a brutish, mean-spirited thug by the name of Mr. Marblo, a large man who looks about fifty and “was as bald as a billiard ball,” – well, my goodness, echoes of another petty tyrant intent on inflicting torment, Mr. Kurtz from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Mr. Marblo points out to René the school’s motto: “Suffer in silence,” and then goes on to speak enthusiastically on how a student must suffer in order to learn and how knowledge must be beaten into a person without that person so much as uttering a moan, death rattle or even an ouch. (Darn, “suffer in silence” could be the motto for every football locker room, boxing club and military boot camp under the sun, not to mention scores of households where physical and emotional abuse abound).

René objects, claiming his doesn’t understand the reason he will be made to suffer in order to learn or why he requires punishment to better solve math problems or memorize history lessons. The Headmaster scoffs and replies he has heard students unload such a long-winded speech a thousand times before. What irony, Virgilio! Long-winded? René spoke three short sentences. Anyway, Mr. Marblo then delivers his own lengthy speech about the school’s philosophy, the amazing results achieved by their well-tested methods and ends by telling René he will obviously be wearing a uniform. You have to love this exchange, reminiscent of recruits entering forced military service or prisoners entering prison or inmates corralled into death camps: the authorities set the rules, however harsh or dehumanizing, and those under their charge must obey, no questions asked. Of course, in the spirit of the author’s black humor, this scene could also relate to a youngster’s entering military school or, where nuns still hit kids with rulers, the local parochial school.

When René scrutinizes the faces of those other new students, the neophytes, so called, who, like himself, are about to enter the school’s underground torture chamber, he detects how their faces are completely devoid of worry. Seen through the guise of the author’s penetrating black humor, such lack of worry or concern for one’s health and well-being speaks volumes about the previous training and rigid values these young men have all received from home and family. Ah, family! Suffer in silence, which is a positive spin on the wish to snuff out any sensitivity and the natural inclination we all have for pleasure, affection and intimacy.

As a first step of initiation, the neophytes are accosted by the second-year boys - all fifty, like hunting dogs, fling themselves at the neophytes and begin sniffing them up and down, head to toe. The author’s piercing insight as to how young people living in such a horrific environment are quickly reduced to the basest animal sense, sniffing with one’s nose. In many respects, I am reminded of the training those youths received in ancient Sparta, the goal being to transform the tenderness of youth into hard, viscous military machines. Bye, bye gentleness and kindness; hello marauding, torture and killing, especially torture and killing, both valued as the ultimate aim of life.

Somewhat thereafter, the school’s professors, all adults, make their entrance. René can see they have truly wretched bodies, bodies he describes as rags and he wonders how men with such rags as bodies can be charged with the cultivation of youth. Good question, René! Observing how an adult’s body, misshapen and in many cases bloated and haggard, is the undeniable, physical evidence of a life turned against itself. Another diabolical quality of the school is revealed: “spirit” is a meaningless term; all of life is reduced to flesh, body, and an unending human meat market. Is this perhaps the author’s bash against the philosophy of Castro and his Communism? I wouldn’t be surprised since Virgilio Piñera was branded as a pervert and criminal by the Cuban government.

But, but, but . . . the tale takes a decisive turn when René revolts against the school and everything the school represents. And René has an iron will. Predictably, the authorities call him a rebel, a hedonist (ultimate slam made by the guardians of the status quo), a student rebelling not out of pure fear as expected but rebelling out of pure contradiction. Unheard of. The authorities go even further, they label René abnormal and even worse, the most abysmal type: René is an eccentric. René’s revolt against authority culminates in an absurdist version of the black mass and his immediate expulsion. Once beyond the school’s boundaries and out on his own, the story expands into wider dimensions of absurdist black humor, a black humor with an undeniable bite since René’s world is not that far removed from many features of our own. Again, a book not for the faint of heart. Cuban literary critic Alan Ryan wrote that Virgilio Piñera makes Stephen King look like Dr. Seuss. Truer words were never spoken.


( )

Pinera died, impoverished, in 1979, in Cuba, having lived in Argentina 1950-1957. The blurb in the book says that “his overt homosexuality and independence created for him serious difficulties within the Cuban bureaucracy”….that, I suspect is an understatement. And I rather doubt that a novel such as this would have found much favour with the purveyors of socialist realism in literature. The introduction to the novel describes it as a Bildungsroman but I think that is a stretch. It is a Kafkaesque in the sense of an absurd concept grafted onto a framework of reality. The reality framework is the fact that we are all made of flesh that can be subject to pain and to pleasure and that most of us also consume flesh, in meat and so constantly replenish our own flesh with other flesh. By either path, even two as antithetical as pain and pleasure, “one arrived at a single devastating truth: that flesh was the driving force of life…”.

Tack onto this the fact that Rene is sent to a school, by his father, where the students are tortured in various and imaginative ways to teach them to overcome the pain side of the flesh and to bear its torments without a cry or a flinch. Rene is a recalcitrant student and he chooses not to decide, “in favor of the suffering flesh”, but his obsession with flesh as the prism through which he views and experiences all of life means that he cannot really give himself over the pleasure principle either. Add on some weird cult connections that Rene seems to inherit from his assassinated father and I found myself reading faster and skipping more as I got towards the end of the book. Not one I would recommend given all the other good reading that awaits.