Killing cattle....

[fajrdrako]

I've probably read, in the past, graphic descriptions of the killing of beef cattle, but not often. It just happens that this week I've come across this scene twice in the space of two books; and the funny thing is, the horror-ghost story on the subject wasn't the one by Neil Gaiman. The Neil Gaiman version was in his novel American Gods, in which one of the gods works in a meat processing plant and is proud of his ability to kill a steer with one blow. The other book is Close Range by Annie Proulx.

Proulx is a beautiful stylist and that's pulling me along. But her stories are depressing, and all the more so for being so well written. So far the first has ended in murder and suicide, the second in death, the third in a brutal mutilation and castration. What next?