Back when, my wife used to lead canoe trips into northern Ontario. At Wendigo Lake, the version she heard of the wendigo myth was that, when the cannibal demon possessed someone, the person would eat himself -- starting with his own lips and face, and working outward. This is brilliant; but of course the more usual version is that the man possessed would kill and eat others. There's more than one documented instance of a man, believing himself possessed by a wendigo, begging his family to kill him and destroy his body before he's compelled to eat them.
~
At one point in the Thin Man, Gilbert -- the painfully awkward and desperately unhappy teenager who may or may not be sleeping with his sister, and who takes refuge in a laboriously assumed intellectualism -- asks Nick Charles about cannibalism:
My absolute favourite encounter with cannibalism in literature was in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
I'm going from memory here, but the episode went something like this: Sun Jian has been forced to make his way on foot and incognito back to his kingdom, following a disastrous military campaign. He spends one night at the house of a woodsman, who recognizes him. The man goes out hunting, hoping to be able to provide a suitably magnificent meal for his royal guest, but he's unable to catch anything -- so he goes home, slaughters his wife, cooks her and serves her.
Here's the kicker: when Sun Jian learns what happened, instead of being disgusted and horrified, he's actually touched and charmed. And when he gets back to his palace, he sends the woodsman a whack of money to show his gratitude. The author (or was it an editor?) remarks that this is fortunate, since the woodsman will certainly need lots of money if he hopes to find another wife.
~
A modicum of reflection will tell you that human meat -- especially from the middle-aged men who primarily make up Mrs Lovett's pies -- is more likely gristly, greasy and tough as old horse meat, than 'tender as young chickens.' That's okay -- what makes the story horrible (instead of merely disgusting) is not that thousands of Londoners inadvertently commit cannibalism, but that they really really enjoy it.
~
At one point in the Thin Man, Gilbert -- the painfully awkward and desperately unhappy teenager who may or may not be sleeping with his sister, and who takes refuge in a laboriously assumed intellectualism -- asks Nick Charles about cannibalism:
"-- in the United States, say. Is there much of it?"~
I went over to the bookcase and got the copy of Duke's Celebrated Criminal Cases of America that Nora had picked up in a second-hand book store, found the place I wanted, and gave it to him....
Gilbert, book in hand, came over to us. He seemed disappointed in the story I had given him. "It's very interesting," he said, "but, if you know what I mean, it's not a pathological case." He put his arm around his sister's waist. "It was more a matter of that or starving."
"Not unless you want to believe him," I said.
My absolute favourite encounter with cannibalism in literature was in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
I'm going from memory here, but the episode went something like this: Sun Jian has been forced to make his way on foot and incognito back to his kingdom, following a disastrous military campaign. He spends one night at the house of a woodsman, who recognizes him. The man goes out hunting, hoping to be able to provide a suitably magnificent meal for his royal guest, but he's unable to catch anything -- so he goes home, slaughters his wife, cooks her and serves her.
Here's the kicker: when Sun Jian learns what happened, instead of being disgusted and horrified, he's actually touched and charmed. And when he gets back to his palace, he sends the woodsman a whack of money to show his gratitude. The author (or was it an editor?) remarks that this is fortunate, since the woodsman will certainly need lots of money if he hopes to find another wife.
~
'Upon my soul, they are nice, even half-cooked -- delicious! I'll have another half-dozen, there are lots of them -- delightful! I can't keep the gravy from running out of the corners of my mouth. Upon my soul, Mrs Lovett, I don't know where you get your meat, but it's all as tender as young chickens, and the fat actually melts away in one's mouth...'
A modicum of reflection will tell you that human meat -- especially from the middle-aged men who primarily make up Mrs Lovett's pies -- is more likely gristly, greasy and tough as old horse meat, than 'tender as young chickens.' That's okay -- what makes the story horrible (instead of merely disgusting) is not that thousands of Londoners inadvertently commit cannibalism, but that they really really enjoy it.
