Cosmopolitanism and Material Ethics 123of its creatures. A land that drinks rivers of blood and is never sated”
(pp. 57–58). Although this lament is clearly a reference to the vio-
lent times in which the novel is set (the last days of Apartheid South
Africa in the late 1980s), by consciously conflating human and ani-
mal blood into one signifier, Curren not only suggests a parity in the
capacity of both to suffer, but also subverts the conceptual barriers
that distinguish between human and animal suffering. The disci-
plinary order of the Apartheid system, whose reliance on violence
the novel makes patently clear, is therefore seen in this light to be
an expression of a pattern of abuse and arbitrary violence that is dis-
pensed in other, hidden quarters of society, in abattoirs and chicken
factories.
That such widespread violence in the country is tacitly legitimized
prompts Curren to label her time “the age of iron [... in which] all
the men across the breadth of South Africa [... ] were killing chick-
ens” and in which their children fight “a war without mercy,” turning
their “hearts [... ] to stone” (p. 46). In other words, the very habit of
dispensing unchecked violence upon animals ensures such behavior
is repeated and consolidated in an increasingly cruel human society.
Indeed, this very conceit finds strong resonance with the words of
Lurie in Disgrace, when he asserts that “people from whom cruelty is
demanded in the line of duty, people who work in slaughterhouses,
for instance, grow carapaces over their souls” (p. 143). This depiction
of animal suffering as an inherently sociopolitical issue is presented
in a subtler form in Life & Times of Michael K, when the anonymous
doctor tells K that “the laws of nations have you in their grip [... ]
The laws are made of iron” (p. 151). Crucially, as in the case of Age
of Iron , this bleak description of South African society is conjoined
with a reference to society’s treatment of animals. According to the
doctor, these “iron” laws have Michael “pinned down” in a hospi-
tal bed “beneath the grandstand of the old Kenilworth racecourse
[... and will] grind you in the dirt if necessary” (p. 151). The fact that
Michael’s hospital, which is increasingly resembling a concentration
camp, is located beneath a disused racecourse, invites comparisons
between his own treatment and that of the racehorses that had been
living above it. During the regular functioning of the venue, the
disciplinary society, which has now descended into violent chaos,