This dimension falls into a long tradition of ethical and epistemological questioning of the human in science fiction, as pointed out by Sarah Dillon (2011, 134) in a thoughtful close reading of Under the Skin. It really is difficult not to read this strange, sci-fi story without detecting its political relevance. The protagonist, Isserley, is an alien surgically modified to look like a woman her job is to pick up male hitch-hikers in the byways of Scotland, only to transport them to a remote farm where they are castrated and fattened before being slaughtered and sent, as a specialty food, to the aliens' distant homeland. There's more than enough in these pages to sate the appetite of scholars of gender studies, post-humanism, animal studies, and ecocriticism. A planet collapsing under the weight of large-scale technological exploitation, here set against the pristine beauty of the Scottish Highlands? Check. A poignant critique of the mass killing of animals in the meat industry? Check. A story of physical mutilation and queer body image? Check. A female protagonist struggling with gender stereotypes and male violence in an underprivileged, rural setting? Check. At first blush, Michel Faber's debut novel, Under the Skin, reads like a post-structuralist paradise.
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