A Review of Agustina Bazterrica's "The Unworthy"

Bazterrica’s “The Unworthy,” A Review of a Worthy Novel

Preface: In this essay, I explore themes and elements of the book's world-building. I try to avoid spoilers and the central narrative. However, if you enjoy stepping into a book blind, consider reading this piece after you've finished the novel. Enjoy!

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The newest novel by Argentinian writer Agustina Bazterrica is a poetic and bloody chronicle of faith and terror at the end of the world. The pithy little novel moves at a clipped pace but packs a powerful punch. I finished reading this with the same feeling I had with Bazterrica's debut novel, "Tender is the Flesh"-- that is to say, stunned and awed.

The story of "The Unworthy" is told from the perspective of an unnamed woman living in a mountain convent. What little we glean about the world’s fate comes in snippets from the woman’s journal: accounts of atmospheric storms, acid rain and raising oceans, starving travelers and cannibal gangs. We quickly surmise that the world has been devastated by apocalyptic climate change. We are led to believe it is Hell outside, and salvation lies only within the walls of her convent. Indeed, the religious mantra of this convent claims, “Without faith, there is no refuge.”

Bazterrica's writing is sparse and purposeful.  There’s an irreverent, almost fairy-tale quality to the neologism used within the convent, with names like the "Superior Sister," the "Tower of Punishment," the "Enlightened Ones," the "Chapel of Ascension," and the nameless “He”--the shadowed man who rules these women by decree. We learn that the old religions are all dead. There is no tolerance for the old Christian ways, for “the erroneous god, the false son, and the negative mother.” There is only one path to salvation: total submission to the new faith.

Sufficient to say, this new religion is brutal and unforgiving. It's the bad boogeyman version of Catholicism. Every simple pleasure is deemed a transgression worthy of corporal punishment. Every impulse must be controlled. The sisters are turned upon one another, spying on each other and mutilating themselves for the favor of their rulers. The crueler sisters delight in torturing one another (…and here I must offer a warning to sensitive readers: this book contains many scenes of violence, some sexual in nature).

Misogyny is a major undercurrent as well. The sisters are endlessly demeaned by their male godhead as impure and unworthy beings, described as “…mistrustful, skeptical, inconsiderate bitches who drag themselves through the earth, filthy and drooling like a pack of blasphemous, suspicious, wavering women[.]” The relentless onslaught of abuse transcribed in these pages borders on gratuitous. But Bazterrica deftly maintains control of the narrative, forcing us to gaze into the abyss because there’s something worth seeing there. In every scene of violence, there is a lesson. There is a purpose and a balance later in the story.

 Perhaps the most menacing figure in the book is the “Superior Sister,” the voice and enforcer of the convent. We are introduced to this imposing authority early on, dressed in black military pants and wielding a bloody whip. “As she walked, the oxygen around her disappeared,” writes the narrator. “She devoured it with every step. It was difficult to breathe because her perfect body, her magnificent and terrifying presence, took in all the air.” 

The Superior Sister is one of the more disturbing figures I’ve encountered in horror literature. There’s a sexual fetishization in her delight in torturing and controlling the other women—and a constant terror in her omnipresence. She is everywhere at once. She looms large in the narrator’s mind and our own. 

There's so much more to unpack in this novel--from the use of unreliable narration, to the symbolism of crickets, ink and flowers. But this is a journey of self-discovery for the reader. I suspect the book will resonate differently based on the reader's gender and religious history, but there are universal themes for all of us to explore in these pages.  Bazterrica forces us to contend with profound and painful questions about the human condition. What is the cost of a life worth living? What evil would we commit to protect our way of life? By what means do we measure our own redemption?

In the end, “The Unworthy” is a morbid, unsettling, and strangely touching book about a lonely woman searching for hope. It is an unflinchingly brutal story to read. There’s a moral to this dark fairy tale, but you must be willing to reach deep into the teeth of the big, bad wolf to find it.