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A review by tumblyhome_caroline
The Employees by Olga Ravn
5.0
THIS UNIQUE, MARVELLOUS BOOK NEEDS TO BE READ TWICE ....Well at the very least twice. During my first reading it was like finding my way in a big rambling house in the dark. I got to the end of the book, put it down, had a cup of tea, went to bed and woke knowing I had to read it all over again. This wasn’t because of a huge reveal at the end (or maybe it was...no spoilers here!) but more that the book was saying so much and I felt I hadn’t grasped it fully. I could see there was more but needed to dive back into it. It really is like going to a conceptual art exhibition..it can’t be skimmed over. I am soooooo glad the International Booker prize exists because I would never have read this or heard of it without that.
The second reading was wonderful..like the light had been switched on and I could appreciate the full glorious technicolour of the book. And it is utterly glorious. I spent some time looking at the work of Lea Guldditte Hestelund (the book was written as a companion to her conceptual art) and just took time reading each statement that makes up this novel. The writing is so understated but again and again there are little sections that just made me stop and feel the world tremble on its axis...you know those moments that make you a reader!
The full synopsis is given above, but I will say that although this story is set aboard a spaceship, it certainly isn’t a sci fi novel in the expected sense.
It is written as a collection of employee statements to an HR department or some sort of admin overseers.... The space ship, full of employees, both human and humanoid, take on some objects. These objects have no regular form or feature...in that respect they remind me a lot of the poem ‘The Welsh Incident’ by Robert Graves, but are also like the exhibits by Lea Guldditte Hestelund. These objects appear to cause the humans to experience intense nostalgia for Earth and seem to affect the humanity, or increase the sentience of the humanoids. Dreams become vivid, scary and full of longing...the smell of things in reality, remembered or imagined and the feel of things as sensed by the mouth become poignant and enhanced. The lines between humans and humanoids become blurred.
Statement 010:
‘I don’t know if I am human anymore. Am I human? Does it say in your files what I am?’
And in Statement 052:
‘I know I am only humanoid..... but I look human, and feel as humans do...perhaps all that’s needed is for you to change my status in your documents...is it a question of name? Could I be human if you called me so?’
Statement 069:
‘Am I human or humanoid? Have I been dreamt into being?’
Also the book has such mind blowing surreal images...my favourite being statement 076 that describes what a humanoid experiences when switched off..deactivated.
So I think this book covers so many subjects...
I think primarily it is not so much about humanity but more about sentience...(statement 034) ..
It is about history...and how most of us will exist and then not exist and never be remembered..what is history in that case, how much do we need to leave something of ourselves behind...what matters in our lives and how fleeting is that. ‘ how can we live with the knowledge that none of these days will be remembered by anyone.’
How our working life consumes our individuality and takes us out of our natural selves. In statement 033 the employee puts on his/her uniform and the person they are recedes into the background...the private person is gone. There is much in the book about how work might steal our souls...Although the book was written before Covid there is much to think about the way a person on furlough might feel without work or a perceived purpose..are we just our jobs, our work status?
How much autonomy do we really have in society. How much are we moulded without really noticing..
Aging, I love how one human employee describes being old and how everyone has lost interest in her..how liberating that is...and as I approach 60 I am finding that too, it is liberating!
What do we not notice about our senses, how blunt a tool do we make those. ‘Does smell precede me and do I touch objects with my smell’. Fragrance and the feel of objects in the mouth are recurring themes in the book. Sort of primal senses that are part of being human. This aspect is described so well I had to go outside and breathe the air after reading the book. I realised how we take these things for granted.
I wonder, if anyone reads this, what the recurring dream of pores with stones in them (like pomegranates) means. I have pondered on that...it feels quite chilling.
Anyway...an amazing book. I haven’t read the other Booker International shortlist books but they would have to be Earth shatteringly good to beat this.
The second reading was wonderful..like the light had been switched on and I could appreciate the full glorious technicolour of the book. And it is utterly glorious. I spent some time looking at the work of Lea Guldditte Hestelund (the book was written as a companion to her conceptual art) and just took time reading each statement that makes up this novel. The writing is so understated but again and again there are little sections that just made me stop and feel the world tremble on its axis...you know those moments that make you a reader!
The full synopsis is given above, but I will say that although this story is set aboard a spaceship, it certainly isn’t a sci fi novel in the expected sense.
It is written as a collection of employee statements to an HR department or some sort of admin overseers.... The space ship, full of employees, both human and humanoid, take on some objects. These objects have no regular form or feature...in that respect they remind me a lot of the poem ‘The Welsh Incident’ by Robert Graves, but are also like the exhibits by Lea Guldditte Hestelund. These objects appear to cause the humans to experience intense nostalgia for Earth and seem to affect the humanity, or increase the sentience of the humanoids. Dreams become vivid, scary and full of longing...the smell of things in reality, remembered or imagined and the feel of things as sensed by the mouth become poignant and enhanced. The lines between humans and humanoids become blurred.
Statement 010:
‘I don’t know if I am human anymore. Am I human? Does it say in your files what I am?’
And in Statement 052:
‘I know I am only humanoid..... but I look human, and feel as humans do...perhaps all that’s needed is for you to change my status in your documents...is it a question of name? Could I be human if you called me so?’
Statement 069:
‘Am I human or humanoid? Have I been dreamt into being?’
Also the book has such mind blowing surreal images...my favourite being statement 076 that describes what a humanoid experiences when switched off..deactivated.
So I think this book covers so many subjects...
I think primarily it is not so much about humanity but more about sentience...(statement 034) ..
It is about history...and how most of us will exist and then not exist and never be remembered..what is history in that case, how much do we need to leave something of ourselves behind...what matters in our lives and how fleeting is that. ‘ how can we live with the knowledge that none of these days will be remembered by anyone.’
How our working life consumes our individuality and takes us out of our natural selves. In statement 033 the employee puts on his/her uniform and the person they are recedes into the background...the private person is gone. There is much in the book about how work might steal our souls...Although the book was written before Covid there is much to think about the way a person on furlough might feel without work or a perceived purpose..are we just our jobs, our work status?
How much autonomy do we really have in society. How much are we moulded without really noticing..
Aging, I love how one human employee describes being old and how everyone has lost interest in her..how liberating that is...and as I approach 60 I am finding that too, it is liberating!
What do we not notice about our senses, how blunt a tool do we make those. ‘Does smell precede me and do I touch objects with my smell’. Fragrance and the feel of objects in the mouth are recurring themes in the book. Sort of primal senses that are part of being human. This aspect is described so well I had to go outside and breathe the air after reading the book. I realised how we take these things for granted.
I wonder, if anyone reads this, what the recurring dream of pores with stones in them (like pomegranates) means. I have pondered on that...it feels quite chilling.
Anyway...an amazing book. I haven’t read the other Booker International shortlist books but they would have to be Earth shatteringly good to beat this.