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A review by 05olivia15
The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
The Premise: A compilation of HR reports from the crew of the Six Thousand space ship as they explore the planet New Discovery. Half the crew are human, ordinary people who will die before the ship returns to Earth, and half are humanoid, created beings that could (hypothetically) live forever. Ever since the acquisition of some mysterious objects from the new planet, productivity has been down and the ship is being investigated to find the source of the inefficiency.
It's science fiction. It's poetry. It's a documentary. It is one of the most relatable things I have ever read.
The Employees grapples with how capitalism attempts to neutralize, recategorize, and conflate the personhood of individuals with their identities as workers. The science fiction premise pushes the phenomena to the extreme with the humanoids: individuals who were created in a factory by other workers to become the ideal employee. Unlike the humans, the humanoids have no past, no childhood, no family, no religion, no culture, no competing identities outside of their work. They should be efficient, docile, proud of their work and nothing else. They aren't.
Throughout the book, the humanoids prove that nothing can exist solely for work-- there will always be love, art, and feeling. One humanoid remarks, "I've never not bee employed. I was made for work. I never had a childhood either, though I've tried to imagine one," and then creates a narrative of inefficiency, a childhood home by a stream where he learned to swim. Another requests to not receive An Update, "I've been told there are problems with my emotional reaction pattern... Is this a human problem? If so, I'd like to keep it."
Impossibly, they all dream, seeing visions of an Earth they have never been to. They stretch the limits of their imaginations. They reach constantly for some ephemeral beauty, born with the knowledge that there is something beyond the assembly line even though they were deliberately programmed without this knowledge. This pull is innate, unable to be removed, unable to be weeded away. The soul will always triumph (or some gay shit like that).
STATEMENT 018: "All I want is to be assimilated into a collective, human community where someone braids my hair with flowers and white curtains sway in a warm breeze; where every morning I wake up and drink a glass of chilled iced tea, drive a car across a continent, kick the dirt, fill my nostrils with the air of the desert and move in with someone, get married, bake cookies, push a stroller, learn to play an instrument, dance a waltz.... What are cookies?"
I love this book. It made me feel like a person. I cried reading this in the airport.
It's science fiction. It's poetry. It's a documentary. It is one of the most relatable things I have ever read.
The Employees grapples with how capitalism attempts to neutralize, recategorize, and conflate the personhood of individuals with their identities as workers. The science fiction premise pushes the phenomena to the extreme with the humanoids: individuals who were created in a factory by other workers to become the ideal employee. Unlike the humans, the humanoids have no past, no childhood, no family, no religion, no culture, no competing identities outside of their work. They should be efficient, docile, proud of their work and nothing else. They aren't.
Throughout the book, the humanoids prove that nothing can exist solely for work-- there will always be love, art, and feeling. One humanoid remarks, "I've never not bee employed. I was made for work. I never had a childhood either, though I've tried to imagine one," and then creates a narrative of inefficiency, a childhood home by a stream where he learned to swim. Another requests to not receive An Update, "I've been told there are problems with my emotional reaction pattern... Is this a human problem? If so, I'd like to keep it."
Impossibly, they all dream, seeing visions of an Earth they have never been to. They stretch the limits of their imaginations. They reach constantly for some ephemeral beauty, born with the knowledge that there is something beyond the assembly line even though they were deliberately programmed without this knowledge. This pull is innate, unable to be removed, unable to be weeded away. The soul will always triumph (or some gay shit like that).
STATEMENT 018: "All I want is to be assimilated into a collective, human community where someone braids my hair with flowers and white curtains sway in a warm breeze; where every morning I wake up and drink a glass of chilled iced tea, drive a car across a continent, kick the dirt, fill my nostrils with the air of the desert and move in with someone, get married, bake cookies, push a stroller, learn to play an instrument, dance a waltz.... What are cookies?"
I love this book. It made me feel like a person. I cried reading this in the airport.