By Lauren Bell
The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century is a short (136 pages) novel written by Olga Ravn and translated from Dutch to English by Martin Aitken. Both authors should be commended for the lyricality of the prose. The literary devices of imagery and personification were particularly skillful, and I have great admiration for Ravn’s creativity in the novel’s construction.
The Employees is structured as a series of witness statements compiled by a workplace commission on the Six-Thousand Ship to describe the series of events that lead to the project’s demise. Nineteen objects are taken from the planet New Discovery, and soon after gaining possession of them the crew becomes attached to the objects and begins to long for warmth and intimacy, which dramatically affects their productivity. However, the crew is composed of humans (“those who were born”), humanoids (“those who were made”), and some with bits of both, which further complicates the internal dilemma amongst the crew: is there more to life than just work? and creates divisive lines within their society (humans vs. humanoids, the crew vs. Homebase).
What I liked most about this book and what makes Ravn’s work so thought-provoking is the ambiguity within the text. In each character’s account names are rarely given (for instance, peers are referred to as Cadet O4) and neither is gender, human/humanoid status, or any other identifying information. The little that Ravn gives us is enough to make us realize the characters are complicated and leaves us wanting to know more about them. Clearly, they’re more than just the compliant and one-dimensional crew members they’re expected to be, complementing the integral themes of the individual identity and the collective one. As well, the objects found by the crew are never identified to the reader; they’re only ever described based on the crew’s skewed perceptions of them. With most of the novel falling into this grey area, Ravn can challenge productivity/capitalist constructs, but also other social constructs such as gender and monogamy.
If I haven’t made it clear enough, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century is a highly rewarding and short read. I very much enjoyed reading this novel and would recommend this it to those who like dystopian fiction, indie reads, and existentialism. Reading it also reminded me of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley because they have similar visions towards the future of humanity.
Thank you to Book*hug Press for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.