It’s important to be reminded that stories can also be told by what’s not said. Non-narrative fiction can be a little tricky to follow, but often contains admirable aphorisms. Such as “I believe in the future. I think you need to imagine a future and then live in it.“ This is from Olga Ravn’s The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century. One of the many things driving me insane at the moment is where I found out about this book. I know I ran across a recommendation somewhere and I can’t recall the place. It would be helpful to know since I wonder what it was about the description that convinced me I had to read it. In any case, there will likely be spoilers below since it’s difficult to describe the book without them. I’ll start off by saying it’s classified as science fiction, but it’s not your typical 1950s kind.
The story’s told via a series of employee statements to the company that owns a space freighter. The ship has a mixed crew of humans and humanoids—androids that aren’t easily distinguished from biological humans. They discover some mysterious, perhaps organic, objects on a new planet and the humanoids begin to request, or even demand, equal treatment. The outlooks from the two perspectives, human and non-human, are quite different, but they argue that fair treatment is only, well, fair. The situation gets out of hand and the company, as such entities often do, decides on the economical solution of killing everyone aboard the ship but preserving the exotic objects. Though generally described as “comic,” I picked up on the seriousness of the issues of prejudice and inequality. The quote above is from the very last statement from the ship.
Ravn has established a reputation as a poet and that shows through in this novel. The quote above is an example. According to the article about her on Wikipedia, she graduated from the Danish School for Authors. That made me wonder why we don’t have such things. This isn’t the same as an MFA program. Indeed, the nordic countries seem to have abandoned their viking ways for literature. There’s a deep wisdom in this. Costs of living are high in such places, but so are happiness levels. What’s not to like about a school option where budding poets and novelists can become acquainted with one another and imagine a better world? Writers sometimes give us challenging stories but the reason, I believe, is that we can learn from them, view a better future, and live it.
