The Employees by Olga Ravn (tr. Martin Aitken)
Review by Elodie Barnes
Billed as a ‘workplace novel for the 22nd century’, Olga Ravn’s The Employees takes science fiction down a new path. Structured as a series of witness statements from the crew - both human and non-human - of the Six-Thousand Ship as it orbits the planet New Discovery, it charts the impact of some strange objects taken on board and the effect they have on those that come into contact with them. At its heart is a fundamental question: what does it really mean to be human? Each short testimony has its own answer, as those who were born and those who were made all start to question their roles and what it means to them to be alive. Both powerful and poetic, the chilling prescience and emotional eloquence of Ravn’s prose is wonderfully rendered in Martin Aitken’s translation.
Life on board the Six-Thousand Ship is governed by work. The logic of productivity and the demands of the organisation are paramount, regulating every aspect of days and nights. Food has become simply ‘nourishment’ to be taken in at appropriate times. Clothes are ‘capsules’, designed (with an eerie relevance to our own times) to protect ‘not only whoever’s wearing it, but also co-workers who enter the wearer’s intimate sphere.’ Holograms have taken the place of biological children, left far behind on Earth, while fellow crew members are no more and no less than co-workers. While humanoid employees are identical to humans in their appearance, they do not have human emotions: they are programmed for work and uploaded at regular intervals. Yet it’s clear, from the very start of the book, that attachments have formed between humans and humanoids. Already there is the question of what actually distinguishes human from humanoid, and we see humanoids begin to wonder what it would be like to be fully human. ‘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?’
The objects brought from New Discovery are an unsettling intrusion into this sterile environment, as all those who come into contact with them begin to inexplicably long for warmth and intimacy. Human employees feel nostalgia for their long-ago life on Earth. Humanoid employees begin to display emotional reactions that are seen as ‘deviations’ in their programming, errors that must be fixed on the next update before productivity is damaged. All are affected by the sensuality of the objects. In particular, the scent of them provokes reactions: we get the feeling that in the logical, clinical space of the Six-Thousand Ship, there is no space for the senses unless they can improve workflow. One employees states that, ‘The first smell that disappeared was the smell of outside, of the weather, you could say…the last smell that disappeared was the smell of vanilla. That, and the fragrance of my child…’
There is only one named character in the book: Dr Lund, the scientist responsible for the development of the humanoids and for the Six-Thousand Ship project. No longer an active part of the program, he nevertheless becomes a touchstone, a focal point of blame for when things start to go wrong. No other character is named or given prominence. Each witness statement is simply given a number. The crew members are also known by number, in an erasing of identity that contrasts sharply with the increasing awareness and personality that they display in their testimonies. The ‘organisation’ and ‘Homebase’ are anonymous, faceless yet omnipresent, determined to maintain the status quo no matter the cost. In this sense the book can be read as a scathing (and timely) critique of the late capitalist system and the systems that perpetuate it today, and it asks how far we are prepared to go in the name of productivity. Do we strive for efficiency until there is nothing else left, stripping ourselves of all the emotions and flaws and quirks that make us human? Do we really want a system in which we have to ask, ‘I don’t know if I’m human anymore. Am I human? Does it say in your files what I am?’
The climax of The Employees is horribly inevitable. Yet it also leaves us with a shred of hope - not from the human crew members, but from the humanoids who, given the chance to leave the Six-Thousand Ship for New Discovery, do so despite knowing that they might not be re-uploaded as a result. For a humanoid, this means death, but a quote from the early pages of the novel is equally relevant here. ‘Is this problem human? If so, I would like to keep it.’
The Employees is published by Lolli Editions, 1st October 2020