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The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century (Olga Ravn)

“There’s humans, and then there’s humanoids. Those who were born and those who were made. Those who are going to die and those who aren’t. Those who are going to decay and those who aren’t going to decay.”

I thought this was absolutely brilliant. Told in short, stark sentences, it’s a collection of witness statements from the crew of the Six-Thousand ship. The statements initially begin as a description of objects collected from a nearby planet. It’s pretty strange to begin with, but then it gets even stranger, as we gradually learn about the rest of the crew. The humans long for memories of a long-ago earth (some of them depending on holograms to relive their memories), while the humanoids reflect on their own nature. The book is probably saying something very deep about work/capitalism/professionalism, but I loved it for its lonely melancholy, its bareness. The book was apparently inspired by an art installation, which is very interesting to think about. I’d also recommend this interview with the author.

Just brilliant. I would absolutely read this again.

“I want to be a good employee. I want to make good choices.”

“I may have been made, but now I’m making myself.”

Chilean Poet (Alejandro Zambra)

“What kinds of poems do you want to write?”

“True poems. Honest poems, poems that make me change, that transform me. You know?”

“If you publish a book, you’re a poet. Maybe you end up regretting it, but once you publish a book of poems you’re screwed, you’ll always be a poet.”

Well, I thought this book was just wonderful. It’s about Chilean poets—two specifically, a stepfather and his stepson. But there are other poets, too—a country of them.

I thought it was quite ambitious and impressive how much time this novel covers. I am glad I read the blurb for it halfway through, because it prepared me for the return of one of the main characters (otherwise I think I might have gotten antsy about him going offstage at the 50% mark, but his absence is definitely essential).

We begin with the story about two high school sweethearts (“sweetheart” is actually a bit of a stretch…), Gonzalo and Carla, and their early days of courtship. Years later, Gonzalo becomes part of Carla’s life yet again, as well as the life of her young son Vicente, who will emerge as the novel’s second most important character. We meet Pru, a U.S. writer heartbroken over the end of the relationship with her female best friend and roommate, who travels to Chile on a commission to write about Chilean poets. “You guys are like Bolaño characters,” she tells Vicente and his friend. For Vicente has become a Chilean poet, just like his stepfather Gonzalo was before him. It’s an important connection between the two characters, especially during the section of the book where they’re not in direct touch anymore.

I would describe the tone of this book as highly affectionate. Is Zambra making fun of the self-professed importance of these Chilean poets? Their hyper-masculine world, their pretentiousness, their inability to grow up? Yes, but I think he’s also praising their passion, their commitment. You could definitely read this book alongside <i>The Savage Detectives.</i> I loved the scene of the poet party, and of the montage of all the poets that Pru interviews. For a character who doesn’t appear until quite late in the book (nearly the 50% mark) she emerges as quite key for the book’s main themes. The poets argue, write, and listen to Los Prisioneros. But the main thread of the story definitely deals with the relationship between Gonzalo and Vicente—their friendship, their love for each other, their affection. I thought Gonzalo using Vicente’s name as a password was a really beautiful way to show this. I also loved all the sequences involving Darkness the cat, and Vicente’s fundraising efforts for his tooth operation. A lot of this book is so sweet and funny!

This is ultimately a very human story about people who love and are utterly committed to literature, no matter how useless and pointless it is. Yes, Gonzalo is arguably a bit of a failure—will Vicente fare any better? Who cares? What matters is that they share that passion, that drive, and the world will always be better off with people like that living in it.

I just loved this book.

“He remembers when he thought he could affect other people with his poems: he thought he could be loved, be accepted, be included. It would have been easier to be disillusioned by poetry, to forget about poetry, than to accept, as Gonzalo did, that he’d failed. It would have been better to blame poetry, but it would have been a lie, because there are those poems he has just read, poems that prove poetry is good for something, that words can wound, throb, cure, console, resonate, remain.”

“Am I good or am I bad, did I change or did I not change, did I ruin everything or did I not ruin everything.”

“The overwhelming joy of being important to somebody.”

“Books were sacred to him, even bad books were sacred.”

“She always sought, and continues to seek, <i>something</i>, and though she is not sure what it is, she knows it is not entirely tied up with success or recognition.”

“The world of Chilean poets is a little stupid but it’s still more genuine, less false than the ordinary lives of people who follow the rules and keep their heads down. Of course there is opportunism and cruelty, but also real passion and heroism and allegiance to dreams. She thinks that Chilean poets are stray dogs and stray dogs are Chilean poets and that she herself is a Chilean poet, poking her snout into the trash cans of an unknown city.”

“That’s why they write poems, because they don’t know how to talk.”

“You can’t write poetry in this fucking country anymore. But I still keep writing, I can’t help it. It’s my weakness. I’m like an addict and it’s my drug. I don’t even realize it and I go and write and poem, or two, or three, or twenty.”

“It’s better to write than not to write. Poetry is subversive because it exposes you, tears you apart. You dare to distrust yourself. You dare to disobey. That’s the idea, to disobey everyone. Disobey yourself, that’s the most important thing. That’s crucial. I don’t know if I like my poems, but I know that if I hadn’t written them I’d be dumber, more useless, more individualistic. I publish them because they’re alive. I don’t know if they’re good, but they deserve to live.”

Rodham (Curtis Sittenfeld)

“Bill. Oh, Bill, what am I going to do with you?”

I am glad I read this book now that Biden is president; it would have been too painful to read with Trump in the office. My gosh, is this the most brazen work of literary fan fiction even?? Possibly! I still can’t get over the nerve she must have had in writing those sex scenes.

I initially had no interest in this book whatsoever, but then I heard an excerpt of it on the podcast Heavyweight that piqued my interest. Lives not lived, choices not made. I thought it was really interesting how this book made the appeal of Bill Clinton (the character, at least) really clear – his charisma, his charm. But it takes no prisoners in terms of his sexual acting out. The book is far from perfect—I found the way it handled Donald Trump really strange (I’m sure there’s interviews online out there where the author discusses her choices). But it’s a fun gossipy read.

This would be a great book to read on an airplane—I gobbled it down.

“There are two kinds of marriages… The ones where you’re privy to how messy they are, and the ones where you’re not.”

“The margin between staying and leaving was so thin. Really, it could have gone either way.”

“Yes, I was me, Hillary, but I was also a vessel and a proxy.”

“Were there rules that applied to me but, because of his charisma and his wealth and his gender, not to him? And yet I was surprised when I heard myself say aloud, ‘The reason he shouldn’t be president isn’t that he’s vegan. It’s that he’s a sexual predator.’”

Companion Piece (Ali Smith)


I liked this but I really want to see what will happen if Ali Smith takes her time with a novel, as opposed to pumping out one per year. Even every other year like Anne Tyler would be good to see. Companion Piece read like jazz to me, improvisational, and not really interested in tying up loose threads. Like: what ended up happening to the Pelf home invaders? Did Sandy just end up staying in her father’s house? Why did she have the vision of the blacksmith in her house? Did the blacksmith make the lock? Smith is obviously not interested in explaining everything but as a reader I was left craving a bit more narrative satisfaction. I think I will have to reread all four books (including this one, it’ll be five) in her seasonal quarter at some point to see how they stand the test of time.

Song of the week:


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