The recent pandemic has caused many people to be furloughed or forced them to change their careers. So it feels especially poignant now to contemplate the degree to which our work defines us and expresses who we are as individuals. “The Employees” by Olga Ravn is a very thoughtful and artfully-written science fiction novel that speaks a lot about this subject through a future-set fantastical point of view. I'm hesitant to filter everything I've been reading lately through the events of the past year, but how we read is often reflective of our states of mind and so I'll naturally have a slanted experience of what I'm reading in response to how the pandemic has consumed my recent life and effected the entire world. This book's relatively new publisher Lolli Editions has also been intimately concerned with the effects of the pandemic as one of their first publications was the anthology “Tools for Extinction” which gathered writers' responses to the pandemic from around the world. Of course, Olga Ravn couldn't have anticipated this reading of her novel because the book was first published in Danish in 2018. Nevertheless, I found a lot of relevancy in how the human and (robotic) humanoid employees of the Six-Thousand Ship discuss their approach to labour in relation to their essential purpose for being. This short novel is composed of over a hundred brief statements given by the ship's crew in relation to some evocative and mysterious objects gathered from a distant planet as well as their perspective about a growing crisis aboard the ship.
Given the limited resources of a spaceship every human must fulfil an essential purpose. Equally, the humanoids were literally created to perform a necessary function. Yet their interactions with the extraterrestrial (living?) objects provoke them to question many things about their existence including whether their work defines them and what it means to be human. In some of the statements we're told whether the speaker is human or humanoid. In others the speaker seems to have forgotten or become confused about whether they are organic or manufactured. Some feel a more secure sense of self knowing they provide a useful contribution. Others feel enslaved by the tedious obligations they must perform. It's so evocative and playful how their interactions with the curious objects which emit different scents or light provoke the employees to contemplate their positions more deeply. They inspire memories or sensuous feelings which had previously been dormant. It has a liberating effect for many including one humanoid who declares “I may have been made, but now I'm making myself.” These are issues reminiscent of Philip K. Dick's classic novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” but Olga Ravn approaches these subjects from a highly original perspective.
As the testimonies progress we become more aware of the bureaucratic force behind these interviews and the mystery surrounding a certain cadet being removed. We also get a sense of an individual named Dr Lund who invented the humanoids. These larger plot points form an overarching narrative behind the individual points of view with their subjective concerns. Naturally, this style of storytelling gives a limited perspective as we only get very small pieces of the story from different human and humanoids. I longed to know more about some of their lives such as a human that forms a strong bond with a humanoid who eventually disengages from further personal contact. Nevertheless, I enjoyed their contrasting voices and felt together this complex network of employees make interesting psychological, sociological and philosophical points. This is a very thoughtful novel but one which also delivers doses of immediate pleasure with it's imaginative take on space exploration.
