Memorial, 29 June by Tine Høeg (translated by Misha Hoekstra)

I really enjoy it when novels deviate from using traditional narrative structures to tell emotionally impactful stories in a way which is utterly unique. Danish author Tine Høeg's intriguing “Memorial, 29 June” is a tale told from the point of view of Asta, a young author working on a novel and a book about semi-obscure Polish sculptor Lysander Milo. Her account is related in fragments which feel somewhere between poetry and a non-linear first person account with occasional text message exchanges. Dialogue, observations, thoughts and written communication blend together. This may sound disorientating and it requires a heightened level of attention to keep track of who is speaking and how to situate this information. However, it quickly builds to a meaningful sense of Asta's personality and a more fluid sense of time. In this way it conveys a highly distinct new view of the complexity of youthful bonds, friendships, romance and rivalry.

The novel begins when Asta is invited to a memorial service commemorating the tenth anniversary of her friend August's death. This disrupts her literary work and her longstanding friendship with Mai who is a single mother. It also leads to a blending of the past and present as the text moves between her current circumstances and the heady days of her university life with a tight-knit social group. There's a mystery surrounding August's demise but also the nature of Asta's relationship with him. Intimate scenes between them are related in pieces giving clues concerning what happened to him and the love triangle involving August, Asta and Mai. I enjoyed how this presents a different way of understanding the ambiguity between people when their connection to each other can't necessarily be defined or classified. Small exchanges between them feel all the more poignant when surrounded by so much empty space on the page.

There's also a wonderful use of symbolism in certain details. The sculptor Milo worked clandestinely during his lifetime to memorialise the working class people around him. In a similar way, Asta has preserved her memories of August to solidify their intensely private moments together and maintain his unique personality. Their friendship group had a number of themed parties which descend into debauchery but they also inspire a sense of the carnivalesque which tests the boundaries of gender and sexuality. Asta's friend keeps a perpetual calendar which doesn't specify any particular year. Her account in this novel also defies a sense of linear time as it morphs from past to present. Though Asta's first book was relatively successful and has led to her receiving a residency and invitations to give readings, she humorously observes the shallowness with which some of the public interact with the literary world. It's one of the things which drives her to create new forms of narrative just as this book presents an enjoyable, surprising and meaningful new way to read a story.

The Employees by Olga Ravn (translated by Martin Aitken)

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.

Tools for Extinction compiled by Denise Rose Hansen

Amidst the general confusion, fear and suffering caused by the global pandemic, I've also found it worrying to see the disruption to many writers, publishers and booksellers. The financial and emotional strain was instantly palpable on their social media, newsletters and websites. The work of many writers and journalists instantly evaporated. Publishers pushed forward publication dates for many books. Bookshops still grapple with the question of when and how they can properly reopen. As an ardent reader outside of the publishing industry it's distressing to watch the people who create the new books I dearly love feeling such hardship. When economic prospects are bleak it's the arts which are typically viewed by governments as expendable. But it's these people who are best equipped to articulate, chronicle and offer an artistic form of solace amidst the extraordinary circumstances we're in the thick of struggling through. This is exemplified by the quick response of several authors from around the world who've contributed to this new anthology “Tools for Extinction”. Included are new pieces of fiction, poetry, essay and memoir which artistically respond to our current times. 

I'm greatly impressed with the speed at which this book was put together but also that it takes a global view from authors from nearly every continent and many different cultures. In a time of such extreme physical separation and when it's impossible to know when I'll be able to travel internationally again it's comforting to hear the immediacy of these voices from around the world. It's also touching to see overlapping observations between countries whether it's the experience of viewing individuals smoking on distant balconies or similar feelings of loneliness felt in very different locations. Enrique Vila-Matas notes how swiftly the pandemic changed from something distant in our screens to arriving on our doorsteps. Berlin-based Anna Zett describes the closure of a local bar and the competing points of view of a circle of friends. Patricia Portela's story is overcast with a newly ominous feel as it concerns an individual desperate to travel abroad. Days can't be measured in the same way now that the sounds of the school opposite her home have gone silent in Olivia Sudjic's piece. Michael Salu's poem describes how banal and small our personal reality has become: “There is repetition and there is routine \ my own reality \ emerges from prison.” Jakuta Alikavazovic's anxiety/insomnia drives her to count coins in a jar. Vi Khi Nao observes how the unnatural denial of physical intimacy and demarcated personal distance means “The world is a place where cruelty has all the swords.”

While some authors vividly describe the immediate impact and vivid fear caused by this virus others feel far removed from its physical effects but experience psychological disturbance. Norwegian author Jon Fosse details a nightmarish scene where the narrator is persistently chased and seeks spiritual communion. Anna Zett's 'Affinity Group' also describes how the pandemic can be a catalyst for personal revelation: “Outside of computer games, the final enemy is just the victim I used to be, projected into the future and onto another body. With the final enemy, it's just like with the apocalypse. If I refuse to let go of the past, I can easily predict what will happen if liberation fails or if love isn't found.” Other authors also consider how the current events can offer an opportunity for new perspectives. Joanna Walsh's illuminating piece 'The Dispossessed' questions how stories are formed in retrospect: “Narratives belong to those left alive. But they're told about what has ended. That's the paradox. You can never peep in on your own obituary to read about your life and what it meant.” Jean-Baptiste Del Amo considers how these circumstances can expose what should have been obvious before: “A virus can be a revelation: it can reveal the limits of economic growth, of cynical profit seeking, of mechanisms of power in a capitalist system.” Similarly Greenland-born author Naja Marie Aidt notes how recent events have made “the inequality as visible as the tiny virus is invisible”.

Some pieces make no mention of the pandemic at all reminding us that there are a multitude of concerns that are totally separate from the top news story of the past several months and how there are other local and national issues which continue to fill our lives. Mara Coson creatively blends song lyrics with descriptions of large-scale natural disasters. Danish writer Olga Ravn movingly considers the closeness or distance felt between a mother breast-feeding her child. Inger Wold Lund's piece (which can also be listened to in audio form through the publisher's website) provides instructions to the reader/listener to be grounded in the reality of their immediate surroundings. Meanwhile, Frode Grytten's poem makes a distress call to the future.

I found it comforting to meditate on these many different points of view. Together these pieces offer a refreshing range of new perspectives which reach across a globe that has become as distorted and flattened as the image on this book's cover.