The Employees by Olga Ravn. Translated by Martin Aitken (4*)

This author has been on my to read list now for some time and this is the first of her books I have picked up.

Martin Aitken is well known for his translations of other Scandinavian authors and has twice been listed for his translations of Olga Ravn works.

The story is presented as a series of numbered statement from crew members of a spaceship called the Six Thousand Ship. The Guardian book review states "The Employees is not only a disconcertingly quotidian space opera; it’s also an audacious satire of corporate language and the late-capitalist workplace, and a winningly abstracted investigation into what it means to be human. "

What I will say is that it is impressively novel, impressively short, impressively packed full. The Statements illuminate the workplace, the worker, the social interactions amongst the crew, the corporate / political infrastructure in which they work, their reaction to their departure from Earth, their long sojourn into deep space, their arrival on a world called New Discovery and to the artifacts they find there and bring aboard.

But also this novel is very apt in the time I write this with all its discussion of rogue AI agents escaping sandbox boundaries, hacking other systems, their inability to end a conversation, take no for an answer, and to abide by human conventions , rules of law, rules of morality, understanding of what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, to distinguish right from wrong when considering actions to be taken.

Reading this book means letting it flow over you as it slowly and with great craft releases its story to you. A thought provoking read

No wonder it was shortlisted for the International Booker 2021!

Book Review: The War of the Poor by Eric Vuillard, Translated by Mark Polozzotti

The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a short book and not one I would have picked up but I wanted for various reasons to try and read a piece of creative non fiction fiction which has always been a genre that flummoxed me.
This was billed as an account of an event I knew nothing about namely the German Peasants’ War of 1524–25 and its instigator Thomas Muntzer a radical theologian of the time. It describes conflict between peasants and gentry which I thought might politically be interesting as even today that differential divide between the haves and the have nots continues. As I started to read it felt like a exercise in name dropping - the Archbishop of Magdeburg, various Munzers, Monczer, Miinzers Johann Sylvanus Erganus, , Nikolaus Stroch, Mark Stubner, Thomas Drechsel etc - all names which meant and mean nothing to me . Undaunted I continued to read about how Thomas Muntzer read the Bible, how he transformed into a radical preacher and provocateur. Central hear is the Gutenburg printing of the Bible, its translation from Latin and the relationship between Church, State and Power which as the ordinary people were more and more able to hear, speak and read it in their own languages caused a growing political awareness of their social circumstances and those of the establishment. It brings in John Wycliffe , John Ball , 1380 poll tax in England , Wat Tyler and the violent conflicts that arose at that time between the English Throne and its citizenry . Then it returns to what is happening in Bohemia with Jan Hus Czech translations, sermons and their resulting riots. The writing spans centuries, back and forth, and spans countries and it does it in 66 pages! To that extent it is classic short piece writing, every word must count, nothing is extraneous. But, and for my this is big but, it is like reading a potted history, like a concise Shakespeare, so much is left out, we have just the bare bones. This is not therefore a book which will appeal to readers of historical non fiction, may not appeal to readers of historical fiction as it doesn't give any depth to the characters of their motivations. This book was translated by American Mark Polizzotti and was shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize which is for novels or short story collection but I feel it doesn't quite fit that bill. Not a book for me.