We traveled very far to undertake a task of absolute introspection made in Olga Ravn. Paradoxes that only science fiction can assume with possibilities of narrative transcendence. From the estrangement of a spaceship, moved through the cosmos under some icy symphony born of the big bang itself, we meet characters who end up being us, like humans, only out of focus.
It radically changes the perspective. But the scenario, oddly enough, is the same. Citizens of the cosmos rather than the world. Tiny part of that dust suspended in nothingness. Chance or predestination. The discovery of something beyond or the ultimate certainty that we are barely anything...
The task of exploring new worlds seems to bring the diversity of protagonists in this story closer to the deepest doubts about the nature of being. There is no life on those other planets, at the moment. But with what remains, anything can be a testimony of what is closest, above being a legacy of what is furthest away...
Ship six thousand has been orbiting the planet of Recent Discovery for months. In his crew are humans and humanoids, the born and the made. As a result of exploring one of the planet's valleys, the crew introduces some strange objects into the ship, and something disturbing happens when they come into contact with them: humans begin to succumb to a feeling of loss and nostalgia for what they left behind. on Earth, while humanoids develop an uneasy longing for what they are not.
Each other, human and humanoid, born and manufactured, begin to ask questions about the mission, about the established order and about themselves. They are all summoned by a commission to testify about what is happening on the ship. This is how the novel is structured: a succession of statements about the strange events that are taking place and altering the mission. And everyone, crew and commission, will end up being forced to make drastic decisions...
With perhaps echoes of Solaris, this novel, like that of the maestro Stanislaw Lem, goes far beyond pure science fiction. It is a reflection on the work system, labor exploitation, control, social relations and sexual roles. But it is above all an inquiry into what makes us emotionally and ontologically human.
You can now buy the novel "The Employees", by Olga Ravn, here:
