The Unit
Autor Ninni Holmqvist Traducere de Marlaine Delargyen Limba Engleză Paperback – 31 mai 2009
Vezi toate premiile Carte premiată
IndieFab awards (2009)
Traducerea acestui roman din limba suedeză păstrează acea răceală specifică prozei nordice, o precizie chirurgicală care amplifică teroarea prin omisiune. „The Unit” nu este o distopie a conflictului violent, ci una a amabilității opresive. Remarcăm felul în care Ninni Holmqvist construiește o lume în care cruzimea este mascată de un stat asistențial impecabil: personajul principal, Dorrit Weger, nu este târâtă într-o celulă, ci condusă într-un apartament modern, cu acces la cultură și hrană de calitate. Singura condiție? Să accepte că viața ei, lipsită de utilitate reproductivă sau economică, aparține acum colectivității.
Subliniem tonul detașat, aproape banal, cu care sunt descrise procedurile medicale și donările de organe. Această abordare „deadpan” face ca revolta interioară a lui Dorrit să fie cu atât mai sfâșietoare atunci când întâlnește dragostea într-un loc destinat morții programate. Atmosfera te trimite cu gândul la The Organ Harvesters, de Bette Golden Lamb, deși „The Unit” se îndepărtează de ritmul alert al unui thriller pentru a explora profunzimile psihologice ale sacrificiului forțat. Spre deosebire de alte viziuni post-apocaliptice, aici societatea funcționează perfect, iar „dispensabilii” sunt convinși, prin constrângere blândă, de propria lor inutilitate.
Este o lectură care interoghează valoarea individului dincolo de productivitate. Structura narativă, deși liniștită la suprafață, ascunde o furie mocnită împotriva utilitarismului cinic. The Unit reușește să transforme o premisă politică într-o meditație intimă despre ce înseamnă să fii om atunci când societatea a decis deja că nu mai ești necesar.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781590513132
ISBN-10: 1590513134
Pagini: 268
Dimensiuni: 140 x 213 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.34 kg
Editura: Other Press (NY)
ISBN-10: 1590513134
Pagini: 268
Dimensiuni: 140 x 213 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.34 kg
Editura: Other Press (NY)
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De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm această carte celor care caută o distopie psihologică profundă, departe de clișeele spectacolului vizual. Veți descoperi o analiză tulburătoare a singurătății și a valorii umane într-o lume care pune preț doar pe utilitate. Cititorul câștigă o perspectivă unică asupra eticii sacrificiului, într-o poveste unde dragostea devine cel mai periculos act de rebeliune.
Despre autor
Ninni Holmqvist, născută în 1958, este o scriitoare și traducătoare suedeză care locuiește în prezent în Suedia. Deși s-a remarcat inițial prin volume de povestiri scurte, The Unit reprezintă debutul său în roman, fiind o operă care i-a adus recunoaștere internațională. Stilul său este caracterizat de o economie de mijloace și o capacitate rară de a aborda teme fundamentale precum libertatea individuală și standardizarea socială fără a recurge la excese dramatice. Experiența sa de traducătoare se reflectă în precizia limbajului folosit pentru a descrie cele mai obscure colțuri ale condiției umane.
Notă biografică
Ninni Holmqvist
Ninni Holmqvist was born in 1958 and lives in Skåne, Sweden. She made her debut in 1995 with the short story collection Suit [Kostym] and has published two further collections of short stories since then. She also works as a translator. The Unit marks Holmqvist’s debut as a novelist.
Marlaine Delargy
Marlaine Delargy works as a translator and adult learning support tutor. She has translated novels by Åsa Larsson and Johan Theorin, among others, and serves on the editorial board of the Swedish Book Review. She lives in Shropshire, England.
Ninni Holmqvist was born in 1958 and lives in Skåne, Sweden. She made her debut in 1995 with the short story collection Suit [Kostym] and has published two further collections of short stories since then. She also works as a translator. The Unit marks Holmqvist’s debut as a novelist.
Marlaine Delargy
Marlaine Delargy works as a translator and adult learning support tutor. She has translated novels by Åsa Larsson and Johan Theorin, among others, and serves on the editorial board of the Swedish Book Review. She lives in Shropshire, England.
Extras
It was more comfortable than I could have imagined. A room of my own with a bathroom, or rather a suite of my own, because there were two rooms: a bedroom and a living room with a kitchenette. It was light and spacious, furnished in a modern style and tastefully decorated in muted colors. True, the tiniest nook or cranny was monitored by cameras, and I would soon realize there were hidden microphones there too. But the cameras weren’t hidden. There was one in each corner of the ceiling–small but perfectly visible–and in every corner and every hallway that wasn’t visible from the ceiling; inside the closets, for example, and behind doors and protruding cabinets. Even under the bed and under the sink in the kitchenette. Anywhere a person might crawl in or curl up, there was a camera. Sometimes as you moved through a room they followed you with their one-eyed stare. A faint humming noise gave away the fact that at that particular moment someone on the surveillance team was paying close attention to what you were doing. Even the bathroom was monitored. There were no less than three cameras within that small space, two on the ceiling and one underneath the wash basin. This meticulous surveillance applied not only to the private suites, but also to the communal areas. And of course nothing else was to be expected. It was not the intention that anyone should be able to take their own life or harm themselves in some other way. Not once you were here. You should have sorted that out beforehand, if you were thinking along those lines.
Descriere scurtă
One day in early spring, Dorrit Weger is checked into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. She is promised a nicely furnished apartment inside the Unit, where she will make new friends, enjoy the state of the art recreation facilities, and live the few remaining days of her life in comfort with people who are just like her. Here, women over the age of fifty and men over sixty–single, childless, and without jobs in progressive industries–are sequestered for their final few years; they are considered outsiders. In the Unit they are expected to contribute themselves for drug and psychological testing, and ultimately donate their organs, little by little, until the final donation. Despite the ruthless nature of this practice, the ethos of this near-future society and the Unit is to take care of others, and Dorrit finds herself living under very pleasant conditions: well-housed, well-fed, and well-attended. She is resigned to her fate and discovers her days there to be rather consoling and peaceful. But when she meets a man inside the Unit and falls in love, the extraordinary becomes a reality and life suddenly turns unbearable. Dorrit is faced with compliance or escape, and…well, then what?
THE UNIT is a gripping exploration of a society in the throes of an experiment, in which the “dispensable” ones are convinced under gentle coercion of the importance of sacrificing for the “necessary” ones. Ninni Holmqvist has created a debut novel of humor, sorrow, and rage about love, the close bonds of friendship, and about a cynical, utilitarian way of thinking disguised as care.
THE UNIT is a gripping exploration of a society in the throes of an experiment, in which the “dispensable” ones are convinced under gentle coercion of the importance of sacrificing for the “necessary” ones. Ninni Holmqvist has created a debut novel of humor, sorrow, and rage about love, the close bonds of friendship, and about a cynical, utilitarian way of thinking disguised as care.
Recenzii
Named one of the Best Novels of 2009 by the Wall Street Journal
Marcela Valdes, The Washington Post
“A haunting, deadpan tale set vaguely in the Scandinavian future…Holmqvist’s spare prose interweaves the Unit’s pleasures and cruelties with exquisite matter-of-factness…[Holmqvist] turns the screw, presenting a set of events so miraculous and abominable that they literally made me gasp.”
Jessa Crispin, NPR.org
“Echoing work by Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood, The Unit is as thought-provoking as it is compulsively readable.”
The New Yorker
“This haunting first novel imagines a nation in which men and women who haven’t had children by a certain age are taken to a “reserve bank unit for biological material” and subjected to various physical and psychological experiments, while waiting to have their organs harvested for “needed” citizens in the outside world… Holmqvist evocatively details the experiences of a woman who falls in love with another resident, and at least momentarily attempts to escape her fate.”
Psychiatric Services
“Eerie, chilling, yet almost plausible…Holmqvist gives us a lesson in human nature and social engineering through a story that is spare, compelling, and all too human.”
TimeOut Chicago
“Holmqvist handles her dystopia with muted, subtle care...Neither satirical nor polemical, The Unit manages to express a fair degree of moral outrage without ever moralizing…it has enough spooks to make it a feminist, philosophical page-turner.”
Tim Gebhart, Blogcritics.org
“The Unit raises issues of love, gender, freedom, and social mores through the perspective of how we assess an individual's contribution to society…Holmqvist's ability to invest the reader in both the story and the characters is exceptional. It is a book you hesitate to put down. In fact, I consumed it in the space of a couple separate sittings in less than a day…the book is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Yet to classify or judge it as a feminist work alone is unfair. It certainly surpasses Kazuo Ishiguro's widely praised Never Let Me Go…Hopefully, the fact this is a translated work and tends to be billed as feminist literature will not adversely affect the book's ability to make it to bookstore shelves. The Unit deserves a wide readership.”
Kelly Fitzpatrick, The Orlando Sentinel
“This is one of the best books I’ve read over the past two years...Thought-provoking and emotionally-moving, The Unit is a book you’ll be discussing with others long after you’re done reading it.”
Booklist
"Chilling…stunning…Holmqvist’s fluid, mesmerizing novel offers unnerving commentary on the way society devalues artistic creation while elevating procreation, and speculation on what it would be like if that was taken to an extreme. For Orwell and Huxley fans."
More Magazine
"Like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, this novel imagines a chilling dystopia: single, childless, midlife women are considered dispensable. At 50 the narrator, Dorrit, is taken to a facility where non-vital organs will be harvested one by one for people more valued by society; she knows that eventually she’ll have to sacrifice something essential’ like her heart. Dorrit accepts her fate–until she falls in love and finds herself breaking the rules."
Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind
“…Holmqvist’s marvelous book doesn’t browbeat her thesis into the reader and smartly expands her ideas to look at the plight of all marginalized folk, women and men alike, and how the promise of comforts can be the most horrifying of all. Prepare to be disturbed, but prepare further to think about the ramifications.”
Kirkus Reviews
"Pricey shops that require no money. Gardens that trump Monet’ s. Creature comforts galore. But Swedish ace Holmqvist’s English-language debut soon discloses a catch. The shelf-life for inhabitants of this paradise is about six years. This is the Second Reserve Bank Unit, into which the State herds women 50 and up, and men 60 and over, to use for biological material. They’re fattened like calves, but there’s civic-duty payback: mandatory organ donation, culminating in the final “gift” of their lungs and hearts. Big Brother doesn’t take every oldster, just those termed “dispensables”: the cash-strapped, underachieving or, worst of all, childless. Dorrit Weger, freelance writer, dog-lover and free sprit, is initially mesmerized by her new surroundings. She feels a sense of community, a closeness never offered by Nils, the inadequate lover who would never leave his wife. And she takes pride in being needed when she’s enlisted in one of the Unit’s many medical experiments. It’s a benign investigation into the effects of exercise, but in the cafeteria and on the lush grounds Dorrit soon notices other campers sleepwalking like zombies or displaying weirdly blotched skin. As her roommates are ushered off one by one to their final donations, she panics into the arms of Johannes, a fellow Unit resident who actually manages to impregnate her. Dazzled by upcoming motherhood, Dorrit is certain her bulging belly will gain her freedom. Proven at last productive, she’s bound to be rewarded by the State….isn’t she? In her first novel, short-story writer Holmqvist echoes political-science treatises like Hobbes’ Leviathan and Rousseau’ s The Social Contract (gone decidedly mad here), as well as the usual dystopian novels from Brave New World to 1984. Orwellian horrors in a Xanadu on Xanax—creepily profound and most provocative."
Marcela Valdes, The Washington Post
“A haunting, deadpan tale set vaguely in the Scandinavian future…Holmqvist’s spare prose interweaves the Unit’s pleasures and cruelties with exquisite matter-of-factness…[Holmqvist] turns the screw, presenting a set of events so miraculous and abominable that they literally made me gasp.”
Jessa Crispin, NPR.org
“Echoing work by Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood, The Unit is as thought-provoking as it is compulsively readable.”
The New Yorker
“This haunting first novel imagines a nation in which men and women who haven’t had children by a certain age are taken to a “reserve bank unit for biological material” and subjected to various physical and psychological experiments, while waiting to have their organs harvested for “needed” citizens in the outside world… Holmqvist evocatively details the experiences of a woman who falls in love with another resident, and at least momentarily attempts to escape her fate.”
Psychiatric Services
“Eerie, chilling, yet almost plausible…Holmqvist gives us a lesson in human nature and social engineering through a story that is spare, compelling, and all too human.”
TimeOut Chicago
“Holmqvist handles her dystopia with muted, subtle care...Neither satirical nor polemical, The Unit manages to express a fair degree of moral outrage without ever moralizing…it has enough spooks to make it a feminist, philosophical page-turner.”
Tim Gebhart, Blogcritics.org
“The Unit raises issues of love, gender, freedom, and social mores through the perspective of how we assess an individual's contribution to society…Holmqvist's ability to invest the reader in both the story and the characters is exceptional. It is a book you hesitate to put down. In fact, I consumed it in the space of a couple separate sittings in less than a day…the book is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Yet to classify or judge it as a feminist work alone is unfair. It certainly surpasses Kazuo Ishiguro's widely praised Never Let Me Go…Hopefully, the fact this is a translated work and tends to be billed as feminist literature will not adversely affect the book's ability to make it to bookstore shelves. The Unit deserves a wide readership.”
Kelly Fitzpatrick, The Orlando Sentinel
“This is one of the best books I’ve read over the past two years...Thought-provoking and emotionally-moving, The Unit is a book you’ll be discussing with others long after you’re done reading it.”
Booklist
"Chilling…stunning…Holmqvist’s fluid, mesmerizing novel offers unnerving commentary on the way society devalues artistic creation while elevating procreation, and speculation on what it would be like if that was taken to an extreme. For Orwell and Huxley fans."
More Magazine
"Like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, this novel imagines a chilling dystopia: single, childless, midlife women are considered dispensable. At 50 the narrator, Dorrit, is taken to a facility where non-vital organs will be harvested one by one for people more valued by society; she knows that eventually she’ll have to sacrifice something essential’ like her heart. Dorrit accepts her fate–until she falls in love and finds herself breaking the rules."
Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind
“…Holmqvist’s marvelous book doesn’t browbeat her thesis into the reader and smartly expands her ideas to look at the plight of all marginalized folk, women and men alike, and how the promise of comforts can be the most horrifying of all. Prepare to be disturbed, but prepare further to think about the ramifications.”
Kirkus Reviews
"Pricey shops that require no money. Gardens that trump Monet’ s. Creature comforts galore. But Swedish ace Holmqvist’s English-language debut soon discloses a catch. The shelf-life for inhabitants of this paradise is about six years. This is the Second Reserve Bank Unit, into which the State herds women 50 and up, and men 60 and over, to use for biological material. They’re fattened like calves, but there’s civic-duty payback: mandatory organ donation, culminating in the final “gift” of their lungs and hearts. Big Brother doesn’t take every oldster, just those termed “dispensables”: the cash-strapped, underachieving or, worst of all, childless. Dorrit Weger, freelance writer, dog-lover and free sprit, is initially mesmerized by her new surroundings. She feels a sense of community, a closeness never offered by Nils, the inadequate lover who would never leave his wife. And she takes pride in being needed when she’s enlisted in one of the Unit’s many medical experiments. It’s a benign investigation into the effects of exercise, but in the cafeteria and on the lush grounds Dorrit soon notices other campers sleepwalking like zombies or displaying weirdly blotched skin. As her roommates are ushered off one by one to their final donations, she panics into the arms of Johannes, a fellow Unit resident who actually manages to impregnate her. Dazzled by upcoming motherhood, Dorrit is certain her bulging belly will gain her freedom. Proven at last productive, she’s bound to be rewarded by the State….isn’t she? In her first novel, short-story writer Holmqvist echoes political-science treatises like Hobbes’ Leviathan and Rousseau’ s The Social Contract (gone decidedly mad here), as well as the usual dystopian novels from Brave New World to 1984. Orwellian horrors in a Xanadu on Xanax—creepily profound and most provocative."
Descriere
"The Unit" is a gripping exploration of a society in the throes of an experiment, in which the "dispensable" people--those in their 60s, childless, or unemployed--are convinced of the importance of sacrificing for the "necessary" ones.
Premii
- IndieFab awards Gold Medal Winner, 2009