22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Chilling
The Unit tells the story of a near-future society that divides its people into two groups: those who are necessary and those who are "dispensable." The latter category is comprised of women 50 years and older and men 60 and older who are childless and don't work in a "necessary" industry. Many of the dispensables are artists. The primary character, a woman named...
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Chilling view of the ultimate in social isolation
The Unit is a gripping novel reminiscent of the surveillance and control of Orwell's 1984, the reproductive problems of Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, and the genetic experimentation of Huxley's Brave New World, with something of White's Charlotte's Web mixed in, but at its core, the story is hard to believe.
Dorrit is a 50 year old woman living in a version of...
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The Unit tells the story of a near-future society that divides its people into two groups: those who are necessary and those who are "dispensable." The latter category is comprised of women 50 years and older and men 60 and older who are childless and don't work in a "necessary" industry. Many of the dispensables are artists. The primary character, a woman named Dorrit, is a writer who has just passed her 50th birthday.
Because they do not contribute to the future society by raising children, the dispensable people are considered selfish. They followed their dreams of self-fulfillment and therefore when they reach late middle age it's time to "pay the piper," so to speak, by offering themselves up for scientific experimentation and organ donation. The Unit is the housing/medical facility where they live while serving as test subjects, until it comes time to make their "final donation," usually their hearts and lungs. These donations are always made to people who are "needed" by their families.
Originally written in Swedish, the novel is marvelously translated by Marlaine Delargy. I say this not because I can read Swedish but because the English translation gave me chills as I read it. Anyone who can create prose that, quite literally, fills readers with anxiety and fear must, it seems to me, have created a superior translation.
One of the many things that is striking about the plot of The Unit is that, once inside the medical facility, the dispensables generally find freedom and an ability to be themselves that they lacked on the outside, where they were made to feel different and generally useless. Even though the unit offers them many creature comforts that they did not have before, it is still a prison and the place where they will be institutionally murdered. Yet most of the characters clearly value the acceptance and even love that they feel within the unit community. Through these characters, author Ninni Holmqvist raises some intriguing questions about the nature of "community" and how its various members become insiders or outsiders.
The one criticism I have of The Unit is that its central concept -- that of a society creating a separate, social caste of organ donors -- is strongly derivative of an earlier, brilliantly original novel by Kazuo Ishiguro called Never Let Me Go. Although Holmqvist devlops this idea in a different way than did Ishiguro, her plot seems too close to Ishiguro to warrant five stars. Nevertheless, I recommend this novel, especially to readers who enjoy stories in the genre of science fiction/future dystopia.
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Dorrit Weger is dispensable; she lives alone with her dog and no one relies on her. She has not created a new family unit or added 'value' to society in some other notable way and so, as she turns 50, she is collected in a minivan and driven off to the Unit of the book's title. A cross between a retirement community and experimental medical center, her new home is comfortable, even luxurious, and for the first time in her life, Dorrit finds herself forming close relationships and even falling in love. She has become needed by others -- but she is still dispensable. And like all the Unit's inhabitants, over the coming years, she will participate in a range of human experiments, from the relatively benign (how does intense exercise affect the body; is bonding with children inherent even among those who haven't had them) to the more intrusive -- she must donate one of her kidneys to a "needed" member of the outer community. And she, like all her new friends and her new lover, Johannes, knows that with each day that passes, the day of her 'final donation' -- of her heart, lungs or some other part of her body that she can't exist without to someone whom society decides is 'needed' -- will arrive. In the words of one of Dorrit's new friends, she is now living in a 'free-range pig farm'. The only difference, Elsa notes, is that pigs and hens are "hopefully -- happily ignorant of anything but the present."
This novel is a stunning achievement, an imaginative tour de force. Holmqvist has imagined every detail of a society that could dream up such a plan in the first place for women over 50 and men over 60, and then put her imagination to work once more to dream up the nature of the world these "dispensable" individuals find themselves inhabiting, from the bizarre alcohol-free cocktails to the eccentric librarian, from the replica of Monet's gardens of Giverny where it is always spring and summer (the unit is sealed under a vast dome that means Dorrit will never again see snow or feel the wind in her hair or on her face) to the astonishing array of amenities.
At first, Dorrit is assigned to a relatively harmless experiment, so it is only slowly that she fully absorbs the magnitude of what lies ahead for her. She notices a man asleep in a chair in a library -- only later does she realize the reason he has fallen asleep is because the medication he's taking is causing him to do so. Her friend, Alice, is participating in a hormone study and developing an Adam's apple. In the sauna one day, she encounters six women. "They all had one or more scars from surgery ... Two of the women had distorted, swollen joints, their movements slow and jerky, as if their whole body ached."
As with all great dystopian books, it is sometimes what lies between the lines -- the assumptions of the dystopian society -- that are the most chilling. Dorrit notes, in an offhand manner, that women who become pregnant over the age of 40 are automatically encourage to abort the fetus; these children are more likely to have birth defects and be a cost to society. "If the overall number of defects and complications can be reduced to a minimum, there are significant financial gains to be made." At the outset of this book, anyone trying to argue that Holmqvist's particular dystopia is the result of a particular political point of view run amok will have a hard time making their case. The society's attention to the group at the expense of the individual is certainly a hallmark of socialism; on the other hand, the emphasis on the need to create value, to form new family units (having a sibling doesn't make you indispensable, only having a child), is more capitalist in tone. Dorrit has rationalized her presence in the unit, as she explains to her shrink. All that matters is what she and others produce, and "life is capital; a capital that is to be divided fairly among the people." If she can't believe that, she says, then her existence in the Unit would be unbearable.
From the start, Dorrit has less trouble than she imagined getting used to life in the Unit, free of any financial concerns. On the other hand, most nights she dreams of walking along the beach near her home with her beloved dog, Jock, whom she had to give away to a nearby farm family. (The relationship between them, as portrayed by Holmqvist, is one of the most poignant and moving depictions of a human-animal 'friendship' I have ever read.) Then she discovers, to her astonishment, that her relationship with Johannes has resulted in a pregnancy. Suddenly, she finds herself facing a host of new decisions and her hard-won and very precarious peace vanishes. "I longed to go back to an age of ignorance," she muses, "before the heart lost its status and was reduced to just one of a number of vital but replaceable organs."
The discussion of what makes a person of value to society and what makes a life worthwhile is perhaps one of the key philosophical questions we all grapple with, and Holmqvist has found an unusual and creative way to explore those central themes of meaning and the inevitability of death. Perhaps it resonated so deeply with me because I could see myself in Dorrit's shoes -- childless and single, in her fictional dystopia I would be of no 'value'. As someone says to Dorrit, "You have simply lived your lives, without thinking too much of the future of the world around you." In the world of the Unit, that kind of lack of planning has consequences.
While both men and women are affected by the existence of the Unit, this is primarily a novel about women and women's relationships, with men and with each other. (In any event, men are granted an extra decade to make themselves 'indispensable!) Although the specific themes are very different, and the style and plot alike revolve less around anger, violence or even hostility (no one is dragged screaming to make their final donation), this reminded me somewhat of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library). The key similarity: both authors choose to base their dystopia on some fringe element in today's society that is clearly identifiable but hard to imagine reaching these extremes. In Atwood's case, it's Christian fundamentalism which has resulted in a theocracy; Holmqvist, meanwhile, focuses on the degree to which our society focuses on market values and society rather than the individual.
This is a haunting novel, one that it's hard to do justice to in any review. I found nearly impossible to put down until I had finished it and begrudged having to attend a work-related dinner about halfway through. I expect to re-read it many times over the years to come, to enjoy Holmqvist's simple and elegant prose as well as her imaginative plotting and characterization.
Highly recommended.
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The Unit is a gripping novel reminiscent of the surveillance and control of Orwell's 1984, the reproductive problems of Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, and the genetic experimentation of Huxley's Brave New World, with something of White's Charlotte's Web mixed in, but at its core, the story is hard to believe.
Dorrit is a 50 year old woman living in a version of Stockholm, possibly in the near future. She is a single woman with no children and no particular social attachments -- except to her dog. She has never had a romantic relationship, just a serious of "casual liasons," most recently with a man who "almost" loves her.
It is a cautionary tale, to be sure, but of what, exactly, I remained somewhat unclear. The obvious target is the idea of a utilitarian society bent on using the bodies of socially unnecessary people to keep the rest of society alive. These older people have their organs and body parts harvested through organ donation (in small bits at first, such as the cornea or one kidney, until the "final donation" is made) and as subjects of what seem to be amazingly poorly designed studies of various medical treatments. Apparently rats are too expensive in this society to figure out that one pill is contaminated with poisons, for example, and another study had 90% serious side effects, including death; we are led to believe that people are so desperate for organs that they readily accept these contaminated specimens. This model of health care and societal structure are clearly repugnant as well as hard to imagine.
After further reflection upon finishing the novel, I came back to something a member of the staff said to the new arrivals during Dorrit's orientation, and that is that finally they would be in a place where they would feel welcome and comfortable. And that, I think, is the most disturbing part of the book, and the one in which we can see Dorrit as much less sympathetic than she initially appears. It becomes clear that mainstream society is composed of a very distant, "efficient" sort of relationships, and Dorrit herself has been unable to find love and has not maintained her own family ties. She admits that she really gave the policy regarding "dispensables" no thought until she herself was ready to be checked in to the Unit, even to the point of not noticing the vanishing of anyone else who'd ever gone before her.
There are many unanswered questions about the complicity of Dorrit and all the other "dispensables" in their own abuse. And this reminded me of the scene in Charlotte's Web where Wilbur has the chance to escape from his pen, and does so, only to decide that it is entirely too overwhelming -- indeed, too much work -- to be on his own, and it's so much easier to follow the farmer, with his bucket of slops, back into the pen. This is, of course, before he learns that he is meant to be killed and transformed into dinner, the reality of which leaves him horrified, outraged, and depressed. Neither of these emotions seem to be the case for Dorrit, who knows her fate before she checks in to the Reserve Bank. She quietly goes right along, not bothering with detailed plans of escape, resistance, attempts to bring about a change in the law, or even emigrating before her 50th birthday (considering that several of her siblings live in other countries, not such a bad idea). She doesn't even observe exits in the Unit. She is too busy gorging herself on the free buffets.
Holmqvist sketches only briefly a picture of the society in which Dorrit has been living -- a society that is rigidly ridding itself of traditional gender roles. It is, Dorrit tells us, a crime for a man to fix a woman's car while she cooks him dinner in appreciation. Now a man and woman must share parental leave equally for 18 months, and then it's off to 8 hours a day of mandatory babysitting until the age of 6, leaving no excuses for not having children. Relationships are about convenience and seem mostly devoid of any warmth. Nevertheless Dorrit seems to have found friendship and companionship in a way that is completely opposite to what is found in the outside society. She maintains a deep connection to her dog, finding great satisfaction in obtaining a photograph of him in his new home with his new "family," but refuses the chance to have another, seemingly more important photograph of someone else in her new home, with her new family. That, as far as I am concerned, demonstrates that she has remained aloof from her own soul and has completely given up normal human desires.
I found "The Unit" to be a page-turner, but the second half of the book was disappointing, and I found the ending to be emotionally unsatisfying. I found the lack of self-concern, the lack of the desire for self-preservation, to be rather un-human, and quite chilling. The idea that all it takes is a nice garden, free food, and feigned concern for people to happily allow themselves to be murdered is extremely disturbing but ultimately unrealistic. But wondering if someone could really be so distant from the self was certainly troubling.
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In The Unit, Holmqvist takes us into a dystopian world that is more frightening because it seems so familiar. In this near-future or alternative society (it is never clear which), people are are deemed "dispensable" are confined to the unit, a dreamlike world where they have no wants unmet, while they are efficiently employed as subjects of dangerous experiments and their organs systematically harvested for the benefit of the "needed." To not have children is the primary means of becoming dispensable, although they seem to be drawn from the ranks of artists, writers and others who cannot conform to middlebrow society for one reason or another.
Dorritt is such a person. Before coming to the unit, her closest relationship was with her dog. But once there, she experiences for the first time true friendship, love and acceptance for who she is, which makes her quiet, detached descriptions of the emotional and phsyical tortures that her friend and, ultimately, she suffers there all the more horrifying.
The power of The Unit is its subtlety. We never really know how a supposedly democratic society instituted this practice of harvesting their fellow citizens, or why the people tolerate it, although we are given hints. As the story progresses, we learn that there are fewer and fewer dispensable people, so that the definition of who is unneeded must be expanded to keep up the supply of organs and test subjects. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the unit seem unaccountably resigned to their fates, but as Dorritt tells her story, we almost come to understand why -- which makes it all the more terrifying.
The Unit was originally published in Sweded and was translated into English by Marlaine Delargy. I haven't read a lot of Swedish literature, but given the quality of this novel, I should seek out more. Highly recommended.
Note: This review is based on a reading copy provided by the publisher.
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This novel had an odd effect on me. I found that I was holding my breath. Not for fear of what might happen next, but because I felt as though I was holding a bubble in my hands, and that any sudden movement would cause it to pop. Or I was holding a jagged piece of broken glass, and I might cut myself. The point is, this novel took me to a strange place, where things were not as they seemed, where the rules has been rewritten, and where death and disappearance was always a moment away. It's not horrifying - that is, the emotion produced is not horror. Or perhaps this is what horror looks like when it's institutionalized and renamed.
This is a wonderful novel, filled with love, loss, friendship, and insight. It will make you think, which is good (if not always comfortable).
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Here's one I don't think you'll want to put down and won't be able to stop thinking about for awhile! It's a unique, imaginative "high concept" premise that's executed well.
SUMMARY: In a future Sweden, childless 50-year old women and 60-year old men deemed "dispensable" are carted off to be more productive for society in a luxurious guinea pig farm. Dorrit, a standout among those, tells her tale of the experience.
Upsides and Downsides:
- Incredibly believable and engaging.
This is a well-written book with a great premise that kept me turning the pages and invested in the character's plights. I literally "couldn't put it down". There's enough twists and turns to keep anyone happy.
- What you'd think might be politically preachy - isn't.
I was afraid this book might be a rant. It's NOT! It's an all out fantasy - with believable characters, and more subtle character-driven insights into perceptions on aging and dispensability.
- It's a depressing perspective, but with bits of light.
This isn't a "feel good" book. But, the premise alone should tell you that. The luxurious setting and the spirited characters make up for that.
- There's one thing that really bothered me.
I was thrown for a loop at one point when the main character (and it's written in first person) confesses that she hasn't told the truth about something - and doesn't reveal the truth. It makes you question everything she's said before. But, there is a reason for it, and ultimately I found it didn't outweigh the power of the story.
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The near-future world Ninni Holmqvist has created is horrifyingly realistic, and entirely possible. We follow the main character, a somewhat sad and empty Dorrit, through her shocking entry and assimilation into the Second Reserve Bank for Biological Material. The author deftly creates a joint experience between reader and Dorrit as she gradually becomes inured to the horrors awaiting her life as a human test subject. Over the course of the novel, the cumulative death and inflicted illness is presented in gradual, almost unnoticeably normalized degrees, until by the very end one might understand how perfectly rational sacrificing for the greater good of all can seem, when divorced from the spirit, inner life and suffering of those affected. And there, it is where Holmqvist shows her real talent, in underscoring the dangers of applying exterior measurements of merit to human life.
Holmqvist has possibly created a modern classic, and Marlaine Delargy has done an outstanding job of translation. Anyone with even an ounce of empathy in their soul will find this story by turns wrenching, chilling, and thought-provoking. Being a typical American, I would have liked a stronger ending, that played more into the sense of story with an emotionally comforting resolution -- but perhaps the lack of that contributes to an extended raw wariness intended by the author. A neat, wrapped-up ending might let us mentally file the story away... "aha, it all worked out in the end." But the lack of that? It keeps us emotionally and mentally engaged past the end of the novel, and past the end of Dorrit's story.
Comparisons are sure to be made between "The Unit" and Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." Readers who enjoy one, are sure to enjoy the other. They are both eminently readable, well-written pieces of literature, both deal with issues of control and oppression, and both have multiple layers of story and meaning to be explored. However Holmqvist has pushed past the theme of female-oriented oppression, and explored what it means to be oppressed in the name of the greater good, indiscriminate of sex.
"The Unit" is both enjoyable as a superficial read, and an extraordinarily current thinker. Highly recommended for all fiction readers.
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Imagine living in a society that declares you are dispensable and must submit to euthanasia. You disagree, are afraid and consider hiding or running away, but realize that your "sentence" is the law and there is nowhere to hide.
The Unit is a story about life in a special care facility where authorities send "dispensable" humans when society no longer wishes to tolerate their existence. Society values dispensable humans as organ donors, and as subjects in medical and psychological experiments. The unit is a dream world for society's rejects. The facility supplies every need, so the subjects require no money and have no worries.
People condemned to the unit typically are loners in life. They have no children, are relatively unskilled, and earn too little to support themselves. They are a drain to society, are ostracized, isolated, and alone. To many, life in the unit is much better than life in the outside world.
In the unit, residents meet other dispensables and make the best friends of their lives. In the unit they are no longer alone or with out purpose. They are assigned as subjects in experiments - some medical, some psychological, some physical, some social. Residents of the unit "donate" organs to be given to "needed" people. Eventually they make their "final donation" and their entire body is harvested for later medical use.
The main character in the story is Dorrit Weger, a fifty year old single woman with no children, a menial job, and no friends. In the unit Dorrit makes friends quickly and begins to engage in activities she could never afford before. Dorrit eats in fancy restaurants, attends first run movies and theater, and becomes a respected member of her new society.
The characters in The Unit are well drawn and believable. Most of the residents are three dimensional with their emotions, beliefs, and reactions to events realistic and sometimes graphic. These "dispensables" are like your neighbors, people you meet every day. Some may be your friends or relatives.
Holmqvist's tale suggests hard questions. What is the meaning of life? When is a person's life important to society: is it through their children, their employment, their hobbies, church, political beliefs, or character? How do we decide who is useful? Are some people dispensable? What are the standards? Who should decide?
Ninni Holmqvist's book may be the springboard for social debate. Modern developed nations are struggling with the problem of "dispensables." As people age, the costs of programs like medicare, social security, and welfare become excessive. Do we decide that seniors, the unskilled and undereducated are expendable? Do we create a program like the unit to address our expanding crisis? The policy becomes like a slippery slope that starts with older people, then adds the disabled, the mentally challenged, misbehaving children, and people who aren't pretty. With this concept eventually politicians may wish to balance race, ethnicity, and gender.
The Unit is an easy read, and clearly paints a possible picture of what we could become. Hopefully people will read this novel and begin to propose and debate solutions.
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I love the premise of this story, launched upon contemporary Swedish politics and Hitler's idea of the "useless eater". And the world Holmqvist creates in "The Unit" is lush, detailed and very well-described.
The first third of the book is riveting. Then the love stuff happens in the middle... with all the gratuitous and graphic sex stuff that makes jaded female readers like me roll their eyes (I mean, come on). The final third just falls flat with over-convenient plot twists and an unsatisfying end.
It's almost as if Holmqvist had a genuinely terrific idea and began painstakingly fleshing it out and then had a dealine to meet and no more ideas so she just rushed to the end headlong. And while the end in itself proves a point with poignancy, the lack of tension leading up to the denoument leaves the reader feeling as if they've been cheated. There is some rising action and then... *pfffft*.
This could have been done much better. And I say that with disappointment because there was a lot about this book I really enjoyed.
Marginally recommended.
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At the age of fifty Dorrit Weger is whisked away to a place commonly known as The Unit. Here she will have a comfortable apartment all to herself, access to nice shops and leisurely activities galore, as well as fine meals she doesn't have to prepare for herself. There are parties and a beautiful winter garden to roam in, athletic facilities to enjoy and a library stocked with the latest books and movies. But there is a price for the luxury afforded The Unit's residents; their bodies and ultimately, their lives. Dorrit and her companions have been deemed "dispensable" by the government and thus they are sent to The Unit to live out the rest of their brief years as lab rats and organ donors for the greater good.
At first life within The Unit isn't so terrible. For the first time in her life Dorrit feels needed and has a social circle that she has much in common with. She misses her dog and parts of her life before The Unit but slowly this fades giving way to a certain level of acceptance. She doesn't suffer much at first taking part in simple physical testing and eventually donating a kidney but all residents know that in due time they will make their "final donation". As her friends slowly begin to go through their "final donations" Dorrit falls in love with Johannes, a fellow writer with whom she develops a deep relationship. But when she discovers that despite her fifty-years-of-age she has become pregnant the idea of the two gaining their freedom--as they are now "needed" by their offspring--may not be so easily obtained.
I've always loved a good story of dystopian societies and the way they make us question our own social and moral obligations to the world. Yet it isn't so easy to find one that isn't so heavily weighed down by its own attempt at teaching a lesson that it is stifling. The Unit is far from being stifling. It doesn't pretend to be something it is not, the straight-forward beauty of the premise is executed so simply but richly that I couldn't put the book down. As the sun's first rays of morning were breaking over the horizon I finished The Unit with a sense of peace.
With the average lifespan of human beings having risen drastically in the past hundred years it is not so difficult to imagine a place like The Unit becoming a reality. It is because of this that I found the story somewhat haunting but not so horrible. There is a distinct dilemna I think every reader will feel very differently about when reading this one. Would you be willing to shorten your own life for a few years of luxury and knowing you've done something good for society? Others may get something else out of The Unit but that is what I was left wondering to myself.
I highly recommend this if you liked George Orwell or Ayn Rand when you were made to read them in high school. This is the perfect read for someone looking for a good bit of dystopian literature without getting headaches trying to wrap our mind around the concepts and questions.
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