Getting a Read: The Unit
The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
It’s my firm belief that when a person recommends a book to me, they’re handing me an inside look at their soul. In this series, “Getting a Read,” I try to uncover truth about books and their recommenders.
THE RECOMMENDER
Hillary Spragg, my longtime friend and fellow TCK. Find us at least monthly talking about our latest travels, favorite books, and all the struggles of life over an exceptionally delicious cup of coffee.
HOW TO READ IT
In two sittings, with enough time between readings to allow your heart to hurt at the halfway point.
REVIEW: The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
What happens when you deem people dispensable and send them off to be slowly carved up—to contribute to society, finally, via organ donation and medical research? What happens when two such dispensable people fall in love and create a family unit? Should they be allowed to?
These are the questions you begin to ask yourself from the moment you pick up this book. You don’t even have to crack it open, just turn the book over and read the description. I was so absorbed by The Unit’s uncomfortable set of wonderings and sometimes horrifying plot development that I barely had time to process what I thought about it till it was totally done.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems there’s a dearth of middle age romances in the literary oeuvre. Much more common is the dystopia, which, at least according to the author in her notes at the end of the text, this book only just happens to be. But it’s far different from the dystopias we’re all familiar with. There are no zombies, no teenage heroines, no games to be played or mazes to make it through. Just a building, a group of middle aged people, and a set of ethical problems.
This book hinges on a rather uncomfortable central question: how does one calculate the societal worth of those deemed “dispensable?” In other, more blunt, words: if you are unattached, not a caregiver, less than successful at your job and have passed your prime childbearing years—what good are you?
As a divorced, childless, unmarried, freelancer speedily approaching my fourth decade on this Earth, I cringed hardcore at this question.
But not for long. In my opinion, you’re good because you’re human. You’re worthy because you live and that in itself is SOMETHING. Let me say now, if you’re currently experiencing an extreme middle-age crisis or you cannot say comfortably one way or the other whether a human has intrinsic value, this book will likely be truly uncomfortable and maybe even painful for you. But I encourage everyone to pick it up anyway no matter where they are in life; read it and revel in the ambiguity.
This book had some beautiful visual moments. Despite the translated text, the physicality of the residents who are slowly carved to death came through. The nature, limited as it was and encompassed totally by artificial structures, was beautifully rendered. The artwork, both textual and visual, of the residents sprang off the page under the pen of the author. It was easy to construct the building, the residents, the activities, the lives of these characters in my mind.
The Unit itself came alive under the narrative description. I wondered often about whether or not there was more to it than just its existence as a building. In truth, I kept waiting for it to become a character of its own—for it to contribute further to the destruction of its inmates. It felt like an insidious, quiet overlord, waiting for the right moment to reveal itself.
There are lots of moments like this. The book is absolutely pregnant with potential. Moments where you think something huge is about to happen come up often, leaving the reader full of tension. But the book finds its own way. Although this author has true courage for tackling this subject, this book left me wanting. More could’ve been done to set the scene for the not-so-inevitable finale.
Formally, I felt this book left a lot of plot threads dangling. Thought it’s absolutely worth the read, I felt the first half was full of promise and the back half didn’t live up to its own opening. I try to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible, a particularly hard task with this book. If you want more detail on this thought about flopped potential, I like Marlaine Delargy’s review of this book.
As an American, a sometimes social justice warrior, and a big fan of the underdog in every story, this book was hard to take. I won’t spoil it, but I will say after reading it I thought that perhaps there’s a metaphor present in this book. Societal pressures are too big to fight solo, no matter how important the cause. And they’re exceptionally hard to fight as the oppressed person.
But after reading the author’s notes, I realized this is probably just my own reading of the text. I truly don’t think the author intended any such conclusion. My literary critic brain wants to try to untangle whether my reading is greater than hers or vice versa, but the truth is it doesn’t matter. You get to take what you want from this text. I’ll take my own conclusion and a mild frustration that the author didn’t work harder to make a point with this book.
Above all, for all it made me think, this book arrived at a disappointing finale and an uncomfortable conclusion. Read it. Think. Be uncomfortable. Explore the authorial mind of a non-American talking about these issues (and for a more political reading of this book, check out the Atlantic’s review of it). But don’t expect anything from this text. Just let it be.
THE RECOMMENDER IN REVIEW
Hillary picked this book up on the recommendation of another friend of hers. She, like me, sees recommendations as incredibly valuable insight into people, the world, and her own community. When I finished this book, I remembered the disturbed look in her eyes as she was telling me about it. I see my friend, through this book, as someone who wants to think, loves any kind of good story, and is especially interested in broadening her perspective by reading things from other cultures. She’s a thinker, and a citizen of the world, first and foremost. And she’s not afraid to sit with uncomfortable topics—to wonder about things others may prefer to forget. I’ll take a rec from her anytime.
WHERE TO FIND IT
I got this book from my library app and chose to read it in eBook format. You should be able to find it wherever books are sold. If you’re local to Dallas, see if Interabang books can order it for you.
