From the Bookshelf of The Alternative Worlds…

The Unit

Ninni Holmqvist,

Marlaine Delargy (Translator)

Start date: June 1, 2010

Finish date: June 30, 2010

Why we're reading this: June 2010 Book of the Month
[close] June 2010 Book of the Month

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May 24, 2010 Brad rated it did not like it

Shelves: x-acto-knives-are-nice-and-shiny, shite, swedish-lit, taking-a-poop, hopes-dashed-like-an-egg-on-cement

The Unit is billed as a Sci-Fi dystopia. If so, it's just barely so. It's speculative with a lower case "s" but little more than that.

Told in the first person by Dorrit Weger -- the most insipid, pathetic, annoying narrator I've read in years -- The Unit is about a future in Sweden where old "dispensable" people (women at fifty and men at sixty who have no families or partners who've avowed love for them), are harvested for their organs and made subjects for medical testing while living the cush The Unit is billed as a Sci-Fi dystopia. If so, it's just barely so. It's speculative with a lower case "s" but little more than that.

Told in the first person by Dorrit Weger -- the most insipid, pathetic, annoying narrator I've read in years -- The Unit is about a future in Sweden where old "dispensable" people (women at fifty and men at sixty who have no families or partners who've avowed love for them), are harvested for their organs and made subjects for medical testing while living the cushiest of lives in a utopian Organ Bank Unit, complete with live and movie theatres, art gallery, library, great food, lovely little shops, fantastic fitness facilities, and a gorgeous park straight out of a Monet painting.

And they live there charmed little end of life until their final donation when the surgeons take their senior citizen heart or pancreas or liver or some other big organ and give it to someone who's needed in the outside world, when, of course, they die. Boo hoo. I am so sad for them. Or I'm supposed to be, but Ninni Holqvist managed to strip me of pity and just fill me full of "Suck it up!"

And that's just my emotional response.

How on earth are senior citizen organs viable options -- on a large scale -- for transplant into youths? Moreover, Holmqvist goes to great lengths to constantly remind us that tobacco and alcohol are not allowed in the Unit because of the deleterious effects they have on the residents bodies, but apparently experimental radiation therapies, hormone therapies and psychotropic drugs have no such impacts, since subjects give organs even after their own health fails because of the testing. What?!

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Holmqvist's political and philosophical concepts are poorly executed. Her male characters are poorly drawn. Her pacing is just plain poor. There is no suspense, no tension and nothing compelling. But there are plenty of cheese sandwiches and Dorrit's constant obsession with the dog she left behind to keep us going.

I almost gave this book a second star, though, because the ending was precisely what Dorrit would have done in the situation in which she found herself. But nope. Even the two decent sex scenes couldn't overcome my disdain. I hated this book too much for that or that. So one star.

I hope Ms. Holmqvist is one of those pretentious "literary" authors who deny that their work is Science Fiction because I expect my Sci-Fi to be good, and I'd hate to have her sully my favourite genre with the presence of this book. Steer clear, my friends, steer clear. ...more

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Sep 28, 2018 Kara Babcock rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: translated, 2018-read, science-fiction, utopia-dystopia, from-library

The kind of dystopian novel I’m often lukewarm about, The Unit has a blurb on the front cover from Margaret Atwood, which really tells me all I need to know. It’s science-fictional but also hangs on to that notional “literary fiction” tag, as if it doesn’t want to stoop too much into the genre ghetto. Whereas Kazuo Ishiguro’s dive into organ donation is a meditation on personhood, Ninni Holmqvist is more interested in the value of certain types of people—namely childless, older people. Not at al ...more

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Aug 23, 2009 Carolyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: strong-female-lead-character, science-fiction, favorites, science-fiction_post-apoc-dystopian, 5-star-books, 2010-read

Definitely a book that makes you think - and with an ending that was surprising. A book I first thought of as a dystopia, but that determination could be argued.
An excellent translation, and very interesting to read a book coming from an author from another country/culture. That came through in some very subtle ways.
Highly recommended.

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May 06, 2013 Carla Patterson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015-challenge

Well written and deeply felt examination of what might happen if current trends in health care were to devolve even further. One aspect of the concept was beautifully and famously described in Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' but I didn't feel this book was in any way derivative of that work. In fact, it's unique to itself in the way that it takes us into a dystopian future which feels all too familiar to Americans alive in 2015. For some, it wouldn't even be dystopian! Instead, it would seem ...more

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Mar 06, 2010 Taueret rated it it was amazing

Shelves: speculative-fiction, dystopia

Ann raved about this and I can see why. A society just different enough to ours to make a lot of assumptions we make in our "free" society seem rather odd suddenly. I would like to write pages and pages about this book but it would be better if you just read it. So much to discuss here, if you have a group that can debate without taking things personally. ...more

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