The Unit: A Novel

I had no idea what I was expecting when I started reading this book. I kind of bought it on a whim and started reading it the day I bought it, because it sounded interesting. I'm a mood reader, so if something strikes my fancy at any particular moment, of course I'm going to read it - thus is the case with most of the books I read.The Unit wasn't something I had heard of before. I came across it on Amazon when I was browsing the Kindle sale, and it was only $1.99 so I figured why not? I bought it, finished the other book I was reading currently, and immediately started reading this one.The Unit is a pretty scary book. The whole plot of this novel is just utterly terrifying, especially if you consider that this could actually one day happen. That's one of my favorite parts of dystopian novels - they can scare the absolute hell out of you if you really stop and think about them. Sometimes they are even better than horror novels at giving you some chilling reading, because if you aren't careful, these things can actually happen."If you live alone in the country you can't afford to push away your neighbors, or fall out with them. In fact, the way I see it, you can't afford to fall out with anyone at all if you live alone and no one needs you."In the future, adults over a certain age without children or spouses who are not "needed" are sent away to live at compounds known as "units." These units house these adults, giving them food, clothing, apartments, amenities - anything they could want, and with no charge to them. They are required to live out the remainder of their days at these units, and they are able to do what they wish - except leave."As new arrivals we had four consecutive free days, Sunday to Wednesday. It was so we could make ourselves at home in the unit before the compulsory health check; after that we would be allocated to appropriate humane experiments or begin to donate."The people who inhabit these "units" are required to donate - and not money or time, but vital organs. It can start with something like a kidney, or an auditory bone in the ear, and eventually it will move up to something that you cannot live without - lungs, heart, pancreas - these are what are known as the "final donations." These donations are the ones that everyone dreads - because they are operations that no one can come back from.When Dorrit, a fifty year old woman who is childless and "unneeded" is sent to live at The Unit, she quickly makes friends with a few of the other new arrivals, as well as some of those who have been there for a while. She learns the ropes - what is expected of her, what kinds of donations she will most likely be giving, and how long (or short) of a stay she may have. She also learns about the different types of "humane" experiments that some can opt for, such as fitness experiments or sleep experiments."'I suppose I used to believe that my life belonged to me,' I rambled. 'Something that was entirely at my disposal, something no one else had any claim on, or the right to have an opinion on. But I've changed my mind. I don't own my life at all, it's other people who own it.'"Dorrit and the other members of the unit, who are surrounded by cameras 24/7, are not allowed any contact with the outside world. They are free to live their lives within the unit as they please - swimming, reading, watching movies, spending time with each other - but never leaving. At least not until that final donation.When Dorrit finds herself in love with one of the other residents and the unthinkable occurs, it puzzles not only Dorrit herself, but also many of those who live and work within the Unit. It shows the lack of compassion, heart, and soul that are still present in humans in this time period."I wished I had lived at the time when people still believed in the heart. When people still believed that the heart was the central organ, containing all the memories, emotions, capabilities, defects and other qualities that make us into specific individuals. I longed to go back to an age of ignorance, before the heart lost its status and was reduced to just one of a number of vital but replaceable organs."This book is both heartbreaking and scary. Not scary as in like a horror kind of scary, but scary because this is something that could actually happen, if we were to allow it to.Dorrit's character is one of the most realistic feeling characters that I've come across in a really long time. She had so many feelings, so many things she wanted to say and do - and she was so well written. Her personality was practically off the page.The overall plot of this novel really takes you into what can seem like a not-so-distant version of reality that will prompt a lot of thinking and discussions after I read this book. I must have told like 5 people about this book after I read it, because it was just the kind of book that you need to talk about after you read.If you like dystopian novels, this is one that you should check into. It isn't as popular of a book as it should be. There are a lot of flaws here, like some of the other characters just seeming a bit flat, and the book just feeling way too short for my liking, but all in all, it's a deep and emotional read that will have you thinking about your future - about the future of humanity in general.

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.

Sinister premise, not least because it is not entirely implausible that a dystopia future might conceivably take the view that the childless are of less societal value. To some extent this is already an unspoken but real prejudice, all the more ridiculous in an overpopulated world with finite resources. Thought provoking book, disappointing only in that it could have been excellent if the author had developed the theme a little more. Leaves you wanting to know how the protagonist had learned of her date for admission, and the discomfort of those in her circle on knowing that this was imminent. It also could have gone a little further in terms of continuing the dialogue to explore the horror of the impending conclusion of her life, and the burden borne by the employees of the unit who must also bear a degree of complicity with such an ethos.

"The Unit" is a luxury state-run facility which provides the people it houses with the very best of everything: food, fitness, friendship, but most of all… fear.As well as its Olympic sized swimming pool, art exhibitions, and theatre experiences, it’s also a human farm that harvests organs from living donors, or ‘dispensables’ as they are commonly referred to in their communities.Anyone who remains either childless or professionally unsuccessful by the age of 50+ forfeits everything when they enter "The Unit", including their home, pets, and their body. It’s positively the most dreadful finale for anyone ‘left on the shelf’, either consciously or otherwise.It’s unfathomable that a world could exist where the law demands your sacrifice for the good of society, simply because your biological clock has stopped ticking. That in itself raises a few moral questions – is it cruel to inflict such an existence upon a generation of single, free spirits, or is this unpalatable arrangement necessary to help those who are ‘needed’ more?This is a truly haunting concept, and the clinical and disturbing narration helped to capture the bleak futures of all those affected. But, those weird / uncomfortable ‘bedroom scenes’ shared by two of the characters prevented this from being a full 5 star read.Immensely thought-provoking, nonetheless.

The author attempts to convey her characters in psychological terms, but without the poetic input required for the reader to work out for themselves how/what the characters might be sensing and feeling - it's as if the reader is being so spoon-fed with the author's concrete idea of what the characters feel etc, that the characters end up two-dimensional - pulling the plug on what could have been a riveting plot.How Margaret Atwood could suggest the book as riveting is difficult to grasp, considering her very way of poetically delivering her characters to the reader.I won't spoil the ending for those who have not read this book yet. Suffice to inspect the phrase on the front cover: 'in paradise, nobody can hear you scream'. This is an inflated and inaccurate statement. Made clear from the beginning, the setting of the story is far from paradise - as for 'hear you scream', there were plenty of hearing and communication going on among the vast amount of characters involved. You can probably work out for yourself what would be the need for the publishers to add such an inaccurate and inflated description to pull you into buying the book.

Along with psychological thrillers, this is my favourite genre of book, especially when it is written in a believable way. The book is in four parts, the final part very short but necessary to the outcome. The ending came as quite a surprise to me but I cannot say more as there are no spoilers here.. I really enjoyed reading it but felt opportunities were missed to make much more of the book - anything can happen in a dystopian novel after all and if I were to criticise anything, it would be that it was a little bland.

My god that was depressing. Dystopia is my favourite genre and I've read most things from We onwards. This was well written of course and I absolutely loved the fact that it took present day Sweden and feminism as starting points. Sweden is a country that scares me, it is seen as modern and progressive yet it is frighteningly prescriptive in some ways. So her use of this was fantastic for me.What I didn't like, what I couldn't understand, is the lack of rebellion, the acceptance. I know Potter briefly mentioned that they used physchological techniques to make the inmates compliant. But still, it doesn't make sense to me, and it isn't believable to me. Even if society closed their eyes to it, how could the victims remain so calm?The premise is quite similar to Unwind. Which remains the most horrific book I have read, because of the detailed description of the procedure, and the fact that it is done to children. The strange atmosphere given in this book of everything being okay, and calm, and 'nice' is very disturbing. Maybe she meant it to be that way. Maybe it's meant to make us think about how much people will accept. But I can't believe the victims could be so accepting.A note on the translation - it was very jarring to have this translated into American English. Several times I was distracted by the story by the choice of words, and had to remind myself this had been translated, and these were not the words originally used by the author.