“The Unit” Ninni Holmqvist

I feel this irrational obligation to my non-existent readers to finish books that I would usually put aside. In some ways, reading has become a bit of a chore---okay, not really, but there are times when I tell myself, “The sooner you get through this one the sooner you can start a new, possibly more interesting book.” Not so with “The Unit.” I didn’t have to push myself to read it, and in fact, I put aside things I should have been doing instead, like sleeping and working, just to finish it. Most of this post will be about the questions raised by the book, but before I go any further I want to say that the story is interesting, I became invested in the characters, and frankly, I wanted to know how it all turned out. So…read “The Unit” because it is a good story, and then, sit around and discuss the questions raised. What more can you want from a book?

I should have written this post before I read any reviews, because I feel the need to defend the book. Here goes. Like many good books, “The Unit” does not answer all the questions it puts forth. The main character is Dorrit. Right after her 50th birthday, she packs and willingly gets into an SUV that takes her to the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. She has no children, her parents have passed away, and her job as a fiction writer is not important enough for her life to continue. Thus, Dorrit and other middle-aged men and women like her are deemed dispensable and go to live in Units where they are used as human guinea pigs for medical and psychological research while their bodies are mined for useful parts for the “indispensible” people. Of course, there is always the “final donation” from which the members of the Unit do not return, after which, their bits with long shelf lives are stored until needed. Ouch. Is it possible for a 268-page novel to address all the questions involved in this scenario? No. Does that make this a bad book? No. In fact, the unanswered questions make the book that much more interesting.

Holmqvist is Swedish, and after reading Sjöwall/Wahlöö, Larrson and Mankell, I can see how the premise of this book could naturally arise there. I am no expert on Swedish social and political institutions, and I am basing my opinions on the fiction I have read, but in Sweden there is an atmosphere of individual neglect in what is supposed to be a cradle-to-grave system of care. Holmqvist’s Unit is a place where middle-aged people have food, housing, companionship and the ability to pursue their interests in a way that is not available to them on the outside and is in stark contrast to the descriptions of the lives of middle-aged people without families, or sometimes even with families, in the other books I have read. So, I can understand how the Unit system posited by Holmqvist has benefits over the current system in Sweden. Similarly, those who have so-called vital lives, regardless of how arbitrary that definition is, benefit from a ready supply of biological material and the knowledge obtained from relatively inexpensive medical research. It seems like a win-win situation, except for that little part where robust people with many more fulfilling years left are willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.

Of course, the fact that I would qualify for the Unit bothers me a lot. The average lifespan in the Unit is from 3 to 5 years, and I couldn’t imagine that I would choose to live no more than to age 55. Also, Dorrit’s life seems to parallel my own; she didn’t want children when she was young, because she was trying to establish a career, and after it was established, she never had the opportunity to have children. I remember the first time I saw a greeting card that said, “Oh crap, I forgot to have kids,” and at the time I thought it funny but that it would not apply to me. Oops. In Dorrit’s case, neglecting procreation had life shortening consequences.

It took 15 years for the idea of the Reserve Banks for biological material to go from discussion to law. It takes another 15 years until the point in the story where Dorrit goes to the Unit. The most frightening thing about Holmqvist’s society is that it is not so far removed from our reality to seem impossible. We have seen social structures slip into extremes over time in other cultures, so an important question here is whether we could move, ever so slowly, toward this model of euthanasia cum assisted suicide administered by a caring and government-run medical system. Should the good of the many outweigh the good of the few---or the good of the one? What better way to demonstrate support for family values than to devalue the bodies and lives of those living outside of the traditional family structure?

This book raises a myriad of questions about medical ethics, the value of art, the value of a man’s body over that of a woman, what constitutes sexist behavior and on and on. Who should make decisions about health---the individual or the state? If such institutions like the Unit existed, what would the criteria be for who is dispensable and who is needed? Who would decide? Dorrit makes several decisions about her body and reproduction. How do women make these decisions, and should the decisions be at their discretion or should the government have a say?

Some reviews raved about “The Unit,” it was said to be the modern day “Logan’s Run,” and one reviewer said it was better executed than Kasuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go.” Others complained about plot holes, unanswered questions and failure to fit into a precise genre. I already addressed the issue of unanswered questions, and I say one person’s plot hole is another person’s opportunity for analysis. “The Unit” is a dystopian novel, despite its imperfections, and it is a love story. Both my sister and I enjoyed the book, and on our drive from Fairbanks to Nenana yesterday we spent our time discussing it. Again, what more can you ask of a good read?