L'Usine

by Hiroko Oyamada, Silvain Chupin (Translator)

L'Usine, un gigantesque complexe industriel de la taille d'une ville, s'étend à perte de vue. C'est là qu'une femme et deux hommes, sans liens apparents, vont désormais travailler à des postes pour le moins curieux. L'un d'entre eux est chargé d'étudier des mousses pour végétaliser les toits. Un autre corrige des écrits de toutes sortes dont l'usage reste mystérieux. La dernière, elle, est préposée à la déchiqueteuse de documents. Très vite, la monotonie et l'absence de sens les saisit, mais lorsqu'il faut gagner sa vie, on est prêt à accepter beaucoup de choses... Même si cela implique de voir ce lieu de travail pénétrer chaque strate de son existence ? Dans une ambiance kafkaïenne où la réalité perd peu à peu de ses contours, et alors que d'étranges animaux commencent à rôder dans les rues, les trois narrateurs se confrontent de plus en plus à l'emprise de l'Usine. Hiroko Oyamada livre un roman sur l'aliénation au travail où les apparences sont souvent trompeuses.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Magical Realism, Contemporary, Novella, Fantasy

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2010

About the author

Hiroko Oyamada (小山田浩子) is a Japanese author. She won the Shincho Prize for New Writers for The Factory, which was drawn from her experiences working as a temp for an automaker’s subsidiary. Her following novel, The Hole, won the Akutagawa Prize.

Reviews

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me question my contribution to capitalism via my 9 to 5 job that pays the bills so I can spend my free time reading books like this that make me question my contribution to capitalism via my 9 to 5 job that pays the bills so I can spend my free time reading books like this that make me question my contribution to capitalism via my 9 to 5 job that pays the bills so I can spend my free time reading books like this that—

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘All I could see was a meaningless arrangement of squiggles and dots, symbols and patterns, running on endlessly. Words are such unstable things.’

There are few better readymade metaphors for the feeling of one’s self as a forgettable cog in a meaningless machine than a factory. Some people may thrive in them, but for those who are quick to reach for terms like ‘kafkaesque’, factories can really take on a sense of absurdity and futility when you watch your life slip by on a conveyor belt of working to exhaustion, sleep and repeat. Hiroko Oyamada’s The Factory--translated by David Boyd--dives headfirst into this metaphor and resurfaces dripping in dread and anxiety but with a charmingly surreal story to tell. The novella follows three characters who have each taken a job in The Factory, a massive company in a building the size of a major city that employs much of the region and pays well though nobody is quite certain exactly what they make. As time starts to unravel and the borders between life and work blur, the characters each question if they have lost all sense of purpose in life and if any can be found through work at all. Darkly humor abound, Oyamada’s devilishly surreal fable of factory life is a sharp critique of work culture and the impenetrable bureaucracies that make us all cogs in their machines.

When I was first out of college I took a job in my Uncle’s factory, uprooting myself across the state and into what became my own personal hell. Some people love that life, it wasn’t for me. I was good at it, I worked applying vinyl graphics to signs, but it felt like watching my soul slowly shred itself to pieces in a scream drowned out by the factory noise. Leaving for work at 4 or 5am to work in a windowless building for 9-12hrs often 6 days a week while doing something that in no way interested me.

Needless to say, the absurdities of Oyamada’s Factory really resonated with me. ‘From my second day on the job,’ temp worker Yoshiko Ushiyama says late in the book, ‘I never had to use a single brain cell.’ For someone who likes to be intellectually stimulated, this sort of day-to-day work is torture. My mind would run wild, but felt caged. During the winter I never saw the sun unless we had time to take our lunch, which we usually worked through eating at my station. I felt cut off from the world and if it wasn’t for reading (this was when I joined Goodreads) I would have gone mad (I eventually took a seasonal job 2 and a half years later at a Barnes and Noble just to escape after it was clear I was about to be fired for trying to start a low-key Union).

Oyamada details a fairly sinister work culture here where jobs swallow you up. Leaving because you dislike it is not so simple, as who can leave a stable paycheck for uncertainty in a society where being unemployed or underemployed has a shameful stigma. Employment becomes something that defines you, which many of these characters silently rage against as well as succumb to. The copy editor narrator has lost his job in computers so he must humbly accept work through his girlfriend’s temp agency. His sister finds the girlfriend repulsive, even beneath her brother, but acknowledges that her full-time employment status overrides her grating personality, level of attractiveness and general lack of intelligence (which is, sure, borderline ableist possibly but you get the point). Proximity to secure full-time employment is seen as a successful life above anything else.

The three narrators that make up this story all take turns telling their point of view, which reliably rotates until it suddenly doesn’t. Despite a fairly flat tone of voice between all three (and the sections are not noted which character is speaking), the reader won’t have an issue telling them apart. What is thematically brilliant though, is the creeping realization that the characters aren’t recognized as individuals for their humanity but for their job details. It isn’t until they mention what they do that you are sure which is speaking.

This lack of humanness is pivotal to each characters slow burning anxiety and grief. They should be happy, they have a job in an extremely prestigious factory, but they feel meaningless and constantly question why they are still there.

‘I want to work, and I’m lucky enough to be able to. Of course I’m grateful for that. How could I not be? Except, well, I don’t want to work. I really don’t. Life has nothing to do with work and work has no real bearing on life. I used to think they were connected, but now I can see there’s just no way.’

If work is not what truly defines you, how can you find it when your entire life is poured out into your job as if you are a cloth being wrung dry? Characters such as Yoshio Furufue never even wanted to be there in the first place. He is assigned to study moss in an endless and impossible project with no deadline, no supervisor, and no direction whatsoever. When he tries to make it clear he is a meaningless vessel in the factory, he is told he is trying too hard and not to worry. Another proofreads documents, slowly realizing these papers cover such an absurdly vast array of topics and mediums that he cannot even be sure what the factory does or why. Finally there is Yoshiko who went to school for literature but spends her days destroying documents, which is such an on-the-nose statement that one can’t help but howl in anxious laughter.

Directly opposing the creeping lack of purpose is the way society continues to structure itself around employment. The factory is vast, so vast in fact by the end of the short book it is clear it is larger than most cities (think Charlie Kauffman’s Synecdoche, New York and you are pretty close to Oyamada’s absurdist vision). Like the ‘Washer Lizards’ that live their entire lives behind the wash machines in the factory, living and dying without ever leaving from the very machine that provides them food and protection, workers of society live and die in proximity to their employment. The factory has living quarters, restaurants, small businesses, a downtown of bookstores and coffee shops, a giant river to the ocean and even roads and a highway that run through it. The factory is not just a microcosm of society as a metaphor, it quite literally becomes a microcosm of society. As Oyamada is pretty direct with her humor and metaphors, this doesn’t feel heavy handed but just really works.

There is a sense of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to this book with the wondrously imaginative yet sinister factory, though Oyamada throws a few nods to Dahl as well such as the scraggly young boy and his grandfather on the moss hunt (it is called out that all the other children have their parents) who later comes knocking at Furufue’s office. This factory seems to eat the world around it with no purpose beyond growing larger. The book slowly expands into a surrealist hellscape with people hiding in the factory forest trying to pants strangers, strange animals slowly growing in numbers, meaningless jobs droning on, and time starts to morph and become meaningless as well. The book seemingly takes place over at least 15 years, though it starts to be less and less clear when events are taking place in the timeless as it jumps without notice. The factory is swallowing everyone up, eating their sanity first.

While bleak, Oyamada colors this little tale with enough humor and good natured absurdities to keep your spirits high even while watching the characters crumble. She dives right into the heart of the matter quickly and follows its psychological ripples for awhile, which does make the book feel like it may have done better as a succinct short story as the plot sort of plods along, but it still wraps up before it begins to drag. This one really spoke to a dark part of my own work life that, while I prefer to forget about it, is still worth revisiting through the lens of fiction. Funny and plenty of absurdities to go around, The Factory is a fun little book.

3.5/5

‘ I've been living on this planet for more than twenty years, and I still can't talk properly, can't do anything that a machine can't do better.’

[Roxane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not get this book. The formatting is maddening. Not sure if it’s an ebook mistake or an authorial choice but it was not a pleasant read. And that’s fine. I appreciate experimentation. But this book is strange. It’s like the Seinfeld of a factory novel. There are some interesting lines throughout. I appreciate that this is a different kind of story. I appreciate the ambition and what the second half of the novel does. I am just not the right reader for it. You might be!

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

"a powerfully strange portrait of the absurdity and meaninglessness of modern life"...sounds like my average tuesday.

https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

this is a very short book but it felt arduous to get to, which i suppose is the point??

modern and corporate life really do feel this surreal and pointless. do i love reading about it? no, baby, i live it. but it was well done as hell.

bottom line: oh me! oh life!

[Liong · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading her 2 books, "The Hole" and "Weasels in the Attic", I came upon this book.

Even though her writing in this novel is mundane and surreal, it enticed me to continue reading till the end.

The story is about a woman, Yoshiko, who gets a job at a mysterious factory in the middle of nowhere.

It also describes her daily routines and the ridiculousness of her work life.

In my opinion, the author is trying to implicate and imply messages in this novel related to the unjustified working environment, uncompromising bureaucratic system, full of red tape, poor management, and restricted job descriptions in our real working life.

By the way, I started reading this book on a flight.

[Emily (Books with Emily Fox on Youtube) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did it to myself... I'm not a big fan of magical realism and in my experience, Japanese translations tend to be quite dry.

It had potential as it gave "Severance" (tv show) vibes but I lost interest towards the midpoint. It's a short book and I struggled to finish.

[xTx xTx · Rating 3 out of 5]

i like japanese writers. this was an okay to good book. i picked up what she was putting down. i live this shit on the daily. i too am a black bird. i too smell the ocean.

[K.J. Charles]

DNF at 50% because I'm just too tired for experimental novels. The experiment here is switching between three first person narrators with identical voices, jumping around in time within paragraphs, and not using paragraph breaks to separate dialogue, so there's multiple lines of mostly unattributed dialogue in each para and who knows who's talking to whom, let alone when.

I imagine all of this is an intentional comment on the dislocation and meaninglessness of modern working life, which, go for it. However I am a woman of simple tastes, and would rather read a book in which clearly defined characters do comprehensible stuff, so DNF.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) In an unnamed Japanese city, employment is dominated by an an enormous factory – big enough to be a community in its own right. We explore its strange world through three employees. Yoshiko Ushiyama has always dreamed of working at the factory and is happy to take any role; she ends up as part of a team whose only task is shredding documents. Her brother is placed at the factory by his girlfriend, who works for a temp agency; he's assigned to a never-ending and seemingly pointless proofreading job. Yoshio Furufue is a bryologist brought on board for a 'green roofing' project, but he's given no guidance or schedule, and the substance of his supposed job remains a mystery to him.

The factory is an odd place, and not only because most of the jobs appear so absurd and purposeless. The flora and fauna around it are unusual, and apparently unique – they reminded me a little of Annihilation. When Furufue organises a moss hunt for children, one of the kids finds moss growing on the corpse of an enormous coypu (a large rodent), about five times the size it should be. Each narrator notes that the facility is surrounded by ever-increasing flocks of unidentifiable black birds. The strangeness infects time and space, too: Yoshiko crosses a miles-long bridge quicker than should be physically possible, and there's a twist of sorts when it becomes clear the different narratives are not necessarily taking place simultaneously. (Or are they?) Together, all these bizarre details create a miasma of indeterminate weirdness.

Over time, the characters seem to know less about their vast workplace rather than learning more. This contributes to a further feeling of disconnection, suggesting the factory is causing its workers to become alienated from life in general:

The more my thoughts wander the harder it gets—everything feels so disconnected. Me and my work, me and the factory, me and society. There's always something in the way, something thin as paper. It's like we're touching, but we're not. What am I doing here?

Yet there's also a sense that this disconnection goes further. In the passage quoted above, Yoshiko goes on to say: I've been living on this planet for more than twenty years, and I still can't talk properly, can't do anything that a machine can't do better. Perhaps the factory is merely symptom, rather than cause, of a kind of generational malaise.

One thing I didn't like about the book was the poor formatting. Scene breaks – sometimes involving a significant jump in time – are indicated by a new paragraph rather than a separate subsection. Meanwhile, the rest of the text is barely broken up into paragraphs at all, which makes dialogue particularly confusing; I was often unsure who was speaking. Reading the second chapter, it took me several pages to understand the perspective belonged to a new character. Usual caveat, though: this could've been because I was reading a review copy.

Or perhaps the confusing layout is deliberate – just another part of the disorientating experience that is The Factory. There may be little in the way of resolution, but I enjoyed this disconcerting wander through the haze.

I received an advance review copy of The Factory from the publisher through Edelweiss.

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[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The job they assigned me was document destruction: operating a shredder all day, as a member of what they called the Shredder Squad. We were stationed at the far end of the basement floor, in a room stocked with machines made for destroying large quantities of paper. That was going to be my job—for 7.5 hours per day”.

As crappy as that - above job sounds....
I once worked in a sprinkler factory - in Israel ( the only worker not fluent in Hebrew, and 30 years younger than the other ‘all women’ workers), for 5 hours a day drilling a tiny hole into a small part of the sprinkler.
Zip... zip... zip... was the sound I heard with each hole I made. The pile of parts with their new hole grew as the hours went by.
This -ha- very intellectual job kept my body warm ( a heater in our room), during freezing cold days outside.
And what was wrong with that?
I didn’t need to worry about food, housing, or clothing on that Kibbutz.
All was provided.
Naps were fantastic.
Swimming and/ or making out with a cute Israeli guy were highlights and benefits from my time-off down time.

This Japanese ‘satire-ish’ (realism/science fiction combination), novella was eerie, affecting, and page turning. At times it created appalling, sad, pitiful feelings. Other moments.... I felt beauty in the mundane.

I read it under my covers during the dark sleepy hours in one ‘kindle-swiping’ read. It took about 2.5 hours.

We follow three different characters and their assignment jobs in the factory. They all wondered why the heck are they are working there.

“What good would come from complaining about getting paid this much for doing nothing? If I told my superiors thanks but no thanks? I live quietly, read about the world of bryology online, and grow shiso and cherry tomatoes in my backyard garden. I’ve even thought about buying a small dog a couple of times. This is my life. This is what I’m paid to do. And what’s wrong with that?”

With the $600-a-week unemployment benefits expiring ‘today’ in the United States —I’m thinking:
“darn right, what’s wrong with that?”

What ‘is’ wrong with a factory job?
Lots..... ( unless it isn’t), but that’s for others to think about.

This was a sad, powerful, story.... (bodacious excellent writing)....
but.....
even more sad - [for real] right now - are the Americans petrified with worry of how they are going to feed their families....with more jobs lost due to Covid-19... since the Great Depression.

A little dreaming and hope?....
“As soon as the shredder swallowed the last pages, I became a black bird. I could see people’s legs, their arms. I saw gray, and a little green. I thought I could smell the ocean”.

I’m looking forward to reading Hiroko Oyamada’s next book.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this back in September and it had so little impact on me I forgot I read it! I just read it again...as if I was reading it for the first time. The review I just wrote is quite similar to what I gave it before. I did bump it up 1 star. You know, I need to start taking Prevogen...I see that quasi-placebo pill hawked as a memory enhancer advertised nowadays more times than I care to see it....people say "I started noticing I was forgetting thing, and I started taking Prevogen, and I noticed a definite improvement in my memory." How the hell would they know? They can't remember diddly squat. 🤨

I don't know how to revise reviews. So I won't add to what I said several months ago except this one added assessment: 2.5 stars, so rounded up it is a 3. Not a solid 3 stars…Sort of like watching paint dry. 😐


This is a slim work, only 116 pages in softcover. After about reading a third of it, it became no fun to read. It was boring and it was again one of those pieces of lit I just wanted to get to the end to be over with it. I don’t know why I picked this book to read…when going to my TBR list there was no hint (e.g., so-and-so from Goodreads gave this 5 stars, sounds interesting). 1.5 stars. 😕

There are three protagonists, and they all work at a monolithic entity called ‘The Factory”. It is never stated as far as I can tell what the factory manufactures or what its mission is in the world of business & industry. Apparently, most people in the surrounding region work for The Factory. Two of the protagonists have contract work…they are not employees for the factory and do not receive benefits and such. One, Ushiyama, spends all her time shredding paper. A second, Furufue, a male, and is a proofreader for books and manuscripts and such that comes across his desk. A third person, who I think is a male, studies moss, because The Factory wants to have more green spaces on its grounds and apparently wants to have tops of buildings covered with green space and I guess moss is a cheap way of doing it. Beats the hell out of me, and I didn’t even catch the protagonist’s name.

If there is a plot or a point to this novel it was well-hidden. The Factory does not seem to be necessarily benevolent or nefarious. The protagonists as far as I can tell do not seek work elsewhere. I know you are not getting a whole lot of substance from reading this review and that is a perfect correlation with what I got out of this book.

From back cover: “With hints of Kafka and unexpected moments of creeping humor, The Factory casts a vivid—and sometimes surreal—portrait of the absurdity and meaninglessness of the modern workplace.”

Born in Hiroshima in 1983, Hiroko Oyamada won the Shincho Prize for New Writers for The Factory, which was drawn from her experiences working as a temp for an automaker’s subsidiary. Her following novel, The Hole, won the Akutagawa Prize and will be published by New Directions in 2020 (Jim’s note: it is published).

Note: well, this is an interesting short bio on Oyamada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroko_... (After graduation Oyamada changed jobs three times in five years, an experience that inspired her debut story "Kōjō" ("Factory") In his review of Granta's special issue on Japanese literature, James Hadfield of The Japan Times compared Oyamada's writing to that of Yōko Ogawa and said that her work "suggests good things to come from this promising young writer." Jim: Yoko Ogawa is one of my fave authors (The Memory Police, Revenge, The Housekeeper and the Professor); the short story Oyamada had in Granta is “Spider Lilies.”)

The longest chapter in this book was supposedly from some book that described three species, one of which is real, and one I am not sure about the other two: The Greyback Coypu (a large rat and it exists), Washer Lizard (do they exist?), and Factory Shag (a bird and I don’t know if they exist). Reading it was the equivalent of watching paint dry and I think I might have enjoyed that better than reading this chapter.

You are probably shaking your head in a horizontal fashion asking, “Why does he read something if he does not like it?” I don’t have a good answer to that. I try and finish books that I start, and I don’t think it is fair to review a book unless one reads it in its entirety. 😐

Reviews:
(good review from NY Times): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/bo...
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/...
https://asianreviewofbooks.com/conten...
https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/rev...

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I hate the word Kafkaesque except in this case it really is appropriate - this slim translated novel is about three people recently hired to work at a sprawling, city-dwarfing factory, the kind that has bus routes and restaurants to support the workers (or is it to keep them there?) One woman shreds paper at a job she is overqualified for, one man is proofreading documents by hand and battling sleep, and one bryologist has been tasked with something both impossible and that don't seem to actually want him to accomplish.

I've always felt the series of short novels from Japan speak to one another and had to laugh when one character, after thinking negatively about their job, counters with "at least they aren't working at a convenience store." (If you know the novel CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN you will get what I'm saying.)

The concept of senseless work is heavy with dread but feels even worse in this setting. There are other things going on that are a bit confusing - animals that may or may not exist, a dangerous forest on the grounds of the factory, and the sense that in the overwhelming vastness of the factory, there are as many ways to inadvertently violate expectations in each little microcosm. The author communicates the stress of that very well.

While I received a copy from the publisher through Edelweiss, the book came out October 29, 2019.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would have been a fun book. But the short sections are told through shifting first person perspectives, adding unnecessary layers of confusion. I wanted to read about Japan's Middle class struggles. It is hard to tell if this book is about jaded employees or hallucinogenic workplaces. Overall, it has intriguing ideas buried beneath unreadable paragraphs, lumbering under the weight of too many rhetorical questions and skittish internal monologues. Read Convenience Store Woman instead. That book displays a fascinating underclass struggle in a modern, heartfelt way.

This is not a story told in a straightforward way. The author was either trying to experiment, or wanted to obscure timelines and narrators, creating a ghost-like cast spouting dream-like inter-office frustration. Absolutely unenjoyable. But I would read other books by this author, simply for the atmosphere.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

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While The Factory shares many similarities with The Hole, it lacked the eerie atmosphere that made the latter into such a beguiling read. The Factory switches between three 1st povs, without specifying who is narrating (we usually can guess by the job they do). They all work at ‘the factory, an industrial factory located in an unnamed city that size-wise is close to Disneyland. The factory has a large influence on the city’s inhabitants, kids and adults alike go on field trips there in order to learn more about its inner-workings, and parents are keen for their children to have careers there. One of our narrators is employed to study moss, another shreds paper, and the third is a proofreader. Throughout the course of this novel, the author highlights the nonsensical rules and tasks that characterize modern working environments. Many of the conversations they have with their colleagues verge on the absurd, and much of what happens in their daily working lives will strike us as peculiar. Two years ago I was a temp worker at this company that processed donations and lottery tickets for charities and it made for a very strange working experience. They had bizarre regulations and often gave us temp workers the most random jobs.
This is not the first book that I’ve read that satirizes the gig economy. The Factory wasn’t quite as inventive and engaging as say Temporary. Also, the use of multiple narrators resulted in a less focused storyline. Whether this was intentional or not, I found myself wishing for a more introspective read. The characters populating this book are half-formed caricatures that didn’t quite succeed in capturing a certain type of person/worker. Still, The Factory does read like a contemporary Kafkaesque tale. There is an interview scene very early on in the narrative that felt really spot-on.
While this wasn’t as quite a memorable read as The Hole it does make for a weird and fairly humorous read.

[Bram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever wonder what would happen if Kobo Abe, Franz Kafka and Mike Judge teamed up to write a novella? Me neither. And yet here we have this little gem. A strange, dark and exciting work of industrial surrealism.

[Kate♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5stars

I get what this was trying to do, but it was boring. I was hoping for super weird but this wasn’t it

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounding this up to four stars, I found the promise of this new author more interesting than the actual work which focuses on the factory as a source of alienation and depersonalization. I enjoyed the author's imagination and her skill at being able to change her prose style to propel the novel. For example, one employee has been hired to study moss for green-roofing factory buildings but is not given guidance and is instructed to conduct moss identification and gathering tours for children. A grandfather and child, having participated in the tour, later visit the employee to present him with a report by the child on fauna observed at the factory. Oyamada changes style from the surreal, character's casual, point of view, based thoughts of which we have become familiar, to a technical prose appropriate for a report which reminds the reader that the work is being carefully crafted by the author. This works wonderfully as the technically based report has some of the more fantastical information in the novel. I look forward to the next book by the author.

[leti lo yeti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Per far capire quanto mi è piaciuto questo libro, basterebbe dire che contiene un capitolo in cui si parla delle abitudini delle nutrie che popolano i dintorni della fabbrica, e che mi ha comunque tenuta incollata alle pagine. Nonostante lo stile un po' difficile da seguire a volte (salti temporali e spaziali non segnalati, dialoghi o monologhi a inizio capitolo senza indicazioni del personaggio), il romanzo è geniale nella sua rappresentazione dell'alienazione data dal sistema capitalista. Assolutamente consigliato.

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/EaY9-WK5LiYv

[daph pink ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book, but it fell well short of my expectations. I was hoping for some bizarre corporate life examples and some strong and compelling images, but I found it to be a little too uninteresting. I understood the message it was attempting to express, which was wonderful, but I thought the monotonous narration distracted from its true meaning.

I didn't find much of what it sought to include in its plot to be really enjoyable. Even while the writing was excellent, it can still make or break your scenario.

Thankfully, there were only 116 pages in it; if there had been more, I would have dropped it.

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the meaningless of work. A bit of Kafka, here, perhaps, but rather than Kobo Abe's modernist nightmare Kafka, this falls more towards the aimless peculiar calm of Can Xue. The threads touch, but only just, and then it all presumably goes on indefinitely, as such things do.

[Bbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever had the urge to watch security camera footage of an office worker doing menial tasks? No? Well what if I said that the camera footage cycles through not one, but three office workers doing menial tasks, and sometimes the time code on the footage was messed up? Wait, still no? What a shocker.

Hiroko Oyamada’s The Factory is boring-weird, not interesting-weird. We follow three perspective characters, none of whom are engaging to read about in the least, as they perform pointless jobs they don’t like. The “hints of Kafka” mentioned in the book’s blurb come from the fact that these uninteresting characters are doing their pointless jobs in a really big factory that has some strange fauna. It’s a far less interesting setting than Dhalgren’s Bellona, for instance, a setting it reminded me of at times. The majority of the narrative consists of the three characters meandering through their unsatisfying jobs, which the narrative suggests are all intentionally pointless, but not in a way that generated any intrigue. None of the characters have arcs, they don’t have depth, they don’t have interesting relationships, and the closest thing to a climax that the book has is an awkward lunch. Then, in the final pages of the book, in a “twist” that has no emotional impact and doesn’t even try to make sense, two of the characters transform/begin to transform into two types of the strange animals that live on the grounds of the factory. I don’t know what Hiroko Oyamada intended with that ending, but it did nothing for me.

The saving grace of The Factory is that it’s short: nothing interesting happening for 100 pages is vastly better than nothing interesting happening for even 200 pages. I’m all for more weird stuff getting published, and so I applaud New Directions publishing such strange fare, but there must be better strange fare than this. In a month I expect I’ll barely remember it. 2.5/5, rounding up.

[Christopher Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a sinister/claustrophobic tone to this novel but, because it never seems to pay meaningful dividends, it feels wasted. Never a bad book and not terribly written, the experience isn't awesome either.

Three characters essentially go about their day to day affairs within a giant, city-sized factory asked to do work that is the functional equivalent of the work-life of Sisyphus in hell. The characters do not grow or change. The plot is that they get hired and they work at the factory. The themes are that modern life is absurd and alienating.

Nothing within the pages of the novel addresses or accomplishes much with regards to those characters, plot, or themes. In that sense, the book is--ironically, perhaps--a mirror image of the work lives those at the factory endure: it imparts no meaning, it is a joyless task, and it fills the void while an ultimate sense of dread lingers in the background.

I believe you will have a meh experience overall if you decide to read it. I had a meh experience reading it.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this on my lunch breaks. I work for a large and seemingly omniscient institution where I search for missing books among stacks of literal millions and every day when I wake up I wonder, what am I even doing?

[AsToldByKenya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fine. Its confusing in a way it doesn't need to be in order to add depth and it only just makes its boring. But I enjoyed reading it.

[Bella Azam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is odd but I LOVE IT. MAJOR CRITIQUE ON CAPITALISM 9 TO 5 JOB. I FREAKIN LOVE IT

An odd book with odd people working in an odd factory, in an odd place and time doesnt make sense and all you can think about is how's odd all of this 😃. The Factory was amazing. Its written in three different povs of three people with different jobs but whats same about them is they worked in the factory. The Factory that everyone seems to praise of, a place where its like its own townplace with tight security, a factory so big, you even have everything you need like restaurants, shops, cafeteria, convenience stores all in the factory ground. But what does the Factory is for, what sort of stuff they produced and what is the factory?

There is no clear answer on this. Reading this in 3 POV in first narrative was clever and confusing. Starting with Ushiyama, a girl that changed jobs five time and now assigned a contract position as a person to shred papers - a seemingly odd job and tedious task but was given a fancy name as Support Services. A researcher in moss taxonomy and biology guy was recruited to study moss around the factory and given a job as the head for a new department for Environmental Science for creating green roof project. The last person we followed is Ushiyama's brother whom got laid off from his job as Systems engineer and now scrapping by as a proofreader, a temp job given by his girlfriend. The whole plot screams the mixed odds ends of realism and absurdism of capitalist society as we are the cog in the wheels to run the whole nation. The Factory can be seen as a society where each of the workers had their roles but also hierarchial position with the differences in their position be permanent, higher executives, temporary, part-timers or contract workers. Each of these workers had different lanyard colours that showed their standing positions in the factory. Its such a subtle dig to the whole job shenanigans and its power imbalance. I freakin love it

It does get weird and convoluted as there is no sense of time in the factory. The time flows differently for each person, it gets a bit fantastical like and a little bit disturbing too. The author also played with the ominous and bizarre descriptions of animals found in the factory which gets you off guard in the middle since its so ridiculous thats its actually brilliant.

I have to give props ti Hiroko Oyamada for crafting such odd story for a short book that managed to deliver an impact on me as a reader. I enjoyed the story telling despite it can be confusing as we followed the first pov of 3 people and there is no indication which pov we are reading. It gave you this feeling of unease, kinda uncanny valley vagueness. Have to say, i do get if people dont like the book but to me, it certainly worked

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the quirky weirdness that comes with these short stories from Hiroko Oyamada. I've now read all three of her English-translated published books and The Factory is probably my second favorite of the three! Like the others, if you like weird books with open-ended endings, Oyamada's work is perfect for you :)

[P.E. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Involution

L'histoire prend pour cadre une gigantesque entreprise, l'Usine, qui aurait la taille d'une ville moyenne.

'C'est une ville à part entière. — Oui. Et plus grande que la plupart des villes moyennes. Nous avons des montagnes, un fleuve et la mer. Une forêt et un sanctuaire shinto. Le prêtre vit ici. La seule chose qui manque, c'est un cimetière. Et je crois que nous n'avons pas de temple bouddhiste, non plus.'

On y suit trois personnages principalement :

Yoshiko Ushiyama, préposée au déchiquetage en tant que contractuelle en temps partiel,
le frère de Yoshiko, affecté à la correction d'épreuves, en tant qu'intérimaire,
Yoshio Furufué, chargé à lui seul du repérage de mousses et de la végétalisation des toits de l'Usine,

Dans les secteurs occupés par ces trois personnages dans l'Usine, la responsabilité et l'initiative individuelles sont entièrement dilués dans une activité par groupes, collégiale ou bien lorsqu'initiative il y a, comme chez Yoshio, elle n'est non seulement pas subordonnée à un ensemble de résultats attendus, mais dépourvue de visée concrète. Pas de clarté d'objectif, isolement de l'employé vis-à-vis du tout, travail dévalorisé et aliénant. Aucun repère quant à la qualité du travail fourni. Ce qui importe, c'est de ne pas faire de vagues.

De même, la frontière entre travail et loisir est poreuse, rongée insidieusement, dans un mélange détonnant de formalisme et d'informalité : casiers partagés à trois, tenues décontractées, restaurants et magasins d'entreprise un peu partout, aucune supervision ou même d'attention apparente portée au travail effectué, absence de présentation de l'équipe pour les intérimaires et les contractuels.

Plus grave, les employés qu'on rencontre semblent tout à fait mal adaptés aux fonctions qu'ils occupent, et dans le même temps, leurs conditions de travail aberrantes deviennent un motif existentiel pour eux, plus large que leur vie propre. L'identité des employés est incertaine et mouvante, et l'autrice fait sentir que cette mouvance ne dépend pas des employés eux-mêmes en premier et en dernier lieu. Quels sont les ressorts de leur action ? Les pressions sociales et hiérarchiques, la peur du qu'en dira-t-on ? Le sentiment de faire partie de quelque chose de plus vaste que soi, un sentiment de reconnaissance trouble envers l'entreprise qui embauche ? Le confort issu du salaire, mensuel pour les mieux lotis, horaire pour les autres, mais pour tous apparemment conséquent par rapport au peu d'investissement personnel, à la très faible sollicitation de l'esprit qu'il demande.

Seulement, dans le même temps que la responsabilité individuelle se dilue dans le groupe de travail, s'érodent les désirs. On peut y voir un commentaire sur les infirmités, les difformités et les aliénations causées par l'environnement de l'Usine sur tout le vivant. Plus largement, très certainement un commentaire sur les travers du monde du travail japonais, largement exposés par Karyn Nishimura-Poupée dans Japon, la face cachée de la perfection

Pour moi, dans l'Usine, on croise essentiellement la question mal posée du sens du travail et du sens au travail. Du sens assigné au travail et pourvu par le travail, du sens des relations qui peuvent naître en son sein. Pourquoi mal posée ? J'y viens bientôt.

'Ce fleuve, le pont qui le traverse, cette usine. Tout est si grand, et j'en fais partie, j'y suis nécessaire, j'y travaille, alors je devrais être reconnaissante, me dire que c'est merveilleux, non ? [...] Celui qui veut travailler et qui a la chance de le pouvoir, comment ne serait-il pas reconnaissant d'avoir un emploi ? Sauf que moi, je n'ai pas envie de travailler. Car, en vérité, ce qui fait la valeur de la vie, ce qui lui donne un sens, n'a rien à voir avec le travail. Je l'ai cru autrefois, mais je sais aujourd'hui que ça n'a aucun lien.'

- Le principe de base, la prémisse est donnée d'emblée et aussitôt cernée : l'Usine est un lieu tentaculaire et dysfonctionnel d'aliénation profonde. C'est à partir de là que l'ennui commence à poindre à la lecture. À compter de ce moment, c'est essentiellement l'énigme de la présence de créatures étranges dans l'enceinte de l'Usine qui m'a poussé à poursuivre la lecture : les ragondins gris, les lézards de lave-linge et les cormorans de l'Usine, avec leurs cycles de vie farfelus. Rien à attendre du côté des employés qui poursuivent leur vie par pure inertie.

- Pas de sélection dans les épisodes rapportés et racontés (prenons l'exemple des interminables et insupportables scènes de restaurant). Il s'en dégage une impression de brouillon ou de témoignage brut, dans tous les cas, le roman en ressort très décousu.

- Les personnages sont très rarement nommés en début de chapitre. C'est certainement pour accentuer encore l'instabilité ontologique des personnages pris dans leurs contrats de travail précaires et nébuleux. Reste que lorsque c'est érigé en principe d'écriture comme ici, c'est franchement agaçant.

- Très étrange organisation des scènes dans ce roman, entrecoupées par endroits d'ellipses inouïes et brutales que rien n'annonce, certaines suivies d'un retour en arrière, d'autres enjambant plus de 15 ans.

- Pourquoi cette métamorphose en animal de certains employés et pas d'autres ? Qu'est-ce qui la conditionne ? Est-ce que ce processus est délibérément enclenché par l'Usine ? Prend-il pour cible des employés rétifs ou sur le point de lui échapper ? Est-ce au contraire la marque de la dernière soumission à l'Usine, qui ferait écho à l'objectif donné à Yoshio par son père : travailler pour avoir les moyens de se nourrir, fût-ce à l'état de créature vaguement parasitaire au sein de son enceinte ?

Finalement, le caractère terriblement statique de l'Usine m'évoque surtout les décors brutalistes de l'étrange jeu indépendant Babbdi. Mais cela ne suffit pas à en faire une lecture qui me plaît.






Voir aussi :
Japon, la face cachée de la perfection
Le travail - Une sociologie contemporaine
À la ligne
A Working Stiff's Manifesto: A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember
Convenience Store Woman
Chroniques d'une station-service
The Castle
The Employees
Faunes

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

WiT

Much of my time reading this novel was astoundingly complimentary to the characters' emotions within.

I experienced astonishment, wonder, and absolute confusion with Furufue as he is brought onto The Factory's payroll to ... study ... moss? He is a one man team commissioned with covering The Factory with green roofing. Except, how can one research student straight from university accomplish this task alone? He doesn't know, and neither so I! But, he's a one of a kind university guy who specializes in moss, and that's what The Factory wants and to be honest he was recommended by his profesor because he was the only moss guy, so they pay him good money and move him into company housing.

Yoshiko Ushiyama is a young twenty-something who gets in The Factory as a contract worker instead of a permanent employee because her work history is less than appealing. But, they need people to shred paper and it's no big deal if they come or go, so she gets a job and can at least not be a total drain on her brother. She suffers from complete ennui through her workday and her life. And I felt it. She is so awkward.

Ushiyama-san got laid off from his tech job and got himself a position in the Factory's editing department because his girlfriend works for a temp placement agency. He's lost, he wants more, and he can not keep his eyes open while he is editing these confusing ... reports? Essays? He doesn't even know what he's reading but it puts him to sleep at work and pills nor caffeine will keep him awake at his desk. I kid you not, I fell asleep twice while reading this book today. It's uncanny.

While normally I would say that empathizing and comiserating with the characters of a book is a sure sign of genius writing... I still agree with that... However these particular feelings: crushing boredom, confoundment, smothering depression, painful awkwardness - these are not good feelings to have in response to a book! Right? I don't even know because it is so clearly the way we and the characters are meant to feel. I don't know if I love or hate this book.

[Story · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Three first-person narrators (who all sound identical) do pointless, futile jobs at a huge city-sized factory. Nothing really happens in either their work lives or the book. There were some interesting ideas about the real-life meaninglessness of so many modern jobs struggling to emerge from this story but overall, this book--or maybe this translation?--was a bit of a mess and I struggled to make it through its 116 pages.