Suppose we could predict which people are going to become criminals. Suppose we could predict which of us will be able to resort to violence. Would it have been right to remove these people from the community to ensure a safer society? Everyone must be tested It sounds drastic. But in Icelandic Fríða Ísberg’s novel “Meaning” this is the very core question. We are in the relatively near future. Most Icelanders have good help from artificial intelligence, a kind of Siri, which can fix most things. For several years, they have also been offered so-called empathy tests, a type of psychological test to show that they are trusted for responsible jobs. Alltings politicians have started to take it, in order to arouse people’s confidence. Nurses and doctors take it, teachers too. The test is spreading, but not without protests. Because what if you start dividing the population into a and b people, and favor those who have passed the test, while the others, those who have failed, might lose both their job and their mortgage? Frightening rectification The drama is building up to the approaching referendum: For or against mandatory labelling? The forecasts bounce back and forth, media reports lead to violent riots in Reykjavík’s streets with firebombs and violence. Because is safety and equality a good thing, or does the test represent a threat to democracy itself? It is a staggeringly good novel written by 31-year-old Fríða Ísberg – also well translated by the experienced Icelandic translator Tone Myklebost. The book may lead the mind to the Nazi extermination camps. It can also give associations to George Orwell’s dystopias where “Big Brother is watching you” was the theme, or to Margaret Atwood, who in her “MaddAddam” trilogy divides humanity into the privileged, who live in protected enclaves, and the berm, who are kept out . Good times for the psychologists But the scariest thing is that everything is done in the best sense. At Fríða Ísberg, the defenders of the test are no more inhumane than that they want to offer those who fail it, free psychology lessons and possible rehabilitation. Everyone must be able to be included. But what about those who don’t want to be noticed? Where does privacy become when everyone is to be cut across the same comb? Language equilibrist Ísberg actually uses hair and comb as metaphors. One of the test advocates breathes a sigh of relief when another small tangle in society’s formidable mane has been ironed out. It gets scarier a few pages later, where a company manager combs the lice out of the company’s hair. Tangles and lice are paraphrases for the truth: Unwanted individuals must be removed! Sharp portraits Four human destinies intertwine. Here is the politician Olafur, who is the leader of the psychologists’ association’s yes campaign. We meet Vetur, a secondary school teacher with a fear of persecution, Eyja, a vengeful woman who stalks her divorced husband, and at the bottom of the ladder, Tristan, a young drug addict, who refuses to be tested for reasons of principle. It is especially young boys who fall outside and who may have their lives ruined because they will never fit into society’s safety-seeking system. Anyone who gets associations with the Norwegian school, where the girls excel and the boys lag behind? The genius of Ísberg’s book is that she gives all the different people their arguments, which means that we easily understand why they think the way they do. Everyone has good reasons – and the best intentions. But the author also allows the debaters to reveal themselves. The person we thought was a victim might not be so innocent himself. And do the arguments now hold water? Olafur’s father is skeptical of the test, which he believes undermines the concept of trust. Trust is something different from certainty, he believes: And precisely human diversity, where we all possess different characteristics and different strengths, is what Fríða Ísberg defends with her very first novel. In the past, she has written poems and short stories. Last year she received the Per Olov Enquist prize, which goes to a young Nordic writer “on the way out in Europe” each year. I have no doubt that her dystopia will strike a chord with readers in several European countries as well. news reviewer Photo: Aschehoug Title: “Marking” Author: Fríða Ísberg Translator: Tone Myklebost Genre: Novel Publisher: Aschehoug Number of pages: 233 Date: 24.04.2023
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“Marking” by Fríða Ísberg – Reviews and recommendations
