PLENITUDE

TITLE - PLENITUDE 

WRITTEN BY - DANIEL SARAH KARASIK 

PUBLISHED BY - BOOK*HUG PRESS 

PUBLICATION DATE - 7TH APRIL 2022 

Daniel Sarah Karasik’s “Plenitude” is a futuristic rallying cry for a generalisation of identity and society. These verses/passages are dense, kinetic and intelligent; rhythmic and often profane - adult trans-formational poetry for an undefined future. 

Daniel Sarah Karasik’s work is political, angry and confrontational, and it is quite breathtaking. The key poem is “trans-socialist” in which Karasik dreams of a society in which everything is, rather than one in which everything has to be something - a kind of communism (a term used with caution here) where we don’t have to worry about saying “communism” and “gender is reborn as pure play”. 

The poems are vital and sexy, in fact downright filthy in parts, often darkly funny but always screamingly honest. Karasik works hard at making you (the reader or anyone) like them and accept them, while at the same time liking and accepting themselves. Chapters are illustrated with striking graffiti art which suits the contents well. 

I know nothing about the trans condition but I like the future being created here, and I can enjoy this excellent poetry for what it is.

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THE EMPLOYEES

TITLE - THE EMPLOYEES

WRITTEN BY - OLGA RAVN | TRANSLATED BY MARTIN AITKEN

PUBLISHED BY - BOOK'HUG PRESS 

PUBLICATION DATE - 8TH MARCH 2022 

Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize (given to translated books), “The Employees” is a short science-fiction novel by Danish author Olga Ravn which tells the story of a spaceship manned by humans and humanoids (basically a kind of artificially “grown” human) and the consequences of their discovery of alien lifeforms on a planet. Both types of crewmembers begin to become attached to the aliens and start yearning for things and people they left behind on Earth whilst trying to maintain their strictly controlled productivity levels. This inevitably leads to conflict.

Now this is not a straightforward novel. It is told in the form of written “statements” taken from interviews with the crew during the unfolding of the story. This works quite well, and a palpable tension is built as the story is told through these snippets; some are a couple of pages long, others just one sentence. You will not know who is talking to begin with, but after a while a few different characters can be discerned, and you will come to understand who they are and the parts they play in the story.

I am not going to spoil the ending, but it would not take a genius to work out what happens. Even so, this book is a short but imaginative and often quietly profound examination of the dominance of work in our lives and ultimately what it means to be human.

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