When discrimination becomes the norm

"Milia" Asse Ericksdotter: a book for the weekend from Ekaterina Pisareva

Once every two weeks, Ekaterina Pisareva, the editor -in -chief of the book service MyBook, including 260 thousand publications and 80 thousand audiobooks, will, with knowledge of the case, will not only talk about the most interesting new products of 2021, but also choose those that can be read quickly and with interest.

The novel about fascism in the field of healthcare appeared very on time - as if it were written in hot pursuit. But in reality, the Swedish writer Osa Ericksdotter came up with this story much earlier, in 2016, even before the pandemic. Interestingly, in the original, the novel is called Epidemin (“epidemic”), but due to the abundance of works with the same name it was entitled simply, but almost more accurately: “massacre” (translation from Swedish-Sergey Stern).

According to the plot in the small but proud of Sweden, they decided to build a marvelous new world - without people suffering from excess weight. The health party that came to power, or rather, its leader Johan shines promotes a healthy lifestyle and announces all people whose fat-mosetic quota is more than 42, ballast, objectionable to the state. The only thing that becomes important is weight. Neither talent, nor mind, nor social capital, nor financial situation - nothing matters. You can be a famous writer, public figure, student or even newborn - the law is one for everyone. First, for people who do not fit into the standards, the world is collapsed to the size of their apartment, and then it is generally collapsed. The secret genocide of the population with overweight begins. Additional physical education lessons are introduced in schools, and dietetics becomes the main subject. Churches are urgently converted into health centers, and all federal channels are filled with propaganda-advertising operations to reduce the volume of stomach, liposuction, miracle tablets and vaccines from obesity. But it really becomes scary when camps for weight loss appear, where all those who do not fit into the system refer. People begin to disappear.

Ericksdotter very accurately draws the image of Johan Sverd - a young and ambitious politician who decided to keep power at all costs and use faith as dietary teaching. Her hero understands: in order to strengthen his position, he must enlist the support of society, split it and make the discrimination become the norm. He relies on health and justifies everything as a seemingly concern for the future of the nation. “If you want society to follow your calls, ask for beautifully and be beautiful yourself,” writes Ericksdotter, reminding readers about how often people “with beautiful faces” do terrible.

Roman Ericksdotter shamelessly reveals propaganda mechanisms and shows the collapse of a democratic society.

Interestingly, the world of "massacre" is an alternative reality, the action takes place in the 21st century, where there are social networks, Skype and the Internet. There are independent journalism, and telegram channels, and even its own Uppsal "new newspaper", the more absurd everything seems and at the same time-worse. Ericksdotter very clearly observes: hatred lives in the mass consciousness and many people are happy to become better at the expense of others. And those who deny the Holocaust can easily revive it.

If we talk about genre affiliation, then the “massacre” can be considered a political thriller and at the same time put in a row with anti -utopias: the Orwell novel “1984” and Zamyatinsky “We”, with the “The story of the maid” Margaret Etwudus and the “Memory Police” of Eko Ogawa. But the closest she is to the recently released novel by Agustina Basterrika “Special Meat”: the same bloody reprisals, the same attitude towards people as livestock. It seems that modern writers are urgently trying to comprehend the world in which we all ended up and which does not inspire confidence at all.

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