A book a day: Fríða ísberg: The brand

Idioma original: Icelandic

Original title: Marking

Year of publication: 2021

Translation: Enrique Bernardez

Valuation: recommendable

The brand It is preceded by the classic promotional campaign that identifies, indistinctly, the novel and the author, as “revelation” or “best seller” in a rather small market such as that of its country of origin, Iceland. Even so, the book takes more than two years to be presented here, and that is a long time in these times. So much so that it makes you think how many important things have happened and are happening from 2021 until today that could condition the framework in which we perceive this novel. At least three come to mind: the massive Covid vaccination campaigns, the war in Ukraine, the emergence of ChatGPT. It is not that everything has to do with this, but The brand It is a dystopian novel and a certain advertising bias is sure to end up establishing the sacrosanct comparisons (Clarke, Orwell, Huxley) and I consider, after reading the novel, that one should be careful.

To begin with, because Isberg’s inspiration, conscious or not, in these classics is more than evident. Even if it is in the nomenclature used to mention videos, narcotics. Even if it is to put the subject matter into context and the everlasting need to clarify to the reader that we are in another society but that this one is not as far away as we might think. And another sign of the times is manifested; the divisions between antagonists, an old fetish of humanity and an unbeatable excuse to start arguing or sending troops. The absurd need to generate scenarios where there are only two options, north/south, east/west, left/right. Here the pretext is a referendum to determine whether a psychological test is mandatory to distinguish the population that has passed it or not. The test determines the degree of empathy of individuals so everything can be discussed, starting with whether it is that quality, empathy, the authentic acid test which can unquestionably measure the social capacity of the individual, his degree as a cohabiting being.

The premise is used as a starting point to observe the lives of various individuals, not only in what they think about the situation itself or the meaning of their vote, but, I imagine, from here on everything is conjecture about whether the author has planned to its characters to generate a more profound ethical discourse, so that we see situations in which this verification factor can be subjected to reasonable doubts. The obvious background is the approach of a totalitarian environment in which individuals, businesses, establishments are markedhave passed the test or not, and the marginality to which they not marked are progressively pushed. An old and too unoriginal dilemma that admits all kinds of controversies from the excessive role of the state in people’s lives to the crushing gear (what can we say today) of the single thought as the unifying mortar of society. And that is my biggest doubt about the book, that it is used as a pretext to establish obvious controversies and that its characters, mostly flat and predictable, are used as banners when judging their behavior or even aligning with them. Although, for me, the book lacks some viscerality, something that elevates it in the literary field and distances it from being a good script for an eventual chapter of Black Mirror.