This book is set in an ORSK, an IKEA-like furniture store,
and its main characters are employees. That part is a hoot. At the beginning of
each chapter there is a black and white drawing of a piece of furniture for
sale in the store, with an appropriate Scandinavian-sounding name (well, in the
later chapters, while some of the items listed are in the store, they probably are not on sale, and certainly not to ordinary customers). There are also various
inspirational company blurbs and the odd internal memo.
“Let you become We—at Orsk.” That would make any potential
employee feel warm and fuzzy, and it’s not just the employees. Customers are
funneled through the showroom by following the Bright and Shining Path.
Advertising includes the advice to “pause by your Arsle to turn breakfast into
a celebration of a brand new day.” As the book develops, a careful observer can
begin to find some sinister hints—potential employees are told that “It’s not
just a job. It’s the rest of your life”—and all the product numbers used at the
beginning of each chapter contain the sequence “666” somewhere.
When the horror element stepped center stage, I thought at
first it was going be weak, but it turned out to be anything but; it also has a
definite and creepy relationship to the “this store [work] is your life”
element ORSK tries to create in its employees. This was both a fun and a scary
read.
- Norm
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