Fazendo Amigos

At the center of the novel, three narrators share their routines within the Factory, a place with no defined name and roles that are diluted to the extreme. There is a sense of isolation, confusion regarding tasks, and an essential disconnection between the individual and the meaning of their own work. The oppressive environment and mechanical routine turn life inside the Factory into an existential prison, where time passes without leaving any dignity, purpose, or fulfillment.

This reality echoes one of the major dilemmas of the 21st century: the alienation produced by bureaucratic, repetitive, or technologically mediated jobs. Although the employees in the book find everything they supposedly need within the Factory, they lack precisely dignity and purpose, which are only partially filled by automatic gestures like excessive eating or small, empty rewards. The existential void portrayed in the book strongly resembles contemporary challenges—especially the difficulty of finding meaning in one’s daily work life.

In the 21st century, the arrival of the digital era and the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution revolutionized the world of work, making it more flexible and decentralized, but also more unstable and fragmented. New modalities such as remote work, freelancing, and temporary contracts have multiplied, conferring greater autonomy but requiring continuous adaptation and imposing barriers to the consolidation of solid bonds between workers and companies.

The "flexibilization" of work, praised by many as a synonym for freedom, frequently amplifies precarity. App-based workers, for example, are managed by algorithms, lacking transparency and uncertain about when they will receive bonuses. For a large part of the workforce, the promise of autonomy turns into exhausting schedules, financial insecurity, and difficulties in protecting their physical and mental health.

Technological advancement has also imposed the need for constant professional updates. The inability to keep up with new technical demands can mean exclusion from the labor market, aggravating anxieties and uncertainties for workers in various sectors.

A striking element in Oyamada’s novel is precisely how alienation extends beyond the workplace and invades the characters' entire daily lives, questioning whether there is life beyond the workday. This inquiry echoes discussions on the balance between personal and professional life, which are increasingly urgent in a time of hyperconnectivity and constant haste.

Just as in Oyamada’s Factory, 21st-century workers often see themselves reduced to interchangeable parts, performing fragmented tasks, often without understanding their real function in the production chain. The sense of uselessness and anonymity expressed by the book’s characters finds a parallel in the daily lives of modern professionals, pressured by unattainable goals, avalanches of data, and a lack of effective recognition.

The current world of work, despite being more plural and open to innovative formats, imposes challenges such as time management, the need for multiple skills, and a chronic malaise resulting from the weakening of rights and job security.

The Factory serves as a distorted yet faithful mirror of the anxieties and challenges of the contemporary worker. Oyamada manages to capture the feeling of suffocation, alienation, and lack of perspective of those who find themselves trapped in an indifferent global machinery, a dynamic that repeats itself outside of fiction—in today’s offices, industries, and apps. The reflection proposed by the novel is a call to rethink labor conditions and recover the human, dignified, and creative meaning of work, which is so threatened in the 21st century.

★★★★☆

A Fábrica

Hiroko Oyamada

Título original: 工場

Tradução de Jefferson José Teixeira

144 páginas

That was the worst decision I ever made as a reader: accepting compensation to write about something I had loved doing since I was a child. Even though I chose books that aligned with my personal taste, there was no guarantee the experience would be pleasant or the book would be good.

The burnout caused by this commercial relationship left marks that persist to this day: whereas I used to read a book a week for pure pleasure, I now struggle to finish twelve books a year.

When I made the difficult decision to stop wriying on my blog after fulfilling all my remaining obligations, I felt an indescribable relief just from no longer needing to write about what I read. Reading and not "telling" became a simple secret I kept with myself, and it made me quite happy.

I learned an important lesson from all of this: I finally accepted that if I don’t like a book, I can simply walk away. On my Kindle, I have several titles with only 5% to 7% completed, and that’s perfectly fine.

But sometimes, that old sense of obligation still whispers in the back of my mind, especially when a book comes highly recommended by a friend.

This is the case with "I Am Behind You" by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

I’ve restarted this book three or four times. It would be a lie to say I know the beginning by heart, but I remember clearly that the characters wake up in a trailer park and everything has disappeared overnight. Everything. Truly everything.

And that’s all I know, since I’ve never managed to get past that.

After the third—or fourth—attempt, I decided the book simply isn’t for me. The fact that I was promised (or rather, sworn to) that the unfolding events are extremely disturbing for the reader was almost enough to keep a small flame alive—a hidden hope in my reader’s heart that Lindqvist would get one more chance.

Se um padre ou pastor se sente no direito de subir em um altar lavrado em mármore travertino e pregar sobre humildade, caridade e benevolência, essa mesma criatura deveria ter o mínimo de empatia e se colocar no lugar do próximo, estender a mão aos necessitados e fazer de sua igreja um refúgio.

Em que lugar do mundo um religioso não se compadece com um bebê faminto?

No mundo cristão.

A mesma tiktoker seguiu com o experimento, ligando para mesquitas e templos budistas, obtendo uma conversão de 100% nesses locais, todos ávidos e prontos para ajudar.

Existe algo muito errado no cristianismo que faz com que as pessoas se afastem cada vez mais da religião - especialmente da Igreja Católica. O cristianismo sofre de uma desconexão crônica com a realidade, assim como de um alheiamento ao que é importante para seus fieis e a sociedade em geral. A pauta cristã tem se tornado uma pauta política em detrimento das pautas sociais.

Mas existem exceções. Um dos pastores, ao atender a ligação, não apenas se prontificou a fornecer o alimento para o bebê faminto como ainda perguntou se o bebê tinha preferência por algum sabor.

Na mancha de estanho na reputação cristã, pessoas como essas atuam como um refresco e um alento: talvez haja esperança, afinal, mas é cada vez mais claro que precisamos de mais Julio Lancelotti e menos Fabio de Mello.

Em um episódio mais recente, também nos Estados Unidos, uma mulher, branca, que devido há uma doença degenerativa acabou perdendo o emprego e se tornou sem-teto, dormia em seu carro no estacionamento de uma igreja, quando foi abordada e pediram para que se retirasse, ou chamariam o guincho.

Para tentar excplicar sua situação, ela adentra a igreja e dá de cara com uma recepcionista e uma das pastoras do local. Ela explica sua situação de extrema vunerabilidade. A resposta da pastora? Filmar a interação por se sentir ameaçada.

Respeito aqueles que encontram na igreja algum tipo de alento e consolo. Mas de uns meses para cá tenho me perguntado se pagar o dízimo é um bom uso do meu dinheiro. Por mais que tenha minha crença, acabei chegando à conclusão que um prédio e uma pessoa pregando uma moral que ela provavelmente não tem não são necessários para que eu professe minha fé.