mi sbilancio in numero di stellette forse sull'onda dell'entusiasmo da fine lettura. Ma il libro è davvero notevole.
E' un giallo "futurista" scritto nel 1964. Non tutte le previsioni sono azzeccate ma è abbastanza impressionante la corrispondenza tra le situazioni descritte dall'autore e molti aspetti della nostra realtà contemporanea.
Un orwell minore ma non troppo.
Il poliziotto imperscrutabile e ulceroso che registra per noi un collasso sociale senza speranza mi ricorda un vecchio racconto a fumetti di Altan ambientato proprio in Svezia. Qualcuno sa dirmi il titolo?

PS. il "cellulare", termine usato più volte nel corso del racconto, non è il telefonino, ma il furgone della polizia. All'inizio ero caduta nell'inganno ma la data del libro mi lasciava perplessa.
Cito questa sciocchezza perchè il racconto parla anche di questo: di come si perdano le idee personali anche grazie alla perdita di padronanza del linguaggio con cui esprimerle (esempio della locomotiva)
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Marxist SF: "The Murder on the 31st Floor” by Per Wahlöö


Published for the first time in 1964 (2011 edition read).

NB: First read in German a long time ago. This is my first reading in English.

“The Murder on the 31st Floor” starts as a spiritual murder of cultural criticism, the freedom of expression and then in the physical liquidation of the last social critics.

“The Murder on the 31st Floor” is a novel in several ways that breaks with Wahlöös earlier novels, which mostly take place in foreign dictatorships, mainly Spain and Latin America. But all his novels, from the beginning, with the football novel "Sky Goat" (1959), are power studies of various types.

You can read the rest of this review on my blog. ( )

This novel comes before THE STEEL SPRING which I reviewed recently. Again it is a dystopian novel. In the unnamed country crime rates are falling and so are birth rates, but the government has recently made it illegal to become inebriated not only in public but also at home. Every night the jails are filled with drunks, and the government makes a small fortune by fining the inebriates.

Publishing of all sorts has become a monopoly of the group that owns The Skyscraper, the 31 storey building that dominates the capital city's skyline. As a result the people are fed a bland diet of feel good material whatever their choice of reading. The Skyscraper employs over 4,000 people and these all have to be evacuated when the bomb threat arrives by post. Stopping the presses even for a short time is extremely expensive, and the managing director of the publishing group contacts the chief of police for advice and immediate action. Neither is pleased when Chief Inspector Jensen advises that they must evacuate the building as he can't guarantee safety of those inside. However there is no bomb.

Jensen is given seven days to find out who sent the threat. His life is complicated by the fact that the pain that eventually sends him out of the country for a transplant in THE STEEL SPRING is ever present, but he is a dogged investigator and eventually finds out the truth.

This is not your every day crime fiction novel and those who have no taste for political polemic or satire might like to steer clear of it. ( )

Strangely compelling. A stark writing style that nevertheless kept me enthralled and engaged right down to the last page. Reminded me a little of the likes of Graham Greene or Franz Kafka - the grey and wretched selling and society, and the police officer plagued by bad digestion and ill patience. Recommended. ( )

With sirens screaming, a police team race through the city streets towards The Skyscraper. On the eighteenth floor Inspector Jensen is shown into the presence of The Company’s director, "The Publisher". The Company has received an anonymous bomb threat. The bomb is set to detonate at 1400 hours which is in half an hour's time. Jensen instructs The Publisher to evacuate the building. The Publisher however insists that production cannot be halted and evacuation is impossible. Eventually he agrees - with the exception of evacuating the Special Department on the thirty-first floor; the lift doesn't go to that floor and there would no be time to evacuate it. With The Skyscraper cleared, 1400 hours comes and goes without the threatened explosion. Back at police headquarters, Jensen is reminded that this is an unprecedented crime and whilst there has been no bomb, the threat must still be investigated - with utmost discretion and with all interviews handled by Jensen himself. Above all Jensen must not interfere with the course of The Company's work. He has seven days to find the writer of the anonymous letter...

Per Wahloo and his partner Mai Sjowall's jointly written "Martin Beck" series of the 1960s are thought of as Scandinavian crime classics. MURDER ON THE 31ST FLOOR, along with THE STEEL SPRING, are Per Wahloo solo works. Both books have a sci-fi slant, set in an undesignated future society, and both feature Inspector Jensen as investigator.

Originally published in translation in the UK in 1966, this novel's fictional future might send a shudder of recognition through the reader of the 2010s in the light of recent media/conglomerate scandals and a growing awareness of corporate power. Inspector Jensen struggles through his seven day deadline to find the would-be bomber. We follow his trail into the corrupt and closed-circuit world of The Company and the society it feeds. And this is a society shaped by The Accord, an agreement between all political and trade union organisations and The Company, a huge corporate which controls all newspaper and magazine publishing and their subsidiary industries including distribution, paper manufacture, even furniture production. The Company's iconography is everywhere - promoting conformity and “dignity”. Culture is fed to individuals through the Company's magazines and newspapers, alongside the processed meals available from public vending machines (the food industry is also an arm of the Company). Society's crime rate has fallen dramatically but so has the birth rate. Alcoholism and suicide rates have also risen. There are grimly prophetic touches such as the suburban mass-housing which are neatly dubbed “self-clearance areas” by the Ministry of Social Affairs. These are arranged around a bus station, parade of shops and piazza - as the bus route is axed, the shops close and are boarded up and the piazza becomes a graveyard of junked cars, occupants gradually leave until the development's now decrepit flats are left with about twenty percent occupancy.

This is an Orwellian tale in the scale of its imagination. But don't make the mistake of identifying Jensen as a liberal sceptic. Jensen's responses to rule-breaking and informality are a sharp reprimand for the perpetrator, he has a job to do and he will do it. A jewel of objective writing, this is a cool, beautifully-paced mystery containing a chilling vision of a corporate-owned dystopia. ( )