The Room by Jonas Karlsson

Published in Sweden in 2009; published in translation by Hogarth on February 17, 2015

Björn, an ambitious new employee at the Authority, is a manipulative, narcissistic, anti-social jerk who nurtures his own sense of superiority while belittling everyone around him. But, as the reader soon learns, he is more than that. Just what additional labels should be applied to Björn -- paranoid? delusional? dangerous? -- is open to debate, but if ever a person deserved labeling, it is Björn. He is the sort of co-worker who makes people abandon the workplace in favor of working at home.

Björn stumbles upon an unoccupied room in his office building and comes to regard it as his lair, using it to give a private scolding to the worker who sits across from him and to enjoy an ambiguous assignation with the receptionist during an office party. He eventually comes to believe that the room does not fit within the confines of the building, a belief apparently confirmed by measurements showing that one side of the hallway is longer than the other.

Björn's co-workers perceive Björn to be standing in the hallway, staring at the wall. They say there is no room. Björn, on the other hand, believes himself to be the victim of a conspiracy to deny the room's existence. Bjorn believes he is "the only person who can see the truth in this gullible world."

Entering the room gives Björn a restful sense of freedom where "everything messy and unsettling vanished." We all need a room like that. On the other hand, we might want people like Björn to go inside their peaceful room (imaginary or not), lock the door, and stay there.

To the dismay of his co-workers, Björn's unconventional thinking also makes him well suited to the primary task of his office. His ability to "think outside the box" gives him an edge that co-workers lack. So how should the Authority deal with a supremely capable employee who is widely perceived as "a nutter"? Especially one who does his best work inside a nonexistent room? That is the key question posed by Jonas Karlsson's intriguing novel.

As irritating as Björn might be, his co-workers seem incapable of empathy or sensitivity. It is easy to forgive them for that -- nothing is more annoying than when annoying people achieve success -- but their insular and cliquish behavior actually lends support to Björn's paranoid sense that he is being persecuted. I think Karlsson is making the point that not everyone sees the world in the same way and that we need to make room for people who annoy us. Easier said than done but the lesson is a good one. The Authority needs to decide whether to take the good with the bad. Whether it makes the right decision in the novel's delicious ending is a question for the reader to ponder.

Karlsson's story is layered in subtle ways. It moves quickly, paying little attention to the development of characters other than Björn. The Room is a fresh, provocative novel, but it won't appeal to readers looking for straightforward storytelling and likable characters. It works well as a parable (although it is more complex than a typical parable) but it can also be taken as an entertaining work of absurdist or philosophical fiction.

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