Hum

(em português: sol2070.in/2024/12/livro-hum-helen-phillips/ )

“Hum” (2024, 272 pages), by Helen Phillips, is a dystopian fiction that is both suffocating and sensitive, about the difficulties of a woman and her family in a techno-surveillance society in ecological collapse.

Despite the futuristic setting, it could just as well be set today, with our current dependence on screens, corporate domination, ubiquitous digital ads, non-existent privacy, disastrous politics and the horror of environmental collapse. The difference is the absurd intensification of these factors, which includes the presence of advertising androids, called “Hum”.

But anyone expecting traditional science fiction may be disappointed, this is more like a backdrop for the drama — of marked internalization — of the protagonist May. Not that this is a flaw, I especially liked the psychological side, without seeing anything too special in the techno-dystopian part.

After losing her job to an AI, May undergoes facial microsurgery, in search of money, for an experiment on methods of obscuring surveillance cameras. Because of her longing for the lost natural world she experienced in childhood, she spends what she can't to take the two children and her husband for a few days in a kind of ecological dome. Unforeseen events, including a well-known internet phenomenon, exacerbate the protagonist's crisis.

It's not an easy read. There is a Kafkaesque tone, of a powerless person massacred by a vast automated system. This is compensated for by the tender moments of warm subtlety, and the character's feelings, without being cheesy. It's also worth it for the impressive ending.

I had read the author's previous acclaimed book, “The Need” (2020). A psychological horror similar to “Hum” in the internalization of a threatening crisis. Another point in common is that the genre of the story is just a backdrop for a powerful inner journey.

Hum was an anxiety inducing, dystopian peek into the natural trajectory of our own world, but with so much to say, I feel that it wasn't able to say enough about any one theme it attempted to explore.

May has hit a rough patch in life. Recently laid off from her job due to the rise in automation and the introduction of artificial beings into the workforce called Hums, she has been struggling to land on her feet so she can continue to help support her husband Jem, a gig worker, and her two children, Sy and Lu. After a former coworker connects her to a local startup that is apparently exploring how to surgically modify faces to become unrecognizable to the big brother-esque security networks, May has enough money to finally have a bit of a safety net for her family, and a slightly new face. She takes this opportunity to buy a three day stay for her family to the Botanical Gardens, a half fake nature oasis in the middle of the city where they can disconnect and explore urban nature. After MUCH coaxing, May convinces Jem to leave his phone and removes her children's "bunnies" or child friendly computing devices (think apple watches, or iPads on demand for kids), they finally start to enjoy themselves despite the growing tension between Jem and May that she would make such an expensive purchase when they need to save in their financial instability. After a scary incident at the gardens, the family narrowly avoids tragedy with the help of a Hum, but this is just a start to their problems as the family tries to return to their stressful lives. Dealing with the fallout of this incident and their daily lives which includes incessant advertising, distant children addicted to screens, a lack of mutual trust with Jem, and the world's eyes casting judgment, May is stretched thinner than ever, desperate for a life line so she doesn't drown.

Despite the over arching story being fairly straightforward, there was a LOT going on in this book. Each tiny chapter about May's life was filled with advertising, natural disasters, technology addiction, viral videos, and job insecurity. Just about every dialogue she had with her son Sy mentioned another depressing fact about some animal going extinct or a viral video the children were addicted to. Every conversation with a Hum was littered with advertising. Every description of the outside focused on the heat, the humidity, the air quality index, and the crowds. I understand the purpose of this, but with so much going on, it was difficult to find the message here. While this whole book might be summarized as "phone bad," I do think an attempt was made to make it more nuanced. But this was lost in the attempt at creating this building anxiety within the reader. I think that was intentional, but I don't think it was intentional to distract from the main takeaways from the story. This could have been really interesting had it been a bit more focused in what it was trying to do by perhaps eliminating some of the more unexplored themes like the dangers of "going viral," the strangely out of place tension May seemed to have with Jem, or the seeming afterthought of humanizing Hums. Overall, it was a bit convoluted for me to really enjoy. While this could have been very thought provoking, with so much going on, I fear the meat of it isn't really going to stay with me.