The Factory

This book is weird and good. The factory is on an expansive campus with its own strange animals, and the people working jobs there have no clear sense of what they're doing. The description of animals is Vandermeer-esque.

I also appreciate that one character draws a parallel between the factory's campus and the Tokyo Imperial palace, both of which the character speculates might have their own entire ecosystems. The palace is surrounded by a mote, but the boundary around the factory is not so clear (another moment when the book reminded me of Vandermeer/The Southern Reach).

Like the other works of hers that I've read, The Hole and Weasels in the Attic, Oyamada begins by easing readers into the situations of her characters. Before long, though, their worlds begin to unravel. Following four characters in their strange occupations on the enormous campus of an unnamed factory, Oyamada builds suspense as questions about the factory mount and the surreal becomes more and more real.