Inhuman resources (Alfaguara, 2010) is a novel by Pierre Lamaitre, the genius of French suspense.. It won the European Crime Novel Award and has been translated into 14 languages. It has also had an adaptation in Netflix in the form of a television miniseries. Specialized criticism has been full of praise with her and it can be a good book to start with Lamaitre despite the fact that this author already has several series and trilogies.
Alain Delambre is an unemployed human resources manager. When he thinks he has found a position commensurate with his experience, he enters a tough selection process... up to the final consequences. A novel in which unemployment awakens the beast.
Inhuman resources: unemployment awakens the beast
A job is at stake
Alan Delambre was a prestigious human resources director, but became unemployed at an advanced age for the working world. So he accumulates frustration after frustration until he manages to enter the selection process for a position for which he considers himself the ideal candidate. However, it will not be easy to get this new job. The company that offers it has prepared a final test that consists of a simulated hostage taking. Delambre, resentful and desperate, he will be willing to do anything to get to the end, even if he has to lie and use his own family to do so. What will you not be able to do to get a new opportunity and continue to be an active member of society?
The novel is based on a true event in the context of the global economic crisis that began in 2008.. It is a cruel, harsh story, although it is no less precise about what happens in corporate environments, or in what refers to the employability of workers. Alan Delambre is a prototypical character of what is the need to keep or yearn for a new job. What you seem to forget is that in the urgency of finding a job that restores the human dignity that he thinks he finds in it, he loses his head and humanity. The panic caused by being relegated and outside the group causes its destruction. Individualism prevails and empathy disappears.
dehumanized
Delambre is just one example of what society has become in the capitalist system. He is, however, a very well drawn character, and he has highlights and shadows. Because the work maintains a verisimilitude that shows what we really are and what we can do. At first it is not easy to understand their reasons, but in this dehumanization there is a person who is a victim and perpetrator of the group. The fact that an RPG represents the tipping point between the ethical and the far-fetched gives a terrifying note to a story inspired by reality that only increases the desire to read it.
Inhuman Resources is a dynamic narrative with a narrative voice deciding how to reveal what is happening, and also omitting details in order to deliver surprises as the book progresses. The disturbing tone and the ideas that the author instigates provoke in the reader an intriguing reading environment and also reflective about the panorama of the company and labor relations.
The novel is structured in three parts: the before, during and después. These allow us to know from different perspectives everything that is at stake. Lamaitre's optics are completely cruel and realistic. Write without regard and finally achieve the desired effect: that the reader comes to think that he too could become an Alan Delambre, or the victim of a world that can be very ruthless.
Conclusions
Inhuman resources is a novel by renowned author Pierre Lemaitre. The French writer builds a thriller and it is based on a real event to give the work a realism where its characters do not show an iota of clemency (nor does it happen in the real world). It is a current work, full of intrigue, where the reader will be able to reflect and also empathize (or perhaps not) with its protagonist.: an unemployed man in his fifties who has lost a prestigious job and therefore also believes that he no longer has credibility or the respect of those he loves the most. You will never see a personnel selection process in the same way again.
About the Author
Pierre Lemaitre was born in Paris in 1951. He is a writer and screenwriter, although he has dedicated most of his life to teaching. That is why he started publishing in his 50s. He studied psychology and opened a training center for adults where he taught general culture and literature.. However, success came with his first novel, See you up there, with which he won the 2013 Prix Goncourt.
He is a great admirer of the noir genre and published a tribute book titled Passionate Dictionary of the Crime Novel. Although not all of his novels deal with this subject, and as shown is the historical trilogy Los hijos del desastre, to which his initiation novel belongs. See you up there. He is, therefore, a renowned author who moves in different registers. He has also cultivated the story and the comic, as well as a film script. His most famous character is Commander Camille Verhoeven, who gives his name to a series of four novels.. His independent novels also stand out Wedding dress o the great serpent.