A demoralizing look at the near future. The novel paints a pretty insightful picture of the conditions, structural and personal, driving us to where we’re headed. Combines that with some occasionally irritating prose.

This New Yorker review is the best thing you might read about the novel:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/in-elvia-wilks-oval-earth-capitalism... ( )

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/oval-by-elvia-wilk-brief-note/

Interesting exploration of green lifestyle and consciousness-altering pharmaceuticals. I do love Berlin as a city and it’s nice to see something set there. ( )

Gurl you move to a mountain with a boy like Louis and you deserve to suffer a little until you buck up and discover the biological truth of the mountain!!! Are you a girlfriend or a SCIENTIST??? ( )

The subject seemed compelling, and with blurbs by Jeff VanderMeer and Tom McCarthy, the book seemed promising, but it was a disappointment. Wilk has some neat ideas, and she writes of things that reminded me of works by both VanderMeer and McCarthy that I admired, but ultimately, so much of the book was just dull recounting of dud relationships. It doesn't begin to be especially enjoyable until near the end, and then it stops. ( )

Anja, a scientist from a privileged cosmopolitan background and her boyfriend Louis, an American who works for a ubiquitous non-profit are personified versions neo-liberalism in the futuristic novel Oval. Elvia Wilk describes a near-future Berlin in which the young couple agrees to live in an experimental eco-colony called the Berg. The Berg is a constructed mountain that has been placed on a former airfield by a company that is ostensibly dedicated to developing innovative and rigorously sustainable living solutions. In return for a home built of wholly organic and self-maintaining materials, residents must agree to follow stringent rules and be captured on continuous video. It becomes apparent that the company subsidizing the project, Finster Corp., is actually a shadowy bureaucracy with potentially sinister motives despite its claims. Life on the Berg is also rife with issues, as promises for improvements go unfulfilled, and the vacillating microclimates there create an environment that is “untenable” in the truest sense. Anya and Louis are also having troubles within their relationship, and Anya suspects that Louis has been deeply changed by the recent death of his mother. She also is disturbed by the mysterious way she and her lab partner (both under the employ of Finster) have been reassigned as ambiguous “consultants,” just when they were approaching a breakthrough. Louis’ work also seems to be taking a strange course as he becomes increasingly obsessed with a new drug he is helping to develop. Partying and drug experimentation are sanctioned and even encouraged in this Berlin of Wilk’s imagining. In fact, social connections are monetized and material success can be attained through a system of interpersonal bartering. Oval is a dystopic vision of “leftism” taken too far and a condemnation of political and commercial structures that seek to manipulate and pervert good intentions. Efforts to promote equality become mutated into selfish patronization and mindless philanthropy, serving to distract from the creeping expansion of a monopolizing entity. Wilk’s book is odd and difficult to navigate when it veers into Anya’s more philosophical musings. The second half also introduces science fiction elements that stretch credulity, particularly since the rest of the setting mirrors existing reality so closely. Still, the short novel contains are some interesting and timely topics portrayed in a unique manner that makes this indie release well worth a look.

Thanks to the author, Soft Skull Press for post-release copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. ( )