The Unknown Industrial Prisoner

This novel, like its author, is a complicated thing. Essentially, it is a dystopian satire on the industrial state in the post-World War II period. Set in and around an oil refinery ‘Clearwater' in Sydney, owned by ‘Puroil' a multinational run by the Australian Board, overseen by the London Board, and the World Board, it is a corporate machine in which the workers (“prisoners”) are an insignificant part.

The bureaucracy and shortsightedness of the company is plain to see, and is of course reflective of the corporate environment the world over. Published in 1971, it is as relevant as ever, with the computer technology being the only differing factor. The company saves money by reducing maintenance, by avoiding safety matters and by limiting the workers power to be heard. The company cares little for the environment or for the local community - why would they, the refinery is fully foreign owned. Workers are discarded or demoted carefully just before their pensions kick in. The workers, and their union work hard to do less for more money, they cheat, they steal and the sabotage in revenge for their poor treatment. The union, in this case are ineffective, and sell out the workers rights.

The company meanwhile is modernising the plant - a move that will see them require far fewer workers, but the modernisation and new equipment continually fails in its reliability - for all the above reasons, but mostly due to skimping on costs.

The novel in primarily linear, but by no means conventional - if anything the style would be referred to as experimental. There are themed chapters, each which move the narrative forward, but every chapter is made up of short sections each with a title, each section typically a paragraph to a page and a half long; an occasional section might be 3 pages. These change character and perspective, often having little linear relevance, but sometime interwoven. There are many, many characters, but perhaps 30 have primary roles.

The ‘prisoners' we see do not have real names. They have nicknames – the Great White Father, the Wandering Jew and Samurai are three of the supervisors, the Slug, the Python, the Brown Snake are further up the foodchain. Workers include Blue Hills, Beautiful Twinkling Star, Two Pot Screamer, Far Away Places, Disneyland and a host of other imaginative names. The upper management are merely known by numbers.

Just beyond the plant itself, hidden in the mangroves is the Home Beautiful. A series of huts in which a team of six prostitutes operate on rotation, and where the men (on and off-shift) drink, talk and relax (and avoid their wives). This is a counter-culture to the plant, where the men still bicker and blame, but are ostensibly calmed and placated, and make (futile) plans for better lives.

There is limited plot to the novel, more a series of events which show the demise or downward spiral of the plant and of the physical and mental health of the ‘prisoners'. It isn't a short novel, my edition 450 pages of relatively tight font, and I don't consider it an easy read. Some of this is no doubt on purpose. The metaphor of small cogs in a big machine lends itself to the many characters, some of which are only involved for a page or two, or as incidental characters; the complex jargon of the plant is unfamiliar and (I don't think accurately) technical in the explanations of what men do as part of their jobs, or how they go about their sabotage. At times the jargon and descriptions of the plant come across as purposefully confusing and hard to take in - which mirrors the fact the management have no idea how the plant works, or what the workers actually do.

The novel takes its name from a piece of art one of the management has created and won a prize. It is titled “Unknown Industrial Prisoner”, the obvious play on words with the workers also faceless prisoners to the company.

The book is readily quotable - so much clever writing from David Ireland, so I just picked out a few below.

5 stars for originality and cleverness.

P141

And no more ball-ups with Workers' Compensation. A man from another plant, hungry for overtime, had worked his first night shift of the week at his own plant, then accepted a double shift on the cracker, from seven to three in daylight. He was last in bed on the Friday morning and by noon Saturday had been without sleep for twenty-nine hours. He stood watching several panel instruments with orders to give the alarm if certain things happened. Asleep on his feet, he reeled backwards many times, and recovered his balance. The time he didn't he fell back and fractured his skull. It was better to blame a slippery floor and get in a dig at the operators who mopped it than to admit the man had done too much overtime. It was like admitting the need to recruit more labour. The Unions were suspicious, but the company was so nice to the man in hospital that he maintained the floor was slippery. It was a close one.

Several drops of moisture fell on his upturned face as he took off his hat and looked with pride upward at the mighty structures. Rain? Probably a small leak, not worth mentioning. He didn't see Far Away Places, two hundred feet above, buttoning his fly. He had taken to peeing from the top rather than have the Glass Canoe on his back.