The Standardization of Demoralization Principles by Jennifer Hoffman

 

This is a novel that I think is about the absurd nature of a tightly-controlled surveillance state, about how the workers in that tightly-controlled surveillance state are just as powerless as anyone else, about how pervasively damaging the inability to trust anyone would be in a tightly-controlled surveillance state because of how persuasive the surveillance and the tight control would be. I'm not exactly sure what actually has happened in the novel, but that's plausibly connected to the point/s of the novel, because I don't think any of the characters are at all sure what has happened in the novel--especially not the POV characters. About the only thing any of the characters can be sure of is that in 1989, East Germany--and the Stasi--are about to become sociologically unsustainable, that is the dawning understanding at what passes for a climax in the novel. I picked it up because of the vague Magritte allusion on the cover, and the glorious bureaucratese of the title; I have little doubt the novel is as Ms. Hofmann intended, but the best thing I can say about it is it's short.