12 people are working. They're workers, so it's what they do. The bricklayer builds a wall, the seamstress runs her sewing machine, the telemarketer phones people in alphabetical order, the butcher chops up carcasses, the Romanian (that's his profession) does... everything nobody else wants to do. While they work, they ponder their work. None of them have names, they're just representatives of their professions.

It gradually becomes obvious that they're all working side by side. Literally, in a huge abandonded factory, the butcher standing next to the telemarketer, the computer programmer right beside the auto mechanic. And that they're not, technically, producing anything but their actual work; everything they make is thrown away, or undone by themselves - the bricklayer's job is to build a wall, knock it down, build the exact same wall, knock it down, over and over and over again. They work under floodlights. Behind the floodlights is an audience who occasionally cheer, jeer or applaud. They've come to watch people work. Nobody knows why. Is it a commercial for an employment agency? Is it a satirical play? Is it an unemployment benefit? Is it an installation? Why do they work exactly 8 hours every day? Why are they expected to work at all? Is the security guard who keeps the audience in check part of the ... whatever it is, or is he just doing his job? What about the hooker waiting outside every evening?

Spain currently has a 25.1% unemployment rate. La mano invisible is the novel Karl Marx and Frederick Taylor might have written together if they'd woken up in the early 21st century and spent 6 months getting drunk together and watching reality shows. At times, the obvious theorizing underlying it gets in the way; but it works thanks to the constant questioning, trying to get at this peculiar idea of what work is and why we kill ourselves with it, while the postmodern audience tries to think we can sit on the bleechers and just watch (as if that wasn't a job we're expected to do). Rosa doesn't need names or ages for his characters to bring them to life, let their various experiences and professions draw parallels and clashes, without ever getting to any sort of easy conclusion (though the ending is very satisfying). It's not a perfect novel, but it's one of the most intriguing ones I've read in a long time.