Hiroko Oyamada’s Mordant Fable, The Factory

Reviewed by John Biscello

The Factory
by Hiroko Oyamada
New Directions, 128pp., $13.95

The year was 1936, when an indefatigable tramp served as a working-class Virgil in guiding audiences through the hellscape of big business industry and assembly line madness. The tramp, of course, was Charlie Chaplin in his iconic film, Modern Times, which applied fool’s wisdom in overlaying its satire with calculated mania, circus-like antics, romantic aspirations, and a punch-drunk heart that…