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I Who Have Never Known Men
‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before.
As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before.
As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
About the author
Jacqueline Harpman
30 books334 followersJacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929. Being half Jewish, the family moved to Casablanca when the Nazis invaded, and returned home after the war. After studying French literature she started training to be a doctor, but could not complete her medical studies when she contracted tuberculosis. She turned to writing in 1954 and her first work was published in 1958. In 1980 she qualified as a psychoanalyst. She had given up writing after her fourth book was published, and resumed her career as a novelist only some twenty years later. She wrote twelve novels and won several literary prizes, most recently the Médicis for the present novel. She was married to an architect and had two children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 12,131 reviews
December 5, 2023
“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
4 1/2 stars. Wow. This tiny, disquieting book carries a sadness that the most popular tearjerkers could never hope to capture.
It sits outside of genre, outside of time, outside of the reality we know, introducing the reader to a world unfamiliar to both them and the unnamed protagonist. The result is a palpable feeling of wonder and loneliness.
I have decided to round up because this book made me feel so deeply, and because I have decided that my personal frustrations are perhaps misguided. There were things that I was hoping for from this book that I didn't get, but then I was never promised them, and, in fact, the past tense narration forewarned I would not get them. So that's my problem.
The story starts in an underground bunker where thirty-nine women and one young girl-- our narrator --are imprisoned in a cage. They don't remember how they got there and they have no idea why they are there. The women remember a life before the cage with families, friends and jobs, but the child remembers only their current existence. They are watched over and fed by male guards who tell them nothing. It seems they are doomed to live and die in this cage... until one day a combination of chance and ingenuity provide an opportunity for freedom.
It is part eerie pastoral dystopia, part a deeply introspective novel about hope, loneliness and the things that give life meaning. The novel swings between the invigorating feeling of hope and the numbing despair of hopelessness.
I found myself wondering at one point if it was supposed to be a metaphor. But perhaps I am overthinking things.
Either way, this short novel sat like a ball of anxiety in my throat from beginning to end. What a sad, evocative little story.
February 14, 2024
Do yourself a favor and read this.
The second half of this book blew my mind. Very bleak but it will haunt me forever.
Best book of 2022: https://youtu.be/lQBAza0zdj8
Update: Reread it in French (no idea how to add another edition here) and liked it even more.
The second half of this book blew my mind. Very bleak but it will haunt me forever.
Best book of 2022: https://youtu.be/lQBAza0zdj8
Update: Reread it in French (no idea how to add another edition here) and liked it even more.
January 14, 2023
I WHO HAVE NEVER READ A BOOK LIKE THIS
March 25, 2020
‘I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.’
Viscerally disturbing, elegant and dignified. Better even than The Handmaid’s Tale.
This is the most haunting and thought-provoking book I have read in a very long time. Harpman’s prose is stark and stylistically perfect, charged throughout with an agonising inexorability. It’s a powerful concept besides: a slim dystopian novel narrated by an anonymous woman, whose only life she has ever known is that of being locked in a cage in a bunker with thirty-nine other women. Her narrative is deeply introspective, despite her complete and utter inexperience. And regardless of her intense capacity for emotion, she is convinced she is not entirely human.
At once exquisite and devastating, I am at a loss to understand how this has not reached a wider audience. I Who Have Never Known Men is a profoundly sad novel that revels in its ambiguity.
Viscerally disturbing, elegant and dignified. Better even than The Handmaid’s Tale.
This is the most haunting and thought-provoking book I have read in a very long time. Harpman’s prose is stark and stylistically perfect, charged throughout with an agonising inexorability. It’s a powerful concept besides: a slim dystopian novel narrated by an anonymous woman, whose only life she has ever known is that of being locked in a cage in a bunker with thirty-nine other women. Her narrative is deeply introspective, despite her complete and utter inexperience. And regardless of her intense capacity for emotion, she is convinced she is not entirely human.
At once exquisite and devastating, I am at a loss to understand how this has not reached a wider audience. I Who Have Never Known Men is a profoundly sad novel that revels in its ambiguity.
October 27, 2023
Holy shit
I’m unwell
I’m unwell
January 23, 2023
This is desolate and despondent. But it never tricks you into thinking it will be anything else. It tells you from page one that this isn't a happy story and that you'll be left wanting. But the story-tellers we are trick ourselves into believing that everything will get wrapped up in a nice little bow. No. False. This is pure science fiction. I don't know what was going on at any point of this book but by god am I so glad it exists. A women wrote this in the 90s??? Iconic. Never before seen. Stunning.
For such a short book, it packs a massive punch. Almost anything you could have questions about in a dystopian world are brought up in these mere 188 pages.
I can't say I ever felt fulfilled or happy reading this book but it definitely left me reeling and talking about the subject matter with everyone who had the displeasure of being within ear shot of me that week.
Critically this book is a 5 star. But by vibes, it's a 4.
For such a short book, it packs a massive punch. Almost anything you could have questions about in a dystopian world are brought up in these mere 188 pages.
I can't say I ever felt fulfilled or happy reading this book but it definitely left me reeling and talking about the subject matter with everyone who had the displeasure of being within ear shot of me that week.
Critically this book is a 5 star. But by vibes, it's a 4.
March 30, 2024
2.7
Największe rozczarowanie tego roku 😭😭😭
Największe rozczarowanie tego roku 😭😭😭
July 28, 2022
that might be the single greatest, most traumatizing last sentence in a book that i have ever read
----------
the title: god, i wish that were me…
the content: god, i’m so happy that’s not me.
----------
the title: god, i wish that were me…
the content: god, i’m so happy that’s not me.
December 13, 2022
What the fuck
March 31, 2021
I found this book when aimlessly browsing for available books on my library app. I’m so glad I did and added it to my favourite list straight after reading.
I loved so much about it including the subject matter and the length. It felt unique, fresh and mature.
Although there is no real explanation of events, which would normally drive me mad, I still enjoyed it immensely. This may be due to reading the introduction which was somewhat revealing and prepared me to not expect any explanation of the characters predicament.
I loved so much about it including the subject matter and the length. It felt unique, fresh and mature.
Although there is no real explanation of events, which would normally drive me mad, I still enjoyed it immensely. This may be due to reading the introduction which was somewhat revealing and prepared me to not expect any explanation of the characters predicament.
July 8, 2022
(3.5) i want to die. and no i won't elaborate on that, just pray for my sanity y'all
January 17, 2024
I’m shocked to be giving this 1 star. I really thought it was going to be 5 stars so I’m very disappointed. The main reason this is 1 star is because it literally went no where. The same thing kept happening over and over. Nothing new was given, the plot was virtually non-existent. It just went no where but because the writing is philosophical I’m supposed to ignore that? I don’t think this is worth picking up tbh.
1 star
1 star
April 8, 2024
Ja, która nie znosi książek pozostawiających czytelnika bez wyjaśnień.
Want to read
June 4, 2024i wish
March 23, 2023
I who have never known men is an astounding piece of speculative and dystopian fiction with discussions on womanhood, love and death, all with amazing character studies! A bleak but powerful read, this is one that will undoubtedly stay with me for quite some time.
March 26, 2019
An enigmatic book, haunting and mysterious but ultimately frustratingly open-ended: if you're the kind of reader who needs to have things tied up and explained by the end then step away now - we have no idea why these women have been incarcerated in a bunker, who their male guards are, why the siren goes off, what has happened to the outside world, even whether they're still on earth...
What starts out with a dystopian feel turns into a kind of existentialist meditation as 'the girl', our nameless narrator, ends up as possibly the only woman left alive - without companions or much purpose other than staying alive in her threatless existence, the book asks what is human life? Ultimately more 'Waiting for Godot' than 'The Handmaid's Tale' I found this weirdly compelling. 3.5 stars as I would have liked a bit more material to work with.
What starts out with a dystopian feel turns into a kind of existentialist meditation as 'the girl', our nameless narrator, ends up as possibly the only woman left alive - without companions or much purpose other than staying alive in her threatless existence, the book asks what is human life? Ultimately more 'Waiting for Godot' than 'The Handmaid's Tale' I found this weirdly compelling. 3.5 stars as I would have liked a bit more material to work with.
February 9, 2024
I would definitely encourage anyone interested in reading this book to not look too much into what this book is actually about.
If you have no idea what this book is about and are reading this review, here’s what I’ll say: this is a story about a girl growing up in confinement and how she learns to free herself through her mind. And yet along the way, she wonders is she really free?
Now you can pick this book up and have your own mind blown.
I loved how this had both a really intriguing plot, but also a deep philosophical examination of what it means to be a human, to live and love and laugh and learn.
I truly never knew where this book was going next. It’s quite a short novel and yet full of so much.
This would make an excellent bookclub selection as well.
I feel like I won’t stop thinking about this book for a long time. It’s one of those stories that gets a hook in you and doesn’t let go.
If you have no idea what this book is about and are reading this review, here’s what I’ll say: this is a story about a girl growing up in confinement and how she learns to free herself through her mind. And yet along the way, she wonders is she really free?
Now you can pick this book up and have your own mind blown.
I loved how this had both a really intriguing plot, but also a deep philosophical examination of what it means to be a human, to live and love and laugh and learn.
I truly never knew where this book was going next. It’s quite a short novel and yet full of so much.
This would make an excellent bookclub selection as well.
I feel like I won’t stop thinking about this book for a long time. It’s one of those stories that gets a hook in you and doesn’t let go.
February 19, 2024
2.5 stars
SPOILER🛑 but you should probably take the title of the book very literally, because she really has never and will never know men or KNOW ANYTHING AND NEITHER WILL WE.
I am actually so mad. I wish I knew this had one of those annoying open endings with zero answers. Just repetitive ramblings from start to end.
I was waiting with bated breath for something to happen, the author would even tease me with the possibility of a revelation. But don't hold your breath like I did. Every time you think it's something interesting, it's just them finding the same shit for 20 years.
I was dying of curiosity about the mystery of the women's circumstances, it was genuinely the only thing that had me hooked amongst the repetitive writing. It didn't even cross my mind that something so suspenseful would never be revealed.
The narrator and I were left in a pile of unanswered questions, accompanied by a despondent feeling that came with the ending of this book. It was completely depressing in a way that mirrors a real hunger for discovering hidden answers to questions that will never be found or be just out of reach.
Was this perhaps a metaphor about the uncertain reality of our own lives? Yea IDGAF, give me answers.
SPOILER🛑 but you should probably take the title of the book very literally, because she really has never and will never know men or KNOW ANYTHING AND NEITHER WILL WE.
I am actually so mad. I wish I knew this had one of those annoying open endings with zero answers. Just repetitive ramblings from start to end.
I was waiting with bated breath for something to happen, the author would even tease me with the possibility of a revelation. But don't hold your breath like I did. Every time you think it's something interesting, it's just them finding the same shit for 20 years.
I was dying of curiosity about the mystery of the women's circumstances, it was genuinely the only thing that had me hooked amongst the repetitive writing. It didn't even cross my mind that something so suspenseful would never be revealed.
The narrator and I were left in a pile of unanswered questions, accompanied by a despondent feeling that came with the ending of this book. It was completely depressing in a way that mirrors a real hunger for discovering hidden answers to questions that will never be found or be just out of reach.
I have understood nothing about the world in which I live. I have criss-crossed it in every direction but I haven't discovered its boundaries
Was this perhaps a metaphor about the uncertain reality of our own lives? Yea IDGAF, give me answers.
March 16, 2024
Ja, która skończyła świetną książkę
January 5, 2023
It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on suicide, euthanasia, physical deterioration due to illness, & others.
The narrator without a name writes to us on papers hidden in a bunker, assumedly kept there to house the invisible puppeteers that rule the world she walks through; ignorantly holding inventory of the bushes, water streams & void of life that crosses her path throughout her daily journey. Yet, at the end, when she has learnt to read, write & reflect on everything that has transpired in her life—desolate, solicitous, hollow, & muted—the narrator has no ill will for the questions that have exceeded the roster of a human’s ability to carry things left unsaid.
In this book, the reader finds a story from the perspective of a person without a name as she recalls the years of her life spent in a world that she cannot understand nor are there clues to explain it. This leaves this review a difficult one for me to embark on writing. Where is there a solid place to start when critiquing a piece of work that has at once beautifully painted a landscape that the mind automatically fills with the normalcy we see in our own, yet reminds us swiftly & without qualms that everything we cherish is no longer available to us in this realm? How does one put into words what Harpman has exceedingly done with the human vernacular; communicating in such stellar fashion the empathy one feels for familiarity in such extreme & unfathomable situations?
As always, I shall attempt to start at the beginning, as there seems no other place to commence.
The narrator of this book is introduced to the reader as she nears the end of her memoir. Having found herself in what we come to recognize & know as a bunker of sorts, she sits within the rooms known to her throughout the later years of her life as a home, & recollects the events that led her to where she is. Having been taken from an original place that she cannot call to mind, alongside 39 other women, the narrator grows to the age of about 14 or 15 in a prison cell. Though it seems that Harpman has described a prison cell, the likes of which I cannot truly call to mind, she has given the reader sufficient details to understand that the place in which all these women live is nothing but scarce & demeaning.
This is the first point of praise that I would like to give Harpman. Her uncompromising & unfaltering ability to describe a world that appears—for all intents & purposes—desolate, while simultaneously giving the reader the ability to illustrate a world that is large & overwhelming, is superb. The words employed throughout this book & the prose designated to craft the story are exquisite. I have no doubt that Harpman recognized that one does not need to put forth eternally long & tongue-twisting words to describe what the catatonic emotions & experiences of all the characters within this story were. A true talent with words resides in the mind of the individual who can purpose vocabulary in such a way as to enthral every person with ease.
The women who reside in this prison cell have lost most of their memories of the lives they led before their captivity. The reader gleams moments of small reflection upon which the characters seem to hold fond feelings; a marriage to a kind man, children that they loved, the hopes they held for career growth, & the social rules they abided by. The impoverished recollections lead the reader to immediately feel a longing for further information & details, both of which are never granted to us. So much is said with so little. Imminently we are given the opportunity to feel nostalgia for all the darkened memories we hold in our own minds. Just as the women in the prison cell, so too do we hold things in the recesses of our minds that we cannot quite call to the forefront. Suppose someone asked us what life was like prior to this very instant & suppose they asked us to describe in colourful details everything that transpired; how would we go about doing that?
Each of the women believes that their experiences or abilities to recall their past lives—the lives they led before being imprisoned—have been altered by force. They do not believe that they have simply forgotten what they experienced by the sheer distance of time but, that someone had been poisoning them; their memories forcefully shadowed into places their minds cannot reach. We are never given confirmation or a refusal of these assumptions as it does not ultimately dictate the weight of the plot for the reader to be explained everything in formulaic reasoning. Suffice it for the reader to know that the happiness they felt within their bones has been stolen from them, replaced with the singular existence they share in the cell.
39 women reside in a prison cell & are prevented from touching, crowding together & are simultaneously permitted no privacy when using the toilet. The employment & threat of violence has kept them submissive to this way of life, one that is contrary to what has come to be known as necessities of human existence. The narrator herself has grown into her teen years without being caressed or coddled; never truly developing a longing for human contact she retains the inmate impulse to seek out the reciprocity of another person. When the cataclysmic event takes place, one that we are never granted an explanation for, the women are free from the cell yet are never free from the imprisonment that took them away from what they loved.
This particular aspect of the story is one that I pondered very deeply. Being a person, myself, that does not feel the longing for closeness with another human being—not being drawn to touch or being held, rather not enjoying that practice—I wondered how long I should be able to go on in sustaining that if I were taken at this moment, to live in a cell where I had no free will to choose whether or not I could hug someone else. The narrator saw her formative years drift by in the environment of prevention & control, therefore she knew no different. The adult women, on the other hand, knew what it was like to share in an embrace or to hold someone’s hand; closeness represents a variety of things that are intended to offer comfort & love to another. Would anyone of us be able to see ourselves living solicitous within a group?
Many of us do that right now, in this life, where nothing is dictated to us or forced onto our lives such as to the women in this book. Many authors have sought to explain the experience of a person who feels alone among many & I have found it to be personally enjoyable when I find authors who seek the opposite. I appreciate it when someone with the talent for words & crafting of stories, writes about people who are individualized; when a story explores the solitude of a person who is not lonely because they enjoy themselves & they seek not the necessities that others feel drawn to possess. I find these stories oddly comforting & rewarding to read. The human condition is vast in its experiences. I am glad that mine can be found in the pages of a book without the author attempting to elicit sympathy for something that does not pang me.
This is not to say that I can speak to everything that the narrator experiences as I found myself feeling a longing to find her bunker & a small hope that someone might suddenly come upon her before her time was up. Why would I feel this way when logic tells me that she is certainly alone in this life? What was it about a nameless person that drew me to feel such a connection? Does reading about a negative situation lead one automatically to sentiments of forlorn sorrow? Does one need to connect with a character in a story to feel empathy for them & their situation or is it enough to recognize the depth of the human psyche’s abilities to understand?
Can the reader truly begin to imagine what these women must have felt upon coming upon the other bunkers which housed the prison cells of 39 people each time, all of whom were dead & decomposing? Can one truly understand, without living the experience, what it must be like to wander without purpose or knowledge of where one is meant to go? I have an inkling that this particular part of the story is something many individual readers may relate to. The narrator did not know her world & the reader may feel sorrow for her yet, how much do we know & understand our own world? Some people have gone to the moon & yet, for many people, the universe resides cooped within their property lines. Does this make either situation bad or good? I suppose that it depends on whom you ask & at what point in time, during their lives, you seek them out to ponder the question.
In reality, this book merits a full study; deconstructing each experience, the placement of every bush, the defining of every singular thought, yet, I think that every person should be drawn to this story if only to find a part of themselves within the plot. A nameless entity is not unknown, though we cannot put it into words. The narrator, though she does not have a born name—a government identifier, a religious nomenclature—is just as much an individual human being as Anthea, the person she loved. The love that is able to blossom within the relationships that the women share encourages the reader to reflect on their own experiences. Though the world may be bleak & though we cannot always call to mind the things that have brought us happiness, there are always unheard words in the heart, in the mind, that can leave us settled & comforted.
When all is said & done, I find myself left in silence; a droning quiet that permits me the time to reflect on every instance that is shared between myself & the narrator. I should hope to find myself reading this story again when the time is right, just as the narrator came across her home when she least expected it, so too do I hope to remember the deliberation & contemplation that was elicited within me upon my first read.
Philosophical works do not need to feel overwhelming, though they often leave one feeling debilitated. How can one possibly contemplate every single detail in a single sitting? There is so much to question & connect; too many instances of detail & depth. Without these stories, I should find myself very much resembling the narrator; alone with my thoughts that limit the awareness, I hold of the world, residing in the crevices of my mind.
Thank you to Edelweiss+, Transit Books, & Jacqueline Harpman for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Special praise for Ros Schwartz & her superbly enthralling translation of the original French text into English.
The narrator without a name writes to us on papers hidden in a bunker, assumedly kept there to house the invisible puppeteers that rule the world she walks through; ignorantly holding inventory of the bushes, water streams & void of life that crosses her path throughout her daily journey. Yet, at the end, when she has learnt to read, write & reflect on everything that has transpired in her life—desolate, solicitous, hollow, & muted—the narrator has no ill will for the questions that have exceeded the roster of a human’s ability to carry things left unsaid.
In this book, the reader finds a story from the perspective of a person without a name as she recalls the years of her life spent in a world that she cannot understand nor are there clues to explain it. This leaves this review a difficult one for me to embark on writing. Where is there a solid place to start when critiquing a piece of work that has at once beautifully painted a landscape that the mind automatically fills with the normalcy we see in our own, yet reminds us swiftly & without qualms that everything we cherish is no longer available to us in this realm? How does one put into words what Harpman has exceedingly done with the human vernacular; communicating in such stellar fashion the empathy one feels for familiarity in such extreme & unfathomable situations?
As always, I shall attempt to start at the beginning, as there seems no other place to commence.
The narrator of this book is introduced to the reader as she nears the end of her memoir. Having found herself in what we come to recognize & know as a bunker of sorts, she sits within the rooms known to her throughout the later years of her life as a home, & recollects the events that led her to where she is. Having been taken from an original place that she cannot call to mind, alongside 39 other women, the narrator grows to the age of about 14 or 15 in a prison cell. Though it seems that Harpman has described a prison cell, the likes of which I cannot truly call to mind, she has given the reader sufficient details to understand that the place in which all these women live is nothing but scarce & demeaning.
This is the first point of praise that I would like to give Harpman. Her uncompromising & unfaltering ability to describe a world that appears—for all intents & purposes—desolate, while simultaneously giving the reader the ability to illustrate a world that is large & overwhelming, is superb. The words employed throughout this book & the prose designated to craft the story are exquisite. I have no doubt that Harpman recognized that one does not need to put forth eternally long & tongue-twisting words to describe what the catatonic emotions & experiences of all the characters within this story were. A true talent with words resides in the mind of the individual who can purpose vocabulary in such a way as to enthral every person with ease.
The women who reside in this prison cell have lost most of their memories of the lives they led before their captivity. The reader gleams moments of small reflection upon which the characters seem to hold fond feelings; a marriage to a kind man, children that they loved, the hopes they held for career growth, & the social rules they abided by. The impoverished recollections lead the reader to immediately feel a longing for further information & details, both of which are never granted to us. So much is said with so little. Imminently we are given the opportunity to feel nostalgia for all the darkened memories we hold in our own minds. Just as the women in the prison cell, so too do we hold things in the recesses of our minds that we cannot quite call to the forefront. Suppose someone asked us what life was like prior to this very instant & suppose they asked us to describe in colourful details everything that transpired; how would we go about doing that?
Each of the women believes that their experiences or abilities to recall their past lives—the lives they led before being imprisoned—have been altered by force. They do not believe that they have simply forgotten what they experienced by the sheer distance of time but, that someone had been poisoning them; their memories forcefully shadowed into places their minds cannot reach. We are never given confirmation or a refusal of these assumptions as it does not ultimately dictate the weight of the plot for the reader to be explained everything in formulaic reasoning. Suffice it for the reader to know that the happiness they felt within their bones has been stolen from them, replaced with the singular existence they share in the cell.
39 women reside in a prison cell & are prevented from touching, crowding together & are simultaneously permitted no privacy when using the toilet. The employment & threat of violence has kept them submissive to this way of life, one that is contrary to what has come to be known as necessities of human existence. The narrator herself has grown into her teen years without being caressed or coddled; never truly developing a longing for human contact she retains the inmate impulse to seek out the reciprocity of another person. When the cataclysmic event takes place, one that we are never granted an explanation for, the women are free from the cell yet are never free from the imprisonment that took them away from what they loved.
This particular aspect of the story is one that I pondered very deeply. Being a person, myself, that does not feel the longing for closeness with another human being—not being drawn to touch or being held, rather not enjoying that practice—I wondered how long I should be able to go on in sustaining that if I were taken at this moment, to live in a cell where I had no free will to choose whether or not I could hug someone else. The narrator saw her formative years drift by in the environment of prevention & control, therefore she knew no different. The adult women, on the other hand, knew what it was like to share in an embrace or to hold someone’s hand; closeness represents a variety of things that are intended to offer comfort & love to another. Would anyone of us be able to see ourselves living solicitous within a group?
Many of us do that right now, in this life, where nothing is dictated to us or forced onto our lives such as to the women in this book. Many authors have sought to explain the experience of a person who feels alone among many & I have found it to be personally enjoyable when I find authors who seek the opposite. I appreciate it when someone with the talent for words & crafting of stories, writes about people who are individualized; when a story explores the solitude of a person who is not lonely because they enjoy themselves & they seek not the necessities that others feel drawn to possess. I find these stories oddly comforting & rewarding to read. The human condition is vast in its experiences. I am glad that mine can be found in the pages of a book without the author attempting to elicit sympathy for something that does not pang me.
This is not to say that I can speak to everything that the narrator experiences as I found myself feeling a longing to find her bunker & a small hope that someone might suddenly come upon her before her time was up. Why would I feel this way when logic tells me that she is certainly alone in this life? What was it about a nameless person that drew me to feel such a connection? Does reading about a negative situation lead one automatically to sentiments of forlorn sorrow? Does one need to connect with a character in a story to feel empathy for them & their situation or is it enough to recognize the depth of the human psyche’s abilities to understand?
Can the reader truly begin to imagine what these women must have felt upon coming upon the other bunkers which housed the prison cells of 39 people each time, all of whom were dead & decomposing? Can one truly understand, without living the experience, what it must be like to wander without purpose or knowledge of where one is meant to go? I have an inkling that this particular part of the story is something many individual readers may relate to. The narrator did not know her world & the reader may feel sorrow for her yet, how much do we know & understand our own world? Some people have gone to the moon & yet, for many people, the universe resides cooped within their property lines. Does this make either situation bad or good? I suppose that it depends on whom you ask & at what point in time, during their lives, you seek them out to ponder the question.
In reality, this book merits a full study; deconstructing each experience, the placement of every bush, the defining of every singular thought, yet, I think that every person should be drawn to this story if only to find a part of themselves within the plot. A nameless entity is not unknown, though we cannot put it into words. The narrator, though she does not have a born name—a government identifier, a religious nomenclature—is just as much an individual human being as Anthea, the person she loved. The love that is able to blossom within the relationships that the women share encourages the reader to reflect on their own experiences. Though the world may be bleak & though we cannot always call to mind the things that have brought us happiness, there are always unheard words in the heart, in the mind, that can leave us settled & comforted.
When all is said & done, I find myself left in silence; a droning quiet that permits me the time to reflect on every instance that is shared between myself & the narrator. I should hope to find myself reading this story again when the time is right, just as the narrator came across her home when she least expected it, so too do I hope to remember the deliberation & contemplation that was elicited within me upon my first read.
Philosophical works do not need to feel overwhelming, though they often leave one feeling debilitated. How can one possibly contemplate every single detail in a single sitting? There is so much to question & connect; too many instances of detail & depth. Without these stories, I should find myself very much resembling the narrator; alone with my thoughts that limit the awareness, I hold of the world, residing in the crevices of my mind.
Thank you to Edelweiss+, Transit Books, & Jacqueline Harpman for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Special praise for Ros Schwartz & her superbly enthralling translation of the original French text into English.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2023
Actual rating: 4,5
The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is bc my curiosity wasn't answered.
The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is bc my curiosity wasn't answered.
November 19, 2021
"the giver" meets "pew" - new favorite
March 15, 2024
Zrobiła na mnie piorunujące wrażenie, spodziewałem się, że mi się spodoba, ale i tak jestem zaskoczony, że aż tak. Fenomenalna, na pewno nie będę mógł przestać o niej myśleć jeszcze przez długi czas.
June 26, 2022
I really enjoyed the style of this book. For me the straightforward sentences reflect accurately the ability of our narrator, who writes this story at the end of her life. I particularly liked the beginning which follows the developing mind of our narrator, the child, and later the unnamed woman. I always respond well to intellect driven narratives. There is nothing flashy, extraneous or dramatical - although there are disturbing and emotional events.
From the beginning our narrator is different, because she is the only child held as a prisoner with 39 women. They live in an iron-barred cage in a bunker, patrolled around the clock by three guards on changing shifts.
The child is angry and rebels against the women with whom she feels she can share nothing - they withhold the secret of men from her. One woman approaches her, Annabel, who demands to know why she is alone, sulking different. And the child has reasoned there is no need for her to explain anything - she says so, and watches the astonishment on the woman's face. There is no way to punish the child into her usual obedience. Her stunted, but slowly maturing body, has caused her awareness and her brain to question and search for answers. She starts to apply logic to their situation.
She confides in the only woman she likes, Anthea and together they start to work out how to measure the time passing. The child counts her heartbeats, using Anthea's approximate calculation that there should be about 72 or so in a minute - in her former life Anthea was a nurse. They have been convinced for some time that they are not following a daily cycle of 24 hours. Even to asses the time in the years they have been there is hard to establish. The woman guess they have been locked in their dungeon/bunker for maybe 12 or more years; they cannot remember why they were brought there, and have no information at all about their present situation and can only remember very little of their former lives. The guards never speak to them.
The story is fascinating; the writer who came to mind as I read, was Ursula K. Le Guin - although I don't think Harpman's book qualifies as science-fiction. It certainly deals with a catastrophe of some-kind, and the women when they are finally outside, are never able to ascertain if they are on their home planet. The guards have disappeared and Anthea suggests that maybe a helicopter has lifted them to safety - and so in a way we are able to work out approximately the time-frame from where the women came.
I deducted a star because the ending is very sad; the end could quite easily be interpreted as the end of mankind. We don't know. Our narrator, now an elderly woman of 60 plus is dying. She writes her life-story in the hope that a person will find it and in this way her life and her death will not have been for nothing.
Short note - it was first published as 'Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes' - 'I who know nothing of men' - was published in France in 1995 and then translated and published in the UK, in 1997.
The edition I have uses the title - The Mistress of Silence, which I prefer.
From the beginning our narrator is different, because she is the only child held as a prisoner with 39 women. They live in an iron-barred cage in a bunker, patrolled around the clock by three guards on changing shifts.
The child is angry and rebels against the women with whom she feels she can share nothing - they withhold the secret of men from her. One woman approaches her, Annabel, who demands to know why she is alone, sulking different. And the child has reasoned there is no need for her to explain anything - she says so, and watches the astonishment on the woman's face. There is no way to punish the child into her usual obedience. Her stunted, but slowly maturing body, has caused her awareness and her brain to question and search for answers. She starts to apply logic to their situation.
She confides in the only woman she likes, Anthea and together they start to work out how to measure the time passing. The child counts her heartbeats, using Anthea's approximate calculation that there should be about 72 or so in a minute - in her former life Anthea was a nurse. They have been convinced for some time that they are not following a daily cycle of 24 hours. Even to asses the time in the years they have been there is hard to establish. The woman guess they have been locked in their dungeon/bunker for maybe 12 or more years; they cannot remember why they were brought there, and have no information at all about their present situation and can only remember very little of their former lives. The guards never speak to them.
The story is fascinating; the writer who came to mind as I read, was Ursula K. Le Guin - although I don't think Harpman's book qualifies as science-fiction. It certainly deals with a catastrophe of some-kind, and the women when they are finally outside, are never able to ascertain if they are on their home planet. The guards have disappeared and Anthea suggests that maybe a helicopter has lifted them to safety - and so in a way we are able to work out approximately the time-frame from where the women came.
I deducted a star because the ending is very sad; the end could quite easily be interpreted as the end of mankind. We don't know. Our narrator, now an elderly woman of 60 plus is dying. She writes her life-story in the hope that a person will find it and in this way her life and her death will not have been for nothing.
Short note - it was first published as 'Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes' - 'I who know nothing of men' - was published in France in 1995 and then translated and published in the UK, in 1997.
The edition I have uses the title - The Mistress of Silence, which I prefer.
April 27, 2023
I found Jacqueline Harpman’s execution of her dystopian world believable and compelling. 39 women trapped in an underground cage, with no notion of time or how they got there. We follow the 40th prisoner, a young girl who sits outcast in the corner until their group of 40 escapes into the aboveground strange world that awaits them.
Harpman’s writing made the events in this book feel scary and important. Her prose is ominous, sparse yet vivid enough to create a satisfyingly creepy atmosphere. Harpman raises interesting questions here: what would a world without men look like? What makes life meaningful when we strip our day-to-day existence to the bare minimum? To what extent can relationships with others satisfy us even in situations of despair?
My only disappointment of the novel was that I felt like it didn’t make enough of a point for me to feel fully content with how it ended. It’s open-ended, perhaps intentionally so, though I interpreted that open-endedness and lack of a more direct message as a kind of copout. Still, I think this book would be fun to discuss with folks, is thought-provoking, and is assured in its execution on the sentence-level.
Harpman’s writing made the events in this book feel scary and important. Her prose is ominous, sparse yet vivid enough to create a satisfyingly creepy atmosphere. Harpman raises interesting questions here: what would a world without men look like? What makes life meaningful when we strip our day-to-day existence to the bare minimum? To what extent can relationships with others satisfy us even in situations of despair?
My only disappointment of the novel was that I felt like it didn’t make enough of a point for me to feel fully content with how it ended. It’s open-ended, perhaps intentionally so, though I interpreted that open-endedness and lack of a more direct message as a kind of copout. Still, I think this book would be fun to discuss with folks, is thought-provoking, and is assured in its execution on the sentence-level.
May 24, 2024
"My memory begins with my anger."
"Inevitably, with memory comes pain."
"Time is a question of being human."
"Conversation creates time."
Given the subject, I thought this would be a feminist novel. It isn't. It is a humanist novel. Gender and sexuality are actually quite muted for large parts of it, and I think it was the best decision the author could make because it allowed her to retain the focus on the experiment it proposes. A great dystopian/speculative (science) fiction novel must do that in order to succeed, especially in a book with no answers.
"Inevitably, with memory comes pain."
"Time is a question of being human."
"Conversation creates time."
Given the subject, I thought this would be a feminist novel. It isn't. It is a humanist novel. Gender and sexuality are actually quite muted for large parts of it, and I think it was the best decision the author could make because it allowed her to retain the focus on the experiment it proposes. A great dystopian/speculative (science) fiction novel must do that in order to succeed, especially in a book with no answers.
January 27, 2024
This takes the cake for most unique book I’ve read! 🍰
This book is small but incredibly intense. It’s a well thought out book and rather ahead of its time with its dystopian nature. I’m actually surprised this book isn’t way more hyped or even that it hasn’t been made into a movie.
Our MC is the narrator and it’s a cool experience watching her grow and learn and push herself further every day on her boundaries. I think that’s what makes her so admirable.
The ending, although vague, was ironic and very poetic. I absolutely adored it.
It’s a heavy read as there’s a lot of death and suicide and talks in depth about enslaved women. Make sure you’re in a good mental headspace before picking this book up.
4⭐️
This book is small but incredibly intense. It’s a well thought out book and rather ahead of its time with its dystopian nature. I’m actually surprised this book isn’t way more hyped or even that it hasn’t been made into a movie.
Our MC is the narrator and it’s a cool experience watching her grow and learn and push herself further every day on her boundaries. I think that’s what makes her so admirable.
The ending, although vague, was ironic and very poetic. I absolutely adored it.
It’s a heavy read as there’s a lot of death and suicide and talks in depth about enslaved women. Make sure you’re in a good mental headspace before picking this book up.
4⭐️
April 22, 2023
This has to be one of the most reactionary works I have read lately. The word feminist was thrown around about this book and I was expecting the hit along the way, but was massively disappointed. My bad. In the end, expectations aside, it never quite took off, lots of interesting formations to fly splendidly … just crashing.
To be honest, the more I think about the book, my displeasure grows, so I wanted to get it off my chest, especially after reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. It was a funky connection, because I see both books dealing with the same issue (surprise!) of conformity in very different ways and degrees of success.
Some parts are beautifully written, heartfelt moments here and there, the mood was smoothly sustained, but the particularities were a mess and underneath, troubling. I get the despair about being the last of a civilization, the tortured path each woman walked, the years of imprisonment, but grouping and mixing the same despair with the impossibility of motherhood, being without a male partner… wtf? Yeah, let´s just die without boyfriends. Ok, that is partially unfair, but really, it is ridiculous to read that apparently women only can develop a meaningful connection with men, that relationships formed within the women are just empty substitutes, both sexual and non-sexual. Apparently, gays and bisexuals don’t really exist and there is nothing to find without a heterosexual romantic/sexual relationship... nothing at all.
Just the able bodied survive, I am all in favor of euthanasia and no one who wants to avoid terrible pain should be forced to endure it, but every time someone had a problem… better die. Without men, there is no joy or comfort in creativity, in a peaceful existence, being alone is the worst it can happen, yes, they do stuff around, but just… meh. It draws the idea that the majority of these women had a dimmed intellect… because unknown reasons and yet, they suffer an existential anguish that doesn’t exactly fit and the simple pleasures of a simple mind are negated. I am not expecting the heavenly utopia of some feminist SF, just not this… poverty. I would find it equally ridiculous if it was men instead of women.
I have to stop now, because there are no more stars of rating to remove left. I am having trouble leaving one, just for how some parts were described, the never-spoiling-frozen-meat and how hard I laughed when the young girl recalls being told that only a penis can take your virginity away. After the laugh, part of the book´s core is revealed.
Fun fact. It came to mind the book The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa on how it achieved what I Who Have Never Known Men couldn’t regarding the mysterious circumstances surrounding the plot.
To be honest, the more I think about the book, my displeasure grows, so I wanted to get it off my chest, especially after reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. It was a funky connection, because I see both books dealing with the same issue (surprise!) of conformity in very different ways and degrees of success.
Some parts are beautifully written, heartfelt moments here and there, the mood was smoothly sustained, but the particularities were a mess and underneath, troubling. I get the despair about being the last of a civilization, the tortured path each woman walked, the years of imprisonment, but grouping and mixing the same despair with the impossibility of motherhood, being without a male partner… wtf? Yeah, let´s just die without boyfriends. Ok, that is partially unfair, but really, it is ridiculous to read that apparently women only can develop a meaningful connection with men, that relationships formed within the women are just empty substitutes, both sexual and non-sexual. Apparently, gays and bisexuals don’t really exist and there is nothing to find without a heterosexual romantic/sexual relationship... nothing at all.
Just the able bodied survive, I am all in favor of euthanasia and no one who wants to avoid terrible pain should be forced to endure it, but every time someone had a problem… better die. Without men, there is no joy or comfort in creativity, in a peaceful existence, being alone is the worst it can happen, yes, they do stuff around, but just… meh. It draws the idea that the majority of these women had a dimmed intellect… because unknown reasons and yet, they suffer an existential anguish that doesn’t exactly fit and the simple pleasures of a simple mind are negated. I am not expecting the heavenly utopia of some feminist SF, just not this… poverty. I would find it equally ridiculous if it was men instead of women.
I have to stop now, because there are no more stars of rating to remove left. I am having trouble leaving one, just for how some parts were described, the never-spoiling-frozen-meat and how hard I laughed when the young girl recalls being told that only a penis can take your virginity away. After the laugh, part of the book´s core is revealed.
Fun fact. It came to mind the book The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa on how it achieved what I Who Have Never Known Men couldn’t regarding the mysterious circumstances surrounding the plot.
March 26, 2024
4.5?? easily the best post-apocalyptic book i've ever read, wow
May 3, 2024
4.5 - Speculative, dystopian stories that leave you speculating long after you’ve finished reading, are one of my favourites! I know that for some, an ending with resolution and closure is preferred, but there is something exhilarating about a world that could have so many origins that you study all the possibilities. Only talented writing can bend your mind in so many glorious ways.
The existential themes that leave you pondering your own life and purpose, are the perfect garnish to this moody, sinister, and depressive tale.
The existential themes that leave you pondering your own life and purpose, are the perfect garnish to this moody, sinister, and depressive tale.
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