Review: I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman

Title: I Who Have Never Known Man

Author: Jacqueline Harpman

Translator: Ros Schwartz

Publisher: Vintage

Genre: Literary/Dystopian

Date of Publication: 2019 (originally published 1995)

Number of Pages: 188

See it on Goodreads: I Who Have Never Known Man

Summary

‘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.

Review - At Humanity's End

So, in case you've been living under a rock, you've heard of I Who Have Never Known Men. In the last couple of years, the book has seen a huge resurgence of popularity, and I wanted to see what the hype is all about. Plus, thematically it sounds like a book that I would enjoy. And, it turns out, that that was exactly the case.

I Who Have Never Known Men is a dystopian novella that takes us into a world where some people (mostly women) have been captured and imprisoned. They have no idea what had happened to them, they have no idea who holds them, and they certainly have no idea why they keep them alive.

Our protagonist was still a child when she ended up in this prison along with 39 other women. It seems to be a mistake, as there are no other people her age. The only men she's ever known are the guards. But one day, a strange thing occurs - the alarm goes off, the guards fly, and the door to their cage remains open. 

Don't go into this book expecting answers - by the end, you will have discovered nothing of this world. We are not even sure if we are still on Earth, a notion that many of the women express. However, the goal of the book was never to give answers, but rather to explore what it means to be human, what we are stripped of what is familiar to us, and questions the woman body as a reproductive organ. 

Our protagonist, that is only referred to as the child, has never known life as it used to be. So, she envies the other women, thinking that they laugh at her for not explaining elements of life that she will never experience. We see her fascination with the youngest guard, even though she certainly doesn't have any words to describe what these feelings are.

But when the women are finally free, the child with no memory of the world prior is the one that can express the new humanity. This became clear in the most heart-breaking scenes of the book, where she does what the others couldn't even think about. It was an act of mercy for them all, and it was the moment of the book that made me tear up. 

As expected from the very first page of the book, this isn't a story with a happy ending. We see the child (now a fully-grown woman) coming to terms with her loneliness in quotes like:

"Sometimes, I used to sit under the sky, on a clear night, and gaze at the stars, saying, in my croaky voice: “Lord, if you’re up there somewhere, and you aren’t too busy, come and say a few words to me, because I’m very lonely and it would make me so happy.” Nothing happened. So I reckon that humanity— which I wonder whether I belong to —really had a very vivid imagination."

What is the purpose of her writing down her story? Who will be there to read it? But she, who only used her body to count the time, she found a way to create time for herself, as we can read in this quote:

"The briefest conversation creates time. Perhaps I have tried to create time through writing these pages. I begin, I fill them with words, I pile them up, and I still don’t exist because nobody is reading them. I am writing them for some unknown reader who will probably never come—I am not even sure that humanity has survived that mysterious event that governed my life. But if that person comes, they will read them and I will have a time in their mind."

The only thing that prevented me from enjoying this book at its fullest potential is that I felt a bit detached from our protagonist. Maybe that was the point, maybe it was a manifestation of her different humanity, create by the unique circumstances of her upbringing. 

All in all, I understand the hype surrounding I Who Have Never Known Men. This is definitely a novella I will reread, and I believe that I will gain something new from it each time. If you want to read a dystopian book that explores the depths of humanity, then you should definitely read it. 

Read more of my reviews here.