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A review by ellemaddy
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
5.0
gonna write a review but maybe not now because i just read this in one sitting on an 11 hour train ride and the ride ain’t over, baby! my brain’s so fried but yes yes this was fucking amazing!!!!
It’s always such a treat to read this kind of literary narration. I love, LOVE it when authors explore the human psyche in an alien environment and I think it was done really well.
We were introduced to our main character, a young girl (who remained nameless if i remember correctly?) who was locked inside a bunker along with the other 39 women. They were guarded heavily and were not allowed to touch each other. For years they grew docile inside the confinement since there were no point in asking questions or trying to escape. But then one day the guard left and one of them left the key to their prison and they managed to get out. Soon they found out that the guards were all mysteriously gone and they finally could leave. But is there even a point in leaving? We’re following their story as they explored the outside world and found that there was nothing outside. The world felt alien to them, it didn’t feel like earth. There was no extreme seasonal changes. There was no sign of civilization. They were completely and utterly alone in a strange world. Once in a while they found bunkers like theirs, one after another, and everyone inside were always dead from starvation since their guards didn’t let them outside. It was a bleak and absurd situation. You can ask the why and you can ruminate or speculate about the reason why they were locked inside the bunker for years. You can ask where did the guards go or why was the electricity still on for years and years after that with no power plant in sight. But no matter how hard you ask, you can never get an answer. It is absurdism at its very core and some who couldn’t find the answer gave up completely.
Their journey outside spanned out for years until one by one the women started to die, either from illness, suicide, or old age, until our narrator, the youngest of them, was the only one left. Even until the end of the story as the narrator was near dead from an illness, we still didn’t get an answer for any of the questions that were asked in the beginning and perhaps getting an answer is not the point.
It was a desolate and frigid world, but the characters kept each other and this book warm. It’s a story about womanhood and women’s relationship to each other that felt incredibly gentle and human despite the difficult and strange situation that they were in. Overall this was such an amazing book and it really hooked you from the beginning. Well done!
“You are insolent,’ she said, relieved to find an explanation for the incomprehensible words I’d just uttered, certain that it would be enough to return to the habitual ways, to convention, to commonplaces.”
“And now, racked with sobs, 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.”
“None of them looked at me and I hated them. I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.”
“But human beings need to speak, otherwise they lose their humanity, as I’ve realised these past few years.”
“For the first time, I understood that I was living at the very heart of despair. I had insulated myself from it, believing that it was out of bitterness, but suddenly I realised it was out of caution, and that all these women who lived without knowing the meaning of their existence were mad. Whether it was their fault or not, they’d gone mad by force of circumstance, they’d lost their reason because nothing in their lives made sense any more.”
“I looked at the women: they’d just been given the vegetables, and were bustling about as usual, trying to find a new way of cooking cabbage and carrots when all they had was water and salt. They didn’t seem so stupid, because I understood that, having nothing in their lives, they took the little that came and made the best use of it, exploiting the slightest event to nourish their starving spirits.”
“They were as ready as ever to burst out laughing and I began to understand that it wasn’t out of stupidity or hopelessness, but as a means of survival.”
“To me it feels as if I’ve always been alone, even among all of you, because I’m so different. I’ve never really understood you, I didn’t know what you were talking about.’
‘It’s true,’ she agreed. ‘You are the only one of us who belongs to this country.’
‘No, this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner and everything here will be mine.”
“It was only at the moment of death that they admitted their despair and rushed headlong towards the great, dark doors that I opened for them, leaving the sterile plain where their lives had gone awry without a backward glance, eager to embrace another world which perhaps didn’t exist, but they preferred nothingness to the futile succession of empty days. And I know that at that moment, they loved me. My hand never trembled”
It’s always such a treat to read this kind of literary narration. I love, LOVE it when authors explore the human psyche in an alien environment and I think it was done really well.
We were introduced to our main character, a young girl (who remained nameless if i remember correctly?) who was locked inside a bunker along with the other 39 women. They were guarded heavily and were not allowed to touch each other. For years they grew docile inside the confinement since there were no point in asking questions or trying to escape. But then one day the guard left and one of them left the key to their prison and they managed to get out. Soon they found out that the guards were all mysteriously gone and they finally could leave. But is there even a point in leaving? We’re following their story as they explored the outside world and found that there was nothing outside. The world felt alien to them, it didn’t feel like earth. There was no extreme seasonal changes. There was no sign of civilization. They were completely and utterly alone in a strange world. Once in a while they found bunkers like theirs, one after another, and everyone inside were always dead from starvation since their guards didn’t let them outside. It was a bleak and absurd situation. You can ask the why and you can ruminate or speculate about the reason why they were locked inside the bunker for years. You can ask where did the guards go or why was the electricity still on for years and years after that with no power plant in sight. But no matter how hard you ask, you can never get an answer. It is absurdism at its very core and some who couldn’t find the answer gave up completely.
Their journey outside spanned out for years until one by one the women started to die, either from illness, suicide, or old age, until our narrator, the youngest of them, was the only one left. Even until the end of the story as the narrator was near dead from an illness, we still didn’t get an answer for any of the questions that were asked in the beginning and perhaps getting an answer is not the point.
It was a desolate and frigid world, but the characters kept each other and this book warm. It’s a story about womanhood and women’s relationship to each other that felt incredibly gentle and human despite the difficult and strange situation that they were in. Overall this was such an amazing book and it really hooked you from the beginning. Well done!
“You are insolent,’ she said, relieved to find an explanation for the incomprehensible words I’d just uttered, certain that it would be enough to return to the habitual ways, to convention, to commonplaces.”
“And now, racked with sobs, 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.”
“None of them looked at me and I hated them. I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.”
“But human beings need to speak, otherwise they lose their humanity, as I’ve realised these past few years.”
“For the first time, I understood that I was living at the very heart of despair. I had insulated myself from it, believing that it was out of bitterness, but suddenly I realised it was out of caution, and that all these women who lived without knowing the meaning of their existence were mad. Whether it was their fault or not, they’d gone mad by force of circumstance, they’d lost their reason because nothing in their lives made sense any more.”
“I looked at the women: they’d just been given the vegetables, and were bustling about as usual, trying to find a new way of cooking cabbage and carrots when all they had was water and salt. They didn’t seem so stupid, because I understood that, having nothing in their lives, they took the little that came and made the best use of it, exploiting the slightest event to nourish their starving spirits.”
“They were as ready as ever to burst out laughing and I began to understand that it wasn’t out of stupidity or hopelessness, but as a means of survival.”
“To me it feels as if I’ve always been alone, even among all of you, because I’m so different. I’ve never really understood you, I didn’t know what you were talking about.’
‘It’s true,’ she agreed. ‘You are the only one of us who belongs to this country.’
‘No, this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner and everything here will be mine.”
“It was only at the moment of death that they admitted their despair and rushed headlong towards the great, dark doors that I opened for them, leaving the sterile plain where their lives had gone awry without a backward glance, eager to embrace another world which perhaps didn’t exist, but they preferred nothingness to the futile succession of empty days. And I know that at that moment, they loved me. My hand never trembled”