Customer Reviews

I Who Have Never Known Men: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book affected me in a way no book has in a very long time. Ms. Harpman raises more questions than she answers, but that is the true achievement of this work -- that long after I had finished, it continued to mystify and provoke. The prose is confident, beautiful, compelling and captivating. The protagonist's situation is maddening, absurd, frustrating, and heartbreaking, and you will try right along with her to unravel its impenetrable mysteries. But in the end, the absurd situation is not what's important, but rather one woman's quest for identity and humanity in a world where identity is suppressed and humanity is a riddle. You will experience every moment of the narrative as if you were right there with this woman, unseen and unheard, leaving her in stark aloneness even as you hover beside her. If you are looking for an easy read with a happy ending, this is not for you, but if you are looking for an incredibly rendered narrative that raises questions of identity, freedom, knowledge, love, empathy, and dignity, give this book a chance -- you won't regret it. It's hard to believe one can =enjoy= a book so bleak and without hope, but once it grabs hold of you it doesn't let go until the very last word. A haunting tale, a gripping science fiction novel and an impressive achievement. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I first read this translation soon after it came out and kept it handy, knowing that I would want to re-read it someday. Well, 'someday' arrived this week, and I would now like to share my take on what is going on in this extended literary metaphor that has quietly gained a small but committed fandom, matching its quietly forceful approach to its subject.

[Why only four stars for a Classic?-- because the same oddities that make the book strong also provide its primary weakness: The same lack of scope and resolution that provides the book's intense focus, and emotional force, deprive it of the sort of huge impact that such a work probably deserves.]

Forty women live in an deep-underground 'bunker,' guarded by men whose only communication with them is the cracking of whips. Artificially shortened days and nights governed by automatic lights control their lives. They are given two austere meals per day and expected to cook the food themselves. They are denied privacy regarding any aspect of their existence, are forcibly touch-deprived, are not allowed to cry, and, most horribly of all, are forced to keep living even when they wish to die.

Actually, the forty women consist of thirty-nine mature women, plus one girl, known only as The Child. She remembers nothing of life before her imprisonment, and none of them understand why they are in this confinement nor do they remember what led up to it. Nor does anyone know the Child's name, least of all herself.

When, eventually, a freak chance to escape leads to their permanent emergence above ground, they embark on an extended journey which provides no substantial clues to their history, and which in the end merely substitutes another kind of imprisonment for the previous.

Not exactly a tale of hope or cheer!

Yet, somehow, the story is not depressing. In fact, it feels quite hopeful in the end, for no reason immediately apparent.

Which made me think: What is the book REALLY about?!?

At one superficial level, it seems to be a feminist tract similar in a few ways to Atwood's 'Handmaid's Tale.' There are also absurdist echoes from such authors as Kafka. And yet, the thought keeps nagging me that there is far more to this book than those superficial comparisons would suggest.

What I believe it actually is [in ADDITION to being absurdist and feminist, not as opposed to those genres] is a metaphor for the human search for meaning in an appallingly alien universe. Our cosmology, whether religious or scientific, often seems fragile and vulnerable in the face of the immense scope and incredibly varied nature of the setting we find ourselves in. We speculate a lot about the meaning of life, where we came from, where we're going, etc., etc. But in reality we have no more clue to all this than those forty female characters which Harpman describes so lovingly do to their own enigmas.

To make sure the reader gets the point, the author has deliberately withheld the kind of detail that would lend 'realism' to this not-quite-science-fiction tale. The Child who is also the book's narrator is far more erudite and eloquent than any real person in this harrowing experience, with its lack of education and experience, would be capable of being. The totally-unexplained disappearance of the guards which enables the women's 'escape' is so impossible [and so convenient] as to take on an air of fantasy. Equally unrealistic is the fact that not one of these women has any memory of how they got from their former [and 'normal'] lives to this hell-hole existence on what may or may not be 'another planet.' And the capper is that the electricity supply is magically endless and faultless, although no source or means of distribution for it is ever discovered or explained. [Just as there is no real explanation for what caused the Big Bang or how so-called Dark Energy causes the expansion of the universe continually to accelerate.]

Reviewers who have complained about lack of resolution are missing the point: There can be no resolution in a metaphor for cosmology, because we do not yet know enough about our own existence in the universe to interpret it with any kind of confidence to ourselves.

Is there a moral to this far-from-plotless tale of ennui and purposelessness? Yes, I believe there is. Someone once said that the point of travel lies in discovering that the journey is more important than the destination. Just as this book tells us that Living-- mere Living-- IS the Meaning of Life.

I bought this book on a whim, and sat down one night to read it. I found myself unable to put it down. Remarkably there were moments that I had to put the book down to collect myself, and was surprised to find myself where I was, and not locked in a bunker, or trying to make sense out of an unapoligetic and bleak life. To think of life that was marred so early and so deeply is shocking. The empathy I felt for the narrator, although almost foreign, as her experiences and thoughts were also foreign, was tangible. The haunted feeling I had while reading it, and the emotions it creates are intense and unforgettable. I loved this book. It is one that I know will stay with me, and I can only look forward to future english translations from this immensely talented writer. I cannot reccommend it enough!

I read I Who Have Never Known Men over a year ago and it still swims around in my head. It is a succinct, quiet, feminist version of Stephen Kings lengthy soap-opera, The Stand. Although set on a dusty, barren planet, I was left with a feeling of lushness and complexity that the most intricate of settings lack. I enjoy books by women authors of Science Fiction and this my favorite find.

A friend recommended this book based on my love for Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE....completely engrossing and somehow triumphant, despite the depressing subject matter...definitely worth a try - I recommend it to everyone, knowing that most people don't always hear about small translations like this.

Recently translated, Harpman's disturbing existential novel recalls the more terrifying moments from Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" and the novels of Franz Kafka. "I Who Have Never Known Men" depicts a stark, room-sized cage in which a group of amnesiac women attempt a semblance of dignity while overseen by nameless, whip-wielding guards. How did they get here? What is going on? Harpman denies us answers. Even after the women manage a fluke escape, their freedom is ambiguous at best, and we can only watch as they wander an uncompromising landscape (that may or may not be Earth...) and ultimately succumb to exhaustion and death.

That this is not a cheerful novel goes without saying. Its triumph is Harpman's unerring eye for the absurd and tragic. Above all, this is an engagingly strange book that refuses to pigeonhole itself into any specific sub-genre. I highly recommend this odd and uncategorical tale.

This book will stay with you long after you've finished. Desolate, heartbreaking, and very moving. One of the saddest yet most beautiful books I've ever read.

It was high time Jacqueline Harpman got translated into English. Her novel is very original and innovative, and needless to say thought provoking. I was overwhelmed by the sense of desolation and solitude conveyed by the narrator. It will make you reflect about your own life and mortality. Ms. Harpman's insight into human nature is griping and unpretentious in its simplicity: without others we are nothing. I could not put this book down. This novel reminds me of a Ray Bradbury work, the title of which I do not remember, in which all of the human race is turned into vampires with the exception of a man who is waiting for his fate. For the francophones among you, I recommend another of Ms. Harpman's novels, "Orlanda," as of yet untranslated, which narrates the experience of a woman who temporarily leaves her body to posses that of a young man.

A sad and truly beautiful book, I Who have Never Known Men is a journey of a child who has no past, present, or future. The loneliness is palpable as she tries to find her place in the universe. Highly recommended.

This book, which I wish I could have read in French, was beautiful, and captivating. Although the theme of the book is clearly one of great loneliness in the protagonist, and when you think about it: depressing, the author manages to convey the subtle triumph of a human soul who has lived with captivity, isolation, unfulfillment of almost every kind. I still find myself wondering how such a theme and story could be written with such awesome beauty, and create no repulsion in the reader (me), AND be riveting; but that is exactly what has been accomplished!