I Who Have Never Known Men

The words that regularly spring to mind while reading this book?

Depression

Loneliness

Hopelessness

This book was top voted the Horror or Heaven sci-fi group read for December 2024, which is why I picked it up.

It's classic dystopia and a massive recommendation from me!

Author, Jacqueline Harpman, comes from Jewish descendants who were subject to Nazi oppression, so that might explain the destitute outlook of this book?

It's about a group of women who are held prisoner and live in a single cell from which they are never permitted to leave. A macroscopic concentration camp if you like in which they are observed and controlled 24x7.

There is no contact with the outside world and as a consequence there is no future or physical contact with anyone else.

The main character, as a child growing into a woman, has never met a man and only sees them as mute prison guards through prison bars. This heightens her separation.

Let's be clear.

This book is not a misandrist statement against men!

It's quite the opposite.

Although it may seem like a deep and depressing account of feminism, it doesn't hold any grudges or go on a crusade, but a fictitious account of life as a permanent prisoner and the forced limitations brought about because of it.

Most of all, it's fantastically bleak and dystopian because of the lack of hope or any potential for life improvement.

Classified as sci-fi, there are undercurrents of horror as well.

Some questions:

Who or what else is out there?

Why are we here in the first place?

Are we all alone?

Jacqueline Harpman doesn’t answer these questions, but sets them on a platter to be mulled over.

You'll be as intrigued as I was to discover how everything holds together:

Am I a prisoner?

Are we on planet Earth?

Is there a wider reasoning behind isolation?

The book also asks profound moral questions about staying or leaving, about looking after yourself or caring for others?

Yes, it’s mostly depressing and hopeless, but expresses the most important quality of all.

The importance of contact! Contact with others. Without it we're lost.

One day we may come across other planets and civilisations, but in the meantime, each other is all we’ve got!