I Who Have Never Known Men

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

Depression

Loneliness

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

This is classic dystopia and if that’s your thing, a massive recommendation from me!

It’s bleak and there’s little or no hope!

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

About a group of women held prisoner, living in a single cell, from which they are never permitted to leave. It's a microscopic concentration camp in which they are observed and controlled 24 x 7.

There is no contact with the outside world and as a consequence, have 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.

Although this may seem like a deep and depressing account of feminism, it doesn't hold any grudges or anything against men. This is a fictitious account of life as a permanent prisoner and the forced limitations of that.

It’s not a misandrist statement, quite the opposite!

A dystopian novel because of the lack of hope or any potential for life-quality improvement.

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

Questions!

Who or what else is out there?

Why are we here in the first place?

Are we 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!