I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman
Blurb:
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.
Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.
My Review:
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
I’m still not entirely sure this was a book for
me. There was a lot to digest, and I’m left sitting with more questions than
answers. It’s the kind of story that doesn’t really guide you or explain
itself, so I kept trying to find meaning as I went, but I often felt a bit
unmoored while reading.
Even now, I’m not fully sure what the ending was
meant to convey, or if I was supposed to understand it in a clear way at all.
It left me unsettled rather than satisfied, and I think that’s intentional, but
it didn’t quite click for me in the way I expected it to.
That
being said, I can see why it resonates with people. There’s something haunting
about it that lingers after you finish, even if you’re not sure how to
interpret it. It just wasn’t a fully comfortable or clear reading experience
for me, and I’m still sitting with what I think I feel about it.
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