“If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn’t forbidden, and they intervene, then it’s not the activity that’s attracting attention, it’s you yourself,” (Harpman 35).
Thirty-nine women and one young girl are kept in a deep underground bunker and watched by guards. The women don’t know why they’re there. They have no memory of how they arrived in the bunker and only hazy memories of their lives before. Years pass, but one day something unexpected happens that changes the women and girl’s fates forever.
I Who Have Never Known Men has been on my reading list for awhile. It’s gotten rave reviews on Goodreads and it’s vague premise was enough to get me interested, as well as the long holds line at the library. But finally, the book came to me and it was well-worth the hype, but it won’t be for everyone.
I like a weird book. I like a book that doesn’t give all the answers, but I do like some answers. I had hoped for a little more information and backstory, but our narrator (the young girl) does tell readers from the start that this isn’t a story of answers, and I appreciated knowing that from the start. It’s not that there aren’t revelations. New things are discovered, but if anything they only lead to more questions.
I loved the voice of the narrator and her cold, clinical detachment to her life in the bunker. Unlike the thirty-nine woman she lives in the bunker with, the young girl seems to have been put in by mistake. There is no one her age, and unlike the women the girl has no memories of life before being taken as she was too young to even have vague recollections. She gives an almost alien perspective to humanity, because really what does it mean to be human when there is no culture, no memory of society to build on?
I don’t want to give too much away because this is a book that you want to sit with for a long time after reading. Philosophical and surprisingly heartbreaking, I Who Have Never Known Men was a powerful and quick read. Perfect to finish your reading goal with!
Publication: January 1 1995
Publisher: Transit Books
Pages: 208 pages (Paperback)
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Novella, Sci-fi, Horror
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.
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.
Sarah O'Connor 