I Who Have Never Known Men

Expect only questions, no answers from this book.

Have you ever read one of those stories where after the apocalypse, or maybe on an uninhabited island, one person is left, seemingly the only person left alive at all? And the whole story arc is about them dealing with loneliness and trying to find another human? Usually they do, usually one of the opposite sex, the implication being that they'll procreate, thereby solving the loneliness problem for at least two generations. Have you ever thought about that second generation? The siblings who will either have to resort to incest or dying out one by one? I often did. I wondered what it would be like for the last sibling, truly the last person on earth now.

I Who Have Never Known Men is about that last person, an account of her life, and it's as bleak as you would expect it to be. Everywhere this is grouped as a feminist novel, which I think is a bit shallow. Sure, the topic of gender comes up, and all the characters are women, but it's one of those stories were if the genders were flipped, if it was about a sole male surviving the apocalypse, no one would see that as a statement on gender. Really, in my opinion, it's about the meaning of life, and how much would be left of it without the rest of humanity. What use are the women's attempts at rebuilding a semblance of their previous lives, at finding out why what happened to them happened to them, at passing down knowledge to the one child among them, if there are no other people to share it with, no next generation to pass it down to? The pointlessness is soul-sucking. And it never abates.

It takes a special kind of person to enjoy a book like this, but if you like bleak, questioning, open-ended narratives, with the grace to be short reads, you should definitely give this one a try.

I Who Have Never Known Men is a disturbingly haunting story. A woman recounts her life to us although, from her earliest memories until the time she finds pen, paper and the inclination to write, she has no idea where she is or why she is there. As readers, we have no idea either. We are told of her immediate surroundings - of the cage and the other women locked inside it - in detail. We learn of the deprivations of their daily lives and of the silent guards forever pacing up and down. We know that the women originally lived in a society like ours because they remember it, but where the girl came from, nobody knows. Are they all caged for their own protection or as a punishment? Is there anyone else? Anywhere?

Harpman's writing is perfect for this novel. Her skill in being able to tell an utterly compelling story while leaving out practically all the background information is genius! In the hands of a lesser author I would no doubt be bemoaning gaping plot holes or inconsistent information, but here our narrator's questioning of her circumstances exactly reflected my questioning and drew me towards her rather than pushing me away. At several points I paused to put myself into her position. How would I react?

I Who Have Never Known Men is all about our inner lives as women, how we find a purpose for ourselves and what we can achieve when we need to. I would not have been surprised if this novel had been written immediately post-war. I felt it had that sense about it - of escaping extreme trauma, of realising that survival isn't the end, it isn't enough. The dystopian emptiness of this land is terrifying, especially as the women become fewer in number, and its portrayal is also extremely timely. The current rate of species extinction on Earth means Harpman's imagined desolation might not be so far away after all.