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I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Year published: 1995
Book # for author: probably 4th
Genre: Dystopian
Setting: a place that may or may not be Earth, year unknown
I Who Have Never Known Men synopsis
In I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman we follow an unnamed main character as she becomes aware of her captivity in a bunker along with 39 other women. She’s a lot younger than the rest and has no memories of the world the others remember. This is an advantage for her because she’s filled with curiosity rather than hopelessness. One day everything changes. A siren goes off, the keys are dropped, the guards disappear. Will their questions be answered? What will they discover about the world? Were they even on planet Earth?
What drove the story was the main character’s thirst for clarity. Every new discovery was as exciting for the reader as it was for her, despite some of her discoveries being pretty mundane. Her perseverance was that of someone who knew whatever the answers would be, they’d be better than staying in the dark. She was like a blank slate just wanting to be filled, and maybe that was why she was never given a name by the women.
Themes in I Who have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The main character, of course, never knew men, aside from the guards she watched through the small opening of the bunker. Naturally, she wanted to know all she could about them and love and relationships. The women didn’t see the point in telling her, but to her the point was knowing. This was an interesting theme in the book: Knowledge for the sake of knowledge vs ignorance is bliss.
Another theme, as Sophie Macintosh pointed out in the forward, is the senselessness of the cruelty done to these women. They had no idea why they were locked up. This echos the senselessness the victims of the Holocaust felt-with no understanding of what they had done
Other themes included the luxury of privacy (I was left questioning if it’s better to have zero privacy or be completely alone), and how the human spirit reduces itself in such a state but sometimes it can transcend everything
Something else that I found interesting
The book wasn’t originally titled I Who Have Never Known Men. It was originally The Mistress of Silence. The new title really puts a different emphasis on the book somehow, even though every word is the same.
Final thoughts
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman was an amazing book. There was so much to think about, so much to discover and explore, be it answers, physical objects or psychological themes. The book was very neat in its questions, organized in its chaos if you know what I mean, which I really appreciated.
Rating: 9/10.
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