I who have never known myself

 

Meh English Edition

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This has to be one of the most reactionary works I have read lately. The word feminist was thrown around about this book and I was expecting the hit all along the way, but was massively disappointed. My bad. In the end, expectations aside, it never quite took off, lots of interesting formations to fly splendidly … just crashing.

To be honest, the more I think about the book, my displeasure grows, so I wanted to get it off my chest, especially after reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. It was a funky connection, because I see both books dealing with the same issue (surprise!) of conformity in very different ways and degrees of success.

Random mumbling.

Some parts are beautifully written, heartfelt moments here and there, the mood was smoothly sustained, but the particularities were a mess and underneath, troubling. I get the despair about being the last of a civilization, the tortured path each woman walked, the years of imprisonment, but grouping and mixing the same despair with the impossibility of motherhood, being without a male partner… wtf? Yeah, let´s just die without boyfriends. Ok, that is partially unfair, but really, it is ridiculous to read that apparently women only can develop a meaningful connection with men, that relationships formed within the women are just empty substitutes, both sexual and non-sexual. Apparently, gays and bisexuals don’t really exist and there is nothing to find without a heterosexual romantic/sexual relationship... nothing at all. 

Just the able bodied survive, I am all in favor of euthanasia and no one who wants to avoid terrible pain should be forced to endure it, but every time someone had a problem… better die. Without men, there is no joy or comfort in creativity, in a peaceful existence, being alone is the worst it can happen, yes, they do stuff around, but just… meh. It draws the idea that the majority of these women had a dimmed intellect… because unknown reasons and yet, they suffer an existential anguish that doesn’t exactly fit and the simple pleasures of a simple mind are negated. I am not expecting the heavenly utopia of some feminist SF (nothing overboard like The Female man by Joanna Russ either), just not this… poverty. I would find it equally ridiculous if it was men instead of women.

And then...

I have to stop now, because there are no more stars of rating to remove left. I am having trouble leaving one, just for how some parts were described, the never-spoiling-frozen-meat and how hard I laughed when the young girl recalls being told that only a penis can take your virginity away. After the laugh, part of the book´s core is revealed.

Fun fact. It came to mind the book The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa on how it achieved what I Who Have Never Known Men couldn’t regarding the mysterious circumstances surrounding the plot.