I Who Have Never Known Men

Livre broché, 188 pages

Langue : English

Publié 1 mai 2019 par Vintage.

ISBN :: 978-1-5291-1179-8
Goodreads:: 43208407

(2 critiques)

‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’

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 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.

10 éditions

enne📚 a publié une critique de I Who Have Never Known Men par Jacqueline Harpman

I Who Have Never Known Men

5 étoiles

There’s no continuity and the world I have come from is utterly foreign to me. I haven’t heard its music, I haven’t seen its painting, I haven’t read its books, except for the handful I found in the refuge and of which I understood little. I know only the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct.

Highly recommended from me. This book is sort of a melancholy post-apocalyptic coming-of-age survival story, but with a dreamlike tint. It's uncompromising in not giving any pat answers to any of its questions. Why are these women here? Where has everybody else gone? Is this even earth? I feel like it explores a lot of ideas around trauma and knowledge and purpose, but at its heart I feel like it's really getting …

There’s no continuity and the world I have come from is utterly foreign to me. I haven’t heard its music, I haven’t seen its painting, I haven’t read its books, except for the handful I found in the refuge and of which I understood little. I know only the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct.

Highly recommended from me. This book is sort of a melancholy post-apocalyptic coming-of-age survival story, but with a dreamlike tint. It's uncompromising in not giving any pat answers to any of its questions. Why are these women here? Where has everybody else gone? Is this even earth? I feel like it explores a lot of ideas around trauma and knowledge and purpose, but at its heart I feel like it's really getting at what it means to be human when you are disconnected from past social structures but also disconnected from hope for the future.

javier.acedo@plaerdemavida.cat a publié une critique de Jo, que no he conegut els homes par Jacqueline Harpman

Entre la distòpia i el tractat filosòfic

4 étoiles

Ja fa temps que vaig llegir aquest llibre. De forma poc habitual el vaig llegir d'un parell de tirades per l'imminència de la data d'un club de lectura. Pel que ara recordo, el que més em va impactar és com la autora aconsegueix descriure una experiència humana sota unes circumstàncies extraordinàries i increibles. La situació és tan extrema des del punt de vista humà com a inexplicable que duu a una vida de la protagonista sense cap propòsit, sense esperança, on no hi cap tipus de transmissió del coneixement ni de formal oral o escrita i on el desenllaç final és inevitable i desesperançador.

Sujets

Fiction, fantasy, general
New York Times reviewed