Earlier this year, someone from the best of my many book clubs read I Who Have Never Known Men and was totally wowed, recommending it as a masterpiece that’s equally philosophical and character-driven. At that point, it wasn’t a question of whether I would read it, just a question of when. And this fall the library holds lined up to give me a chance to read the Ros Schwartz translation of Jacqueline Harpman’s 1995 novel.
I Who Have Never Known Men is styled as a post-apocalyptic memoir, with the lone survivor recording details of her life for other readers who may or may not exist. As such, we start with pretty strong hints that the big questions of the surrounding world aren’t going to be answered. And those questions are indeed enormous, as the lead was the only adolescent among 30 women kept prisoner in an underground bunker, watched by silent guards that give no explanation as to how they got there or why they’re being held. As the narrator is the youngest of the women, she doesn’t even remember the world outside, but none of them have any idea how the world they knew led to the world of their captivity.
With such a setup, it seems almost impossible for the characters to take any control over the situation, so it’s genuinely shocking just how much agency the lead is able to grasp. Even in captivity, she runs social experiments to see whether she can affect the guards and more natural experiments to learn all she can about the nature of her captivity. As the memoir format suggests, there comes a time where they are able to explore the outside world, and though it’s just as mystifying as the world inside, her drive to learn and explore truly pushes the narrative forward.
That’s not to say this is a plot-heavy book. From a plot perspective, there is fairly little momentum and only a few major happenings. Instead, it’s a study of characters taken away from ordinary human life and forced to live outside of society, with few amenities and no luxuries. There’s plenty of exploration of the world, albeit yielding precious few solid answers, and just as much exploration of what it means to be human when cut off from the trappings of humanity, and eventually—as the older women begin to sicken and die—cut off from other humans entirely.
I’m not sure I was quite as hooked as my book club friend, but the narrative voice is meditative, scientific, and strangely compelling. For those who have read Annihilation, there are respects in which it resembles the biologist’s style, only with the elements of madness replaced by a complete lack of knowledge of the world. Unlike Annihilation though, the lead does forge genuine relationships with her compatriots, with the found family elements providing a strong subplot to the main narrative about survival and knowledge-gathering.
Some light web-searching indicates that this is a bit of a cult classic, and I can totally understand why. It’s the sort of story that yearns for the one piece of information that makes everything make sense, but at the same time, it’s the sort of story that makes such a discovery almost impossible, given the constraints of the narrative. Instead, the reader must join the narrator in her befuddlement, in her drive to live, to learn, to explore. And that journey is a compelling one, one that gets better upon reflection and I strongly suspect better with discussion.
Right now, I’m not sure it has that one element that makes it stick in my mind long after reading, but just thinking back in order to write the review makes me more and more impressed by this story. I’ve penciled it in right at the top of my four-star range, but like I did with Annihilation, I wouldn’t be shocked to find myself return some time later and adjust my impression upwards.
Recommended if you like: meditative stories, unanswered questions, post-apocalyptic novels.
Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for Survival and is also Published in the 90s and features plenty Under the Surface.
Overall rating: 16 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.