Book Review: "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman

 I Who Have Never Known Men is a relatively unheard of Belgian novel--first published in French in 1995--that made its way across the Atlantic in the late 2000s, most recently retranslated into English in May of 2022. Perhaps it is how recently it was released, but this book was surprisingly difficult to find. In addition the difficulty in finding it, the book itself is absolutely bizarre, reminding me of a fever dream. Like the written version of a Salvador Dali painting, Harpman depicts a desolate landscape, a world totally devoid of meaning or explanation. From a brief description, it may sound like a typical dystopian novel: thirty-nine women and a young girl--the narrator--are imprisoned in a cage in an underground bunker. They have enough food, water, and shelter, though they are deprived of many necessities they once knew. They are not allowed to die, touch each other, or defy the orders of the guards that constantly watch them. When an alarm goes off, the guards flee, and the women are let loose on a world very different from the one they expected. While many dystopias focus on bringing down an authoritarian government, the force that imprisoned the women is never seen, let alone confronted, which only adds to the unsettling tone of the book. The narrator--simply known as the Child--has no memory of the world before, never develops into a woman, and has no understanding of societal norms, leaving her with absolutely no context on what it means to be a woman--or human for that matter--in modern society. Without any sort of moral upbringing, ideas that would abhor us do not seem to phase her, and Harpman uses the child to examine and confront western values to a degree that at times gets incredibly disturbing. The Child’s lack of social context gives her an almost robotic view of the world and people around her. The characters are seldom fleshed out, but this choice seems deliberate. Each character plays a single critical role in the feverish thought experiment that Harpman creates, and we are only told the details needed for this to succeed. Harpman was born to a Jewish Family who fled to Morocco during World War II, and later worked as a psychoanalyst, all of which may have influenced her writing. It poses questions, and gets the gears turning, and I did enjoy the surreal world she creates. Yet I’m not sure how to recommend it, or even if I should. The book is at times very nihilistic and is at times incredibly upsetting and disturbing, and the Child’s treatment of certain issues is borderline-callous. I Who Have Never Known Men is at once awful, hauntingly beautiful, heartbreaking, depressing and at times downright distressing. It’s a rough ride, though it isn’t one I regret taking. I would, however, advise proceeding with caution.

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Kramer Paper Online - Vol. LXXVII