I Who Have Never Known Men

I recently heard about this book and I was intrigued. After reading it, I see now why everyone recommends it. It is beautifully written. Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. You will need some tissues for the end! I am passing it to my daughter to read. Amazing novel!

I’m in the process of reading it right now but I love the packaging of this book and the texture. I think it’s a good book so far and it’s pretty short too so I can finish in no time! But it does actually take a little longer to get here then a usual package.

Fantastic book! Arrived in great condition not bent or anything! This is a must read if you’re looking for something you can read in a single sitting.

I'm not sure how I found out about this book - I think I was reading some article that ran off a list of dystopian tales and compared Harpman's book with Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library) . And since I loved The Handmaid's Tale and how much it scared me - I thought, HeckYeah! Count me in - [sigh] - I'm not sure how they came about tying these two books together because other than the subject matter of women losing freedoms and identity in a totalitarian-type of society - uh - that's it, really. So, let's start fresh. I Who Have Never Known Men is the story about a nameless woman referred to as The Child, who was raised from toddler-hood with a group of women (40 in total) who are kept in a cage in an underground bunker. Their environment is totally artificial and completely controlled. The guards (always in threes and are male) never speak but use their whips with startling accuracy. The lights dim for "night" and brighten for "day". The women have no privacy and are not even allowed to touch each other. We meet the group through the Child's narrative about 12-15 years into their incarceration. The group is made up of women from all walks of life - housewives, nurses, waitresses, grandmothers and at the time they were taken, a toddler who doesn't even know her name. The memories of the women are hazy, they remember their former lives - although it is painful to think of them - but the actual catastrophe (as they call it) seems to involve a lot of fire, drugs and pain. Now they are here with no future, no answers to their questions, nothing. Everything that is essential to us and defines us as human is taken away - or is it? We feel the need to belong, to love and to have hope and meaning. But Harpman plays with this by inserting a character into the middle of them who has no memory of the past life. She only knows this life so her context is completely different - she's not depressed, not even lost. In fact, she's in control of herself. She takes an interest in the guards and begins to notice patterns, then using her own heartbeat as a measuring tool, begins to note the passage of time - when the lights dim, when the lights brighten, when the food is brought, when the guards change shift. She shares this information with the others and soon the women have something new - a tiny amount of power. A secret. But then an alarm sounds just as a guard was unlocking the pass-thru hatch and suddenly, the guards are gone - leaving the keys still in the door. Soon the girl has the door to the cage open and the women tentatively take steps to freedom. But have they? What kind of world do they emerge into - is it in fact, just another type of prison? What kind of future do they have? Are there answers for them outside or just more questions and - does it really matter in the end? This book is WILD! I cannot think of a more discussable book - Holy cow - if you are in a book group? Watch out, it'll be the longest discussion ever. Can you imagine what the Stoics would say about this? Every incident in this relatively short novel is open for a significant discussion on what makes us...us

This book is probably about hope; but it feels very lonely. Very little excitement…there is hope with lots of longing.

This is one of those "what if" stories. What if you woke up one morning with absolutely no idea who you were, how you came to be, why you were where you were, and where you were going? What if you lived a life that had absolutely no context whatsoever for its very existence? Such is the life of "I Who Have Never Known Men," a misnomer if there ever was one, for the narrator does, indeed, know men - she simply hasn't "known" them in the Biblical sense. Big deal. This is far from a "feminist" tome, as she has no reason to hate them - they simply run her life. Male oppression exists and touches these women every day, in the form of the guards, the rules, the prison, and even the daily hours which also seem to make no logical sense. There is no logic - it is man-made. The "touch" of man lies heavy on this entire story, there is no liberation here. When it becomes a question as to whether even the guards knew why they were running the prisons, the fact remains that it is male energy ruling even here - over the guards, and over other prisons that are discovered to contain men - for even men are defiled by patriarchy. Yeah, it's a page turner, because you want to find out why this prison exists, why these women are in it, why they don't know who they are or where they came from, how the reader can find out who they are and where they came from, will they ever be free, and why has the narrator never "known" men... You can keep turning those pages...but you'll never find out. Thus, four stars for me. Herland (Dover Thrift Editions) Native Tongue Les Guerilleres

I have never read anything like this. A story about hope when there is none. A story of freedom where there is only confinement.

Took a month to get here but it was a good Christmas gift in January

Amazing read

A quick dystopian read. The book is shorter than I thought it would be, but no less impressive.

Fabulous book.

I read the book in 2 days, I needed to know how it ends... The book makes you question your existence and how we are shaped by what we have lived

The book arrived on time and perfect condition. This book although short packs a punch. It’s a bleak dystopian story, that has stayed with me.