Author: Jacqueline Harpman
# of Pages: 175 (ebook)
Genre: Adult, Science Fiction, Classics
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: 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 a 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.
Review: "I Who Have Never Known Men" is more like "I Who Have Never Known Most Things Aside from Existing in a Cage."
A very readable piece of literature that is actually NOT easy to read because it makes the reader quite existential. This story considers the question of what you would do if you were one of the last people in the world and grew up with little to no knowledge on the rest of the world. What makes us human? What brings meaning to our lives?
It's contemplative in a slightly eerie and helpless way. However, because the protagonist is a young woman who doesn't understand a lot of the world around her, the story can drag and be a bit repetitive (which is why this is 4 stars rather than 5). While the premise is a science fiction dystopia, the focus is more on the existential questions than world building or solving the mystery of the womens' circumstances.
Definitely not my usual read, but an interesting (and short!) piece of speculative literature that is worth the read if you have the time.
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