"I Who Have Never Known Men" is the worst book I've ever read
I finished reading "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman for a book club meeting, and I just don't get it. How does this have 4.1 on Goodreads? The book is absolutely abysmal. From the technical aspects to character work, nothing about it is good or worthwhile.
The only praise I can offer is the premise. This novel is essentially Lovecraftian Horror. These women are torn from their lives by incomprehensible forces for inconceivable reasons. There is never any explanation for what has happened - things just are. EDIT: This is apparently confusing a lot of people. I AM SAYING THAT THE PREMISE AND LACK OF ANY EXPLANATION ARE GOOD, THE ONLY GOOD THING IN THE NOVEL.
But the premise is barely explored, and the character work is bad. In a cast of 40 women, barely 2 have any character at all - the Child and Anthea. Everyone else is an amorphous blob of interchangeable women. And the author's view of women seems dismal. These women don't have any interests or hobbies. They don't try to make art or teach the Child what they know. They spent a decade in a cage and never once tried playing a game with the Child or each other. But actually growing up in a small cage, undersocialized, understimulated, and with no physical activity has no effect on the Child or really on anyone. Conversely, the guards only exist as cold violence-dispensing masculine automata, like the idealized guards of nazi dreams and unlike the actual real nazi guards. I can't take this novel as a serious examination of humanity when no one acts even remotely human.
The book is also riddled with inconsistencies. They use soap in the cage, but then the Child is baffled to see soap for the first time elsewhere. The Child regularly talks about feeling hungry in the cage, but then another character notes feeling hungry for the first time in decades due to the need for physical exercise. The women are not allowed to touch each other on one page, and are helping an older woman get up on another. Etc., etc.
So, I don't get it. Why does anyone like this book?