#33 [2025/CBR17] I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

CBR17Bingo: "Diaspora" - a little bit of a stretch, but this book has countless people all taken from their homes and brought to another location that is foreign to them. (It's unclear, but it seems like they may have been brought from a different planet.)

I stumbled on this book while browsing Audiobooks for something to listen to in my car. I had no idea what I was getting into. I Who Have Never Known Men (1995) by Jacqueline Harpman was originally written in French and has recently been re-released. I'm not sure how to characterize it. It is has aspects of survival, philosophy, friendship, loneliness, and the basic experiences of life. I guess the book is technically science fiction, but there is so little detail about where our protagonists are and what happened to them that it doesn't have a strong science fiction vibe.

The book begins from the point of view of a young girl. She is locked in an underground bunker with thirty-nine other women. The girl is the youngest of the group, and very isolated, sitting alone in the corner. The women are watched over constantly by three male guards, and the electric lights turn on and off at various intervals, presumably night and day.

I was listening to this book on audio, and it was about here where I almost gave up. I had no idea what was happening or why, and I didn't feel very connected to the characters. The girl did have a fascination with one of the younger guards as she grew older, but not much else was going on. Eventually the girl decides to try to get some control over their lives, and she uses her pulse to try to count time. 

One day, an alarm sounds in the bunker, and all the guards flee the bunker with no warning. Fortunately, the alarm sounded just as they were getting their food, so the small opening they use for passing food was open. The girl was able to get through the hole and reach some keys that had been dropped. In that way, the forty women escaped from the bunker where they had spent countless years for no known reason.

When the women emerge from the bunker, no one is around. All the guards are gone. The women are able to gather food and supplies from the bunker and they take off to see if they can discover where they are or find other people. During their travels, the women discover other bunkers. Some contain men, and some women. However, none of them were lucky enough to have had access to keys when the guards fled, and they were all dead by the time the women found them.

I'm really not sure how I feel about this book. I honestly think if I'd been reading a printed version, I may have gotten frustrated and stopped reading it. And there were many times throughout the book that I got frustrated by the lack of explanations. However, it did stick with me because I remember most of it pretty well, and it definitely felt original.

I also have no idea what Harpman was trying to say with this book. I can see it as a pared down allegory to all of our lives. We don't know how we got here or what will happen to us. We have very little control over our lives, but when our lives are pared down to almost nothing, we have friends, partnerships, and we take care of each other as best we can until the end.