Alex Cabe reviewed I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Philosophical Thought Experiment with Sci-Fi Dystopia Trappings
This is dressed as a sci-fi dystopia, but was very much a meditation on what it means to be human when stripped away from society and what society tells us to value. The protagonist has to carve out meaning in a world that's empty of meaning and conventional sources of it.
I surmised fairly early that this was too artsy/European to give an answer as to the premise, and I was correct.
The book generally was feminist, but less gender-specific and more universal than I expected. Late in the novel she reads Shakespeare and Don Quixote, and it's interesting to me that, never having heard a man's voice, she likely would have imagined all of the characters sounding like women.
Found it strange that the other women never named the protagonist.
Audiobook narration was well done and the reader did not try to perform in a way that was distracting.
