I have prepared a short list of books that I cannot stop thinking about and had a huge impact on me. I wholeheartedly recommend all of them but if I have time just for one book then please read I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. This books is nothing as I have read before. This books deserves to be on the list of the best books of all time. It needs to be read and reread.
I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN BY JACQUELINE HARPMAN
I Who Have Never Known Men is a dystopian novel originally published in French in 1995. I Who Have Never Known Men is notable for its introspective, philosophical and thought-provoking exploration of human nature under extreme circumstances in a dystopian setting. The book raises philosophical questions about solitude, freedom, self-discovery, human condition, identity, womanhood, female body, intimacy, euthanasia, individualism, suffering, aging, degenerative illnesses, the attitude of resignation towards life and the attitude of constant curiosity and independent thinking, the concept of humanity as the need for understanding, and the consequences of isolation. It provides the unique perspective on the dystopian genre, focusing on internal struggles of the characters rather than the external post-apocalyptic reality. The narrative centres around forty women including the youngest one who narrates the story. The women were kept in the underground bunker. There were no interrogations. They lived in the cage underground and no woman could hide from the other women. They had to answer the call of nature in front of one another. The guards forbade other women shielding the one that had to relieve herself. They have been kept in the bunker for years, “reduced to utter helplessness, deposed, deprived even of instruments with which to kill [themselves], defecating under the full glare of the lights, in front of the others, in front of them.” The guards would never touch the women and never would speak to them. The women were not allowed to touch each other in the bunker, no one could pick up another one, or cuddle or console by touch. The women lost their reproductive capacities including the narrator. Suicide was one of the things that was prohibited. The guards wanted to keep the women alive which made the women think they had some plans for them. The women were not given sanitary towels or toilet paper. None of the women knew what they were kept there for and why they were kept alive. Among these women there is our nameless narrator who never had known any other life than the one in the bunker as she has been imprisoned for as long as she could remembered. She did not know the words describing the occupations, moods, feelings, various activities. Her lived experience was stripped to the existential fundamentals.As the story unfolded the women grappled with their limited understanding of the world outside the bunker and events surrounding their existence. Due to the inexplicable events the guards left immediately once the sirens started wailing and doors to bunker opened. The narrator and a few other women climbed the staircase and they found themselves at the top, in the cabin and before them the plain was spreading. “It was the world”. The plain was vast and barren, unspecified in terms of time and space. Women were ‘free’. Even though the women managed to escape they spent the rest of their lives wandering in search for other signs of life. The narrator only knew the absurdity based on her lived experience, the only experience of living in the bunker she had which made her feel “profoundly different from [other women]. “ The dystopian setting in the novel might serve as a metaphor for desolate universe, monotonous conformity of other women, surveillance, degradation of humanity through inexplicable imprisonment and disorientation in order to highlight the flaws of the ailing contemporary society. The unfamiliar setting provided the backdrop to explore social norms that are taken for granted in our familiar world without further questioning. Given the events in the 20th century this view of the society presented by Harpman is not surprising as the 20th century was notable for the dystopian myths. Throughout the book we observe the bleak, dystopian existence for which no explanations are ever provided. I Who Have Never Known Men has become one of my favourite books I have ever read. The multilayered narrative poses so many questions and leaves the reader reflecting on them for a long time after finishing the book. I highly recommend this novel. It provides the reader with a profoundly rich experience. FULL REVIEW
THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY BY ELIF SHAFAK
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak has become one of my favourite reads this year and definitely one of my beloved books of all time. This beautifully written novel tells us multiple stories of protagonists from different parts of the world, spanning centuries, all connected by … a single drop of water which “has no regards for social status and royal titles”. This novel’s main focus is on marginalised communities and interconnectedness. It allows the readers to discover the beauty and richness of the Yazidi culture and traditions. The ancient history and heritage of Mesopotamia is intertwined with the present times. The presence of the Book of Gilgamesh is felt throughout all the multilayered stories in the novel and it highlights the importance of keeping stories, tales of the marginalised communities alive. Shafak also highlights the living conditions for people below the poverty, depicting how their choices when it comes to education and professional opportunities are limited due to their social status. It also has at its centre the lives of people struggling with mental health problems and the access to support and help is often connected to theirs and their family’s social status. There are Rivers in the Sky also explores the right of communities to keep the artefacts that are part of their history and cultural heritage with the story of the British Museum in the background. I cannot recommend this book enough. I had such a hard time in my personal life when I was reading this book and it helped me so much to find a refuge in the stories of Arthur, Zuleyka, Narin, and the Ancient Mesopotamia. During the weeks I was reading this novel I visited the British Museum every Friday evening to look at the artefacts from Nineveh. I sat there for as long as I could and read The Rivers in The Sky having the artefacts from Nineveh in the corner of my sight. This book warmed my heart, calmed my mind and soul, it inspired me and showed me how healing the stories can be. This book brought me so much joy as a reader, introduced me to the beauty of the Yazidi culture and the ancient history as well as to wonderful characters, especially Arthur who was based on the real person called George Smyth. Arthur felt so relatable to me when it comes to his personality, traits and character as well as many of existential struggles. In my heart Arthur will remain one of my ultimate literary heroes. There are Rivers in the Sky starts in Nineveh with its “lush with perfumed gardens, bubbling fountains, and irrigation canals” where “water is both the harbinger of life and the messenger of death”, the ancient capital of the Assyrian empire situated on the eastern bank on the Tigris which in the year 640 BCE was the world’s largest city with 175,000 inhabitants. This is Mesopotamia with the learned and educated Librarian King, Ashurbanipal under whose reign the region was turned into a paradise, he was learned and educated but equally cruel like his predecessors. The library is his favourite part of the palace and will become his legacy for the future generations. The Ashurbanipal Library was flanked with two statutes: hybrid creatures – half human half animals called lamassus who are protective spirits that are referred to across the following centuries in the stories of the protagonists. We learn about the ancient Mesopotamian mythology including Nisaba, the goddess of storytelling, whose name was consigned to oblivion due to the feminine nature. The King believed that writing and stories need a masculine patron and Nabu became an official custodian of storytellers.Ashurbanipal conducted massacres, plunders, demolitions from the safety of his reading chamber. Poems and stories brought joy into his life. This novel provides us with a lesson of not putting people of power on pedestal regardless of how educated they are. Throughout history there are many examples of leaders, both men and women who were responsible for massacres, the most abhorrent crimes and were well read at the same time. Empathy cannot always be learned. This tale starts with one single drop of rain ensconced in the king’s hair, a drop “inconsequential though it may be compared with the magnitude of the universe, (…), it holds the secret of infinity, story uniquely its own.” Shafak reminds us that life on earth without water would not be possible, water is not linear molecule – it is a bent molecule. If water were linear, there would be no life on earth.” It is a reminder of the intricacies and complexities when it comes to human life and connections. FULL REVIEW
BRIAN BY JEREMY COOPER
Brian is a profoundly moving meditation on the meaning of solitary life, of art and cinema in shaping one’s perception of and connection with the world, of the hidden depths of human soul often kept private in fear of misunderstanding and stigma, and of the importance of companionship and community. This is a subtle novel of great depth focused on the interiority of life enriched by art. Jeremy Cooper thoughtfully and empathetically chronicled life of a gentle soul spanning thirty years starting in the early 1990s all the way up to the present times. The events such as the 2005 London bombing and the advent of technological revolution like the introduction of smartphones are present in the novel. Also, the book is in a way an ode to London, its topography and rich cultural landscape that the city has to offer. In addition, there are plenty of film references which will be a treat to many cinema lovers. Brian is a Northern Irish man in his late 30s when we meet him in the novel. In the early years of his professional working life Brian tried his best to socialise but he struggled with the rules of small talk and social cues. He never knew what to say to anyone. He holds a clerical role at the Camden Housing Department, and previously he worked as a clerk at the large builder’s merchant company in Clapham in South London. As an antidote to self-inflicted solitude, Brian became a member of the British Film Institute (BFI). Films made him feel less alone. Anonymity remained an integral part of Brian’s pleasure in going to the cinema. Other movie-goers he met at the BFI dd not ask him about his name or what his job was, they only conversed about the film they had just watched. There was “no false familiarity, no banality, no banter”. During these early years of attending the film seances at the BFI, Brian was received with greater warmth by almost everyone among the regulars at the BFI than he had ever experienced in his life. The BFI became his natural home. The cinema raised many questions in his mind about his own life and surrounding world. “In the cinema he disappeared as a person and was accepted as a member of the crowd”. At the BFI he felt almost as if he was being welcomed home. As his retirement approached, Brian had mixed feelings about stopping work. He was anxious about how to occupy the empty days ahead. He felt uncertain in almost everything and felt the overwhelming sense of insecurity. Brian’s overall anxiety led him to consider applying for another job to top up his modest state pension. Also, this is the time of digitalisation of almost of all the spheres of daily life which caused further stress and anxiety for Brian. The arrival of smartphones on which he was not very keen due to the confusion caused by the myriad of styles. In the end he bought the simplest model. The new era also affected the way people watched films which resulted in the number of buffs attending the BFI starting to fall off. Within three years of his retirement, we witness Brian experiencing problems with his sight and memory. This is the time when we as readers depart Brian. I cannot possibly express in words how much I loved this story of a solitary man who finds some sense of belonging through the cinema. Brian carefully crafted his existence to avoid disruption to his routine enriched by the cultural landscape of art and cinema and his solitude. This is a quiet book, yet of profound depth. I absolutely loved this book and Brian has become one of my most beloved literary characters I have ever encountered in my reading experience and definitely one of the most relatable ones. FULL REVIEW
ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT BY MIEKO KAWAKAMI
All the Lovers in the Night by the Japanese writer, Mieko Kawakami is such a beautiful novel exploring a quiet tragedy of the ordinary life and loneliness of its inhabitants. Written with so much compassion, this novel is also an ode to the life of introverted individuals and those who look for basic human interaction and affection based on integrity and empathy. All the Lovers in the Night explores themes of loneliness, solitude, one’s need to love and to be loved, the awaking of the self-worth, the meaning of kindness and indifferent attitudes towards those who sink into depression, memories and how we remember people who are no longer part of our lives, the perception of one’s occupation as the indication of person’s place within the society, women’s place in the society as a single woman, a married women with children, and an unmarried woman with a child, the importance of choice in life and what we give up every time when choosing a given path. The main protagonist, a 34-year-old Fuyuko has spent her entire adult life working as a proofreader. Her job as she says comes down to “hunting for mistakes”. She notes that “proofreading is a lonely business, full of lonely people”. All she could say about herself is that she has lived in the same apartment for a long time and has not formed any meaningful relationships in her adulthood. Since her young age she has avoided groups and socialising and as a result she has never had close friends. She does not like sudden changes or surprise calls. Fuyuko does not have anyone to go out with or chat with for hours. When she was working in the office, she usually got back home at eight in the evening followed by a simple dinner she prepared for herself. In the office, no one ever spoke to Fuyuko unless they needed something from her.One of her favourite habits was to go out for a night walk on her birthday which was on the Christmas Eve. This walk lifted her mood, “as if the pieces of the world before my eShe is an overthinker, often analyses things and situations form all possible angels. With time she finds a refuge in alcohol. Drinking allows her to let go of her usual self. Ultimately, Fuyuko is in need to love and to be loved, a modicum of affection.yes were telling me some kind of story.” On one occasion Fuyuko managed to catch the glimpse of her reflection in the window. That image of herself looked absolutely miserable, “a dictionary definition of a miserable person.” Fuyuko is often overwhelmed by daily interactions with others. On her return home, she often lies down exhausted on the kitchen floor and gazes up the ceiling.Throughout the book the position of women within the society, their compliance with social norms and the way they are perceived based on their marital status is depicted by a variety of examples.We have Fuyuko who is single and struggles to form meaningful relationships. Some women, especially older ones, see in her the self-absorption of a single woman who does nothing with her life but work. To people like them, Fuyuko’s life seems easy and their life with families and children and work appears more worthy. When it comes to love, Fuyuko’s life changes when she meets an older man of 58 years old, Mitsutsuka for whom she develops feelings of affection and love. Things they share during their encounters might seem childish at first, but they all constitute important building blocks of their fragile relationship. Often the questions she wants to ask Mitsutsuka do not find their way into words. She is unable to communicate her real feelings to Mitsutsuka resulting in her sinking deep into depression. When she finally expresses her love for Mitsutsuka, tears overwhelmed her. Fuyuko did not remember when last time she cried so much — she cried for all the time she felt alone and hurt. However, that kindness shown by Mitsutsuka was short-lived and used as a cover for deception even though used in a good faith by him. His working situation was part of this deception and indicated the importance of one’s occupation within the contemporary society, to the extent when it conditions people’s attitude towards others and their relationships. Fuyuko’s feelings were somehow rejected and disregarded. She had to spend a long time to slowly work her way back to the person she used to be prior to meeting Mitsutsuka. All the Lovers in the Night is a profoundly moving novel written with so much empathy and understanding for human condition. FULL REVIEW
THE NIGHT ALWAYS COMES BY WILLY VLAUTIN
The Night Always Comes by the American writer, Willy Vlautin is a ruminative poignant and compelling exploration of poverty, economic inequality, human misery and despair caused by daily financial anxieties, the meaning of the American Dream, how people from so-called working class exist rather than live in the 21st century, and the impact of poverty on one’s emotional and physical health where no matter what one does they will never get ahead in life. The novel portrays a very gloomy picture of life, its limitations as well as the challenges imposed by the outside world due to lack of financial security. This is a profoundly moving novel imbued with noir elements. Vlautin crafted a tale of high emotional intensity, and heightened sensitivity holding a magnifying glass over the working – poor class where people constantly live on the edge, often in isolation caused by financial instability. Earning a minimum wage, often a below living wage affects how people socialise with others and whether they can socialise at all, how they maintain relationships and connect with others. Written in evocative prose, The Night Always Comes captures the plight of a 30-year-old woman, Lynette living in Portland who is constantly exhausted by work and pushed to the edge of her own limits, both emotional and physical while desperately trying to secure a stable future for herself, her mother and her developmentally disabled brother. Over the years Lynette has been working multiple low paid jobs often waking up at 3.30 in the morning to start her day at the bakery, going to school in between her morning shift and her evening shift bartending, taking care of her disabled brother, just to save enough money for the deposit to buy the rundown house they are currently renting and where the landlord “hadn’t raised the rent in eleven years on the understanding that they wouldn’t call him for repairs.” We witness the horrific impact that economic inequality, jobs that don’t pay a living wage have on people’s physical and emotional health as well as their social relationships with others. We see Lynette’s history of depression and mental health challenges, constant exhaustion caused by work and by simply existing. Lynette making bad decisions, and breakdown in her relationships have always been somehow related to money or rather lack of it. The novel leaves us with a rather grim realisation that despite working so hard for many years Lynette will not be able to have her own home, or any idea of security. She is too exhausted to go to school to gain additional skills and even additional education is rarely a guarantee of better opportunities that might make difference to her social status, especially with her mental health being affected by the conditions of her life. Support for her emotional well-being also heavily depends on her finances. Throughout the novel we feel Lynette’s exhaustion, and how little she asks for — that her debts are paid off, that people stop taking advantage of her, that they keep their promises and that her working multiple jobs and her strong work ethics would mean something, lead to a better and stable future for herself, her brother and her mother. These are simple things – but they appear unattainable for Lynette and people living in similar circumstances to hers. This is a portrayal of deeply traumatised individuals trying to make the ends meet. It’s also a nuanced tale of what it means to have a loved ones with severe disabilities who require a constant care like in case of Lynette’s brother. It’s not depicted as burden but rather it sheds light on reality of being a caregiver while facing economic struggles – a theme that’s rarely depicted in literature in a humane realistic manner. The Night Will Always Come is one of my favourite reads. Vlautin weaved a beautiful tale of deep emotional intensity. As someone who in my youth worked multiple low paid jobs and attending school, depiction of Lynette’s mental and physical exhaustion seems to me as one of the most accurate portrayals of someone who is working – poor, someone who despite strong work ethics and sacrifices is unable to better themselves. FULL REVIEW
WHEREABOUTS BY JHUMPA LAHIRI
Written in forty-six short vignettes, Whereabouts portrays daily wanderings and inner workings of the narrator’s mind who is a solitary unnamed woman in her mid -40s working as a teacher and living in the unnamed city in Italy. Whereabouts is an exploration of urban solitude, alienation, loneliness, growing old, with the narrator’s beautiful ruminations on the meaning of living a solitary life, inspired by the locations of daily errands. The narrator is a very sensitive and astute observer of other people’s words, emotions, and gestures. At the restaurant, she eats alone with other people also eating alone. At the doctor’s office, she notices a woman, who appears to be twenty years older than her, also waiting alone, with no husband, no companion to support her which makes the narrator reflect on her own future in a few decades from now on. Throughout the pages of Whereabouts, the narrator attempts to locate her own place in the world, she is in the quest of an identity as well as emotional home where her body and soul can sense they belong. This book exudes some sort of yearning for a new attachment without a burden of geographical and cultural frontiers which makes Whereabouts truly universal in terms of the protagonist’s depicted emotions and thoughts. That presence of aloneness on the pages of Whereabouts is very soothing for the reader. In my view, Whereabouts is a profoundly life-affirming book about tranquility that solitary existence might offer in the similar way how our narrator experiences it – someone who lives a peaceful life, with no family of her own, deeply aware of her loneliness, but not burden by it. FULL REVIEW
FLOWERS OF LHASA BY TSERING YANGKYI
By portraying the traumas of young women at the start of their so called best years who are trying to find their place in the world,
Flowers of Lhasa by a Tibetan writer, Tsering Yangkyi, offers a compassionate image of fragile lives marred by lack of opportunities, poverty, and resignation. Flowers of Lhasa is a powerful tale of four young women, migrant workers : three Tibetans, and one Chinese, who leave their close-knit rural communities behind to look for a better life for themselves and to support their impoverished families in the city of Lhasa, a religious and cultural capital of Tibet. The titled ‘flowers of Lhasa’: Drolkar known as Dahlia, Xiao Li known as Cassia, Yangdzom known as Azalea, and Dzomkyi known as Magnolia live in a small rented room, their temporary shelter, their home where they share their joys and sorrows.When they first come to Lhasa, lowliest odd jobs are the only employment they are able to find. Their income is not enough to cover their own basic bills, let alone allow them to support their elderly parents in the countryside.Throughout the novel we learn about these young women’s struggles, abuse they experience on the hands of the ‘luckier ones’, more privileged ones when they initially work as waitresses, housemaids, shopkeepers.We witness how they navigate that tragic life which was given to them, how they try to fulfil their dreams, longings, and hopes with always having the obligations towards their families on their mind. We see them constantly battling the social status quo. With an enormous level of empathy, the author portrays the human toll of poverty, lack of financial support on people’s psychological, emotional, and physical well-being, especially women without financial resources, and born without privilege.In addition, Flowers of Lhasa illuminates a variety of social and cultural issues, one of them being the critique of the inequalities and how they affect women. The novel also portrays the tension between tradition and modernity, division between rural and urban reality, rural community and urban solitude, and how soul-destroying jobs can provide an adequate level of income for those coming from the impoverished background. Despair and stress levels caused by lack of money or not enough money has been present throughout the book. One of the women’s health and her hospital treatment was dependent on money showing how the most basic needs are connected to one’s ability to earn a fair income. FULL REVIEW
THE WALL BY MARLEN HAUSHOFER
Published in 1963, The Wall by Marlen Haushofer (born in 1920) is an absorbing, contemplative, nuanced and compelling dystopian novel focusing on the meaning of freedom, solitude, written word, one’s connection to the natural world and animals, memory, the power of nature, survival, the value of menial work, one’s compulsion to understand the world, the position of women in the society and their freedom to live according to their own norms outside of the widely accepted social structures, and on the women experiencing solitude without judgement. There is a peaceful quality about this novel defined by the spareness of its narrative and a sense of occhiolism. Writing feels very modern, with unemotional descriptions of all day long menial tasks.Reading The Wall, we must remember that the novel was written during the Cold War and there are some shadows of that period within the text pointing out to the concerns of those times, but it is never explicitly mentioned. The Wall invites a symbolic interpretation – in some sense it is easier to say what the novel is not rather than what the novel is. The Wall is a story of an unnamed woman in her 40s who finds herself cut off from the rest of the world by the sudden appearance of the wall made of unknow material that separates a part of the forest from the rest of the world. This occurrence takes place during the narrator’s visit to her cousin, Luise’s and her husband, Hugo’s lodge in the Austrian Alps. She was unable to find an explanation for the appearance of the wall and was not sure if only the valley or the whole country had been affected by this disaster. Thanks to Hugo the narrator had provisions that would keep her through some time, and a lifetime’s supply of wood. that allowed her to survive. She also had their dog, Lynx who became an integral part of her new life along with two cats and the cow. They became her new family. At the time when the wall appeared the narrator was widowed for two years, and her two daughters were almost grown up. The appearance of the wall forced the narrator to immediately accept her new reality allowing her to move away from the known social structures. It was not only a physical object but also a psychological frontier. It erased her previous life. Once the wall appeared she immediately built home with her animals, her life was ruled by care for them and governed by the seasons, harvests, she did not have to rush anywhere. At the time we meet her she has been trapped in the current situation for over two years. She decided to write the report as writing was the only thing still connecting her to shared humanity allowing her to keep an endless conversation with herself as there was no one else to have the conversation with. Writing provided her with the possibility of the connection with another person who might read her report in the future. Out of fear of plunging into the abyss of emptiness the narrator started writing her report about the experiences of the previous two years. From the perspective of these two years when she thought about the woman she once was before the wall entered her life, she did not recognise herself in her. The Wall is a compelling novel with the possibility for many interpretations. For me The Wall constitutes the allegorical tale on women experiencing solitude without judgment which seems possible only when the world comes to a standstill and there is no one there to judge them. FULL REVIEW
