Livre broché, 188 pages
Langue : English
Publié 1 mai 2019 par Vintage.
‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’
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 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.
‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’
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 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.
Really enjoyed this. Savoured it and it was still done in 3 days. Would recommend.
Avertissement sur le contenu Very minor plot spoilers
I dunno, some of the ideas here /did/ speak to me as metaphors: a group of women struggling in isolation in a lonely and desolate place, trying (possibly in vain) to find their way toward others, toward lives, toward familiarity; and most burning out and settling for strained comfort and predictability—even given the emptiness of this existence for them—pretty Real, yea?
But then… i dunno, it's also weirdly reactionary, too. Women finding love with one-another is always a half-measure substitute for men, none of them are canonically gay; women can't be beautiful for themselves, and beauty is thought useless without men; etc. It feels as though these women's lives are nothing without men, which… i dunno, for straight women, there must be a genuine truth there! It /must/ be lonesome to wander, looking in vain for compassionate men who can meet you at your level, knowing you may never find them. I /do/ see a place for this. But it didn't always feel great as a queer person reading this. I also found the narrator's motivations kind of mysterious at times; i thought her decisions could feel inconsistent… i dunno. There's also this bit about how she may have uterine cancer, but maybe she wouldn't have had it if she had been able to get pregnant in her lifetime? What? I think i can read a metaphor there (that for a woman who wants a family with a genuine partner, not having one hurts her deep down, creates a rot in her), but it's also one of those… i dunno, kind of frustratingly ableist metaphors, given our social context, in which a life without children (especially for those able to bear children) is thought a half-lived life, a waste, selfish and useless, or whatever; and thus this rot could also be read in this light. Just… lots of little things like this that ate at me, and… i dunno, it's possible that if i thought about it more, i'd unearth more, but… i don't think it drew me in enough to /want/ to spend more time thinking on it, especially with these bits that rubbed me the wrong way.
For me: it was Fine, but that's about all.
