It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and I’m still thinking about Sing, Unburied, Sing. In between I read a book for Kirkus. Along the way I was reading a little bit of The Power, by Naomi Alderman, before bed, but not much — I’ve been pouring it on in terms of coursework for my science communication and public engagement program, we went to see the former Teen the Elder, now a postulant for holy orders in the Episcopal Church, at Yale Divinity School, and last weekend the Computer Scientist and I caught some exhibits at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and MFA, so I’ve been busy.
But last night the university where I work called a snow day for today earlier than usual — by 9pm, after letting us go home at 3 in heavily falling snow — so I stayed up late and finished The Power. It definitely deserved a longer reading and I enjoyed finishing it. I’ve been sitting with how I felt about it all day, and I’m still not entirely sure. First let’s get out of the way that I think it’s well written and compelling — deserving of the accolades (it won the Bailey’s Women’s Prize, was named by NYT as one of the ten best books of 2017, and was on President’ Obama’s favorite reads of 2017 list, among others).
Second, I should apologize in advance to my bookclub, because we were trying to pick a more uplifting read, and somehow this came up in my research as that, and it’s not. Yes, it imagines what the world would be like if run by women. But the results are pretty chaotic much of the time, and pretty ugly some of the time, because it turns out it’s not being male that makes people with power assholes, it’s power. That’s my greatly simplified summary of this novel.
Still, it’s an incredibly relevant thought experiment, and I found three of the main characters, Mother Eve/Allie, Roxy, and Tunde, equally fascinating in their way. The structure of the novel is also very intriguing and made the ending rather breathtaking, to me. The opening and closing pages of the book are correspondence between a male novelist and a woman he asks to read his draft of The Power, which he refers to as a historical novel. All we really know about these people is that they live thousands of years after the events of his novel.
So why do I have mixed feelings if I was blown away? Maybe the premise of the book, which seems to be that there will always be a gendered power imbalance even if it doesn’t look like our norms, is more than is easily digested with all that is currently going on in the world? Maybe it’s a truth I find too troubling to embrace? Maybe I just need more time?
I’m realizing I’ve given you very little to go on in this review — it’s speculative fiction, set in times that seem very similar to our own, and imagines that women have something called “the power” which is physiological, cause unknown, girls are born with it and can help older women realize they have it and wake it up, and is kind of like electricity. The realization that this is happening causes massive changes around the world, and the book centers on how it changes religion, political influence and military power, and social dynamics. I look forward to the book club discussion, which always brings me more insight into any book.
Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask my blog readers — what is a book your book club really enjoyed reading and discussing recently? If it’s got a hopeful or uplifting theme, all the better, but anything that led to a great discussion is welcome. Leave a comment and let me know!
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The Power by Naomi Alderman
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blogging, book reviews, fiction, Naomi Alderman, novels, political fiction, reading, religious fiction, social commentary, speculative fiction, The Power on March 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »
It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and I’m still thinking about Sing, Unburied, Sing. In between I read a book for Kirkus. Along the way I was reading a little bit of The Power, by Naomi Alderman, before bed, but not much — I’ve been pouring it on in terms of coursework for my science communication and public engagement program, we went to see the former Teen the Elder, now a postulant for holy orders in the Episcopal Church, at Yale Divinity School, and last weekend the Computer Scientist and I caught some exhibits at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and MFA, so I’ve been busy.
But last night the university where I work called a snow day for today earlier than usual — by 9pm, after letting us go home at 3 in heavily falling snow — so I stayed up late and finished The Power. It definitely deserved a longer reading and I enjoyed finishing it. I’ve been sitting with how I felt about it all day, and I’m still not entirely sure. First let’s get out of the way that I think it’s well written and compelling — deserving of the accolades (it won the Bailey’s Women’s Prize, was named by NYT as one of the ten best books of 2017, and was on President’ Obama’s favorite reads of 2017 list, among others).
Second, I should apologize in advance to my bookclub, because we were trying to pick a more uplifting read, and somehow this came up in my research as that, and it’s not. Yes, it imagines what the world would be like if run by women. But the results are pretty chaotic much of the time, and pretty ugly some of the time, because it turns out it’s not being male that makes people with power assholes, it’s power. That’s my greatly simplified summary of this novel.
Still, it’s an incredibly relevant thought experiment, and I found three of the main characters, Mother Eve/Allie, Roxy, and Tunde, equally fascinating in their way. The structure of the novel is also very intriguing and made the ending rather breathtaking, to me. The opening and closing pages of the book are correspondence between a male novelist and a woman he asks to read his draft of The Power, which he refers to as a historical novel. All we really know about these people is that they live thousands of years after the events of his novel.
So why do I have mixed feelings if I was blown away? Maybe the premise of the book, which seems to be that there will always be a gendered power imbalance even if it doesn’t look like our norms, is more than is easily digested with all that is currently going on in the world? Maybe it’s a truth I find too troubling to embrace? Maybe I just need more time?
I’m realizing I’ve given you very little to go on in this review — it’s speculative fiction, set in times that seem very similar to our own, and imagines that women have something called “the power” which is physiological, cause unknown, girls are born with it and can help older women realize they have it and wake it up, and is kind of like electricity. The realization that this is happening causes massive changes around the world, and the book centers on how it changes religion, political influence and military power, and social dynamics. I look forward to the book club discussion, which always brings me more insight into any book.
Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask my blog readers — what is a book your book club really enjoyed reading and discussing recently? If it’s got a hopeful or uplifting theme, all the better, but anything that led to a great discussion is welcome. Leave a comment and let me know!
Read Full Post »