The Power is a 2016 science fiction novel by the British writer Naomi Alderman. Its central premise is women developing the ability to release electrical jolts from their fingers, thus leading them to become the dominant gender.In June 2017, The Power won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. The book was also named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017.
This book was filled with a sprinkle of really good, intense, descriptive scenes (like the refugee camps with the kids in the barrel), but otherwise fell short for me. It seemed like the author kind of lost focus with some of the characters, just writing to fill the pages and not bringing it all together into a cohesive story. I found myself asking, “wait, what?” multiple times and rereading pages to understand what was going on. Interesting premise and idea, and I don’t regret the read, but I think this would have been better suited in a short story format.
What I liked about it: Exploring the relation between religion, myth-making, and power. And the smooth writing.
Other than that, there was so much lacking in this book. It's violent, deliberately so. But it doesn't do enough with its premise to explore the dynamics of the world it creates beyond the initial upheaval. The finale was quite disappointing for me; there's too much left to the imagination about what happens, when that's the critical element of the book.
This book wasn't what I expected it to be. Or rather, it was more than I expected it to be.
A few weeks ago, I read an article by Naomi Alderman in which she talked about this book and said, "Nothing happens to a man in the book that hasn't happened to a woman." It piqued my interest. It also set my expectations. I was expecting a book that used a sci-fi setting to challenge my assumptions about gender and what it means to be a man or woman.
I wasn't let down. Alderman carefully traces the shift in culture as women take on the power that men usually assume is theirs (in some cases without even realizing that they've done so). And it's a fascinating portrayal of what happens.
But the book is more than that. As the title promises, The Power is an exploration of power. Alderman looks …
This book wasn't what I expected it to be. Or rather, it was more than I expected it to be.
A few weeks ago, I read an article by Naomi Alderman in which she talked about this book and said, "Nothing happens to a man in the book that hasn't happened to a woman." It piqued my interest. It also set my expectations. I was expecting a book that used a sci-fi setting to challenge my assumptions about gender and what it means to be a man or woman.
I wasn't let down. Alderman carefully traces the shift in culture as women take on the power that men usually assume is theirs (in some cases without even realizing that they've done so). And it's a fascinating portrayal of what happens.
But the book is more than that. As the title promises, The Power is an exploration of power. Alderman looks how power is assumed or acquired, how it is used or misused and of course, how it corrupts. But this book also examines how power affects human connection, how seeking power seems to have an inverse relation ship to being able to maintain a relationship based on trust rather than on bargaining.
If I have any criticism of the book it is that the frame narrative occasionally jarred me out of my suspension of disbelief. At one point the author-within-the-book—who is writing 5,000 years in the future—casually mentions BuzzFeed, but then is mystified by Apple products.
But that is a small quibble for what is a truly extraordinary book. It's not always easy reading, but it's not meant to be. The exercise of power can often be ugly, and that is fully on display here.
The book is about gender and capacity for violence. The author examines the role of respectively male higher capacity for violence and female higher fear of such violence in constituting the nature of masculinity and femininity. The way she approaches it is by creating a new premise - at some point young women acquired an ability for violence considerably higher than the one men possess. Initially the results seem good - there are numerous cases of abuse and of inequality which are not sustainable anymore. Then, though, women start using their newly acquired power to oppress, just as men used to do. The author's point is that in a society built on respect for power and violence, gender differences constitute an expression of women's place within hierarchies rather than an expression of some inherently different nature.
