Native Tongue is a book that many will probably dislike for easily predictable reasons.

Much of the plot is implicit, with events in the lives of many characters simply happening, with no clear purpose or end. In this respect it functions rather like a slice-of-life story writ large (and in the 23rd century). Many of the characters feel a little awkward, which could be simply an effect of the culture in the book, but it feels rather like it was written in (or set during) the 1950s - to the extent that I imagined the characters and setting as the future was portrayed in the 50s or 60s. Some of the characters border on caricatures of gender stereotypes, which is a little surprising for a novel touted as a work of feminist fiction (although that label becomes clear as the story progresses). I think this is the problem I felt most deeply detracts from the book, as the characters even with the most development still feel comparatively shallow, without the psychological complexity of personality I like in authors such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, or Ian McEwan.

All of these are criticisms that I agree with, and would even suggest that if these descriptions sound irritating, you might want to avoid this book.

So what inspires me to give this a four star review? The concepts and depth of thought provoked, and the sheer skin-crawling discomfort the setting evokes are enough for me to overlook most serious flaws in this novel. While linguistic relativity is not a new concept for me - having first encountered it with Orwell's 1984 in school - this is an intriguing and generally novel exploration of it. Moreover, Elgin, a linguist by training, goes to a depth that Orwell lacked in his conception of newspeak.

The horror of the setting is another aspect I find interesting to explore, much like probing a cut to see just how painful it is. Where The Handmaid's Tale feels more like an immediate and present threat - looking at cultural shifts around the world in recent years, especially - the society presented here is terrifying precisely because it shows a world where women have been subjugated for so long that they no longer have any memory of another existence. The soulcrushing nature of their reality is apparent in the near lack of personality many seem to show, and is reinforced when the futility of rebellion is shown on the few occasions that women need to be "put in their place."