The Power– Naomi Alderman
BBBC Meeting, 1 November 2018, The Hop Pole, Bath
Present: Andrew (this book choice), MarkW, MarkT, Willm, Richard, ChrisW, ChrisB, Steve
Apols: John
I chose this novel for several reasons: its terrific central idea; its similarities and differences with The Handmaid’s Tale the book club had read a few months earlier; the current spotlight on the abuse of power by men, how the patriarchy has maintained its stranglehold on power, and how boys and men may go through life unaware of the privileges. As a bloke, I thought I could, and should, learn from this story. I was particularly interested to see how the author would put flesh on the bones of her brilliant idea, and to listen to the resulting discussion of the book with my fellow blokes.
The Power is feminist speculative fiction and explores how reversal of the gender power imbalance might affect society. The overall view was that while the central premise was fascinating, the execution of the story was disappointing. While JH enjoyed it far more than he expected not being a sci-fi/dystopia fan and having been put off by the cover and its blurb, everyone else felt it didn’t live up to its promise. MW thought the first chapter was terrific, but struggled with the violence, feeling much of it was gratuitous, and that the pendulum had currently swung too far against men. He did not enjoy the book.
Neither did MT despite liking the beginning, the end and the Roxy character, mainly because the implausible physics of skeins annoyed him. Although he appreciated the reworking of the biblical references and was moved when Roxy’s skein was removed, he also struggled with the story in general and the violence in particular, and didn’t enjoy it. CW, who enjoys sci-fi and books which stimulate his imagination, felt this was written as an action drama, and while The Handmaid’s Tale explored the human condition, The Power was based solely on the power to electrocute. It didn’t live up its promise and he was pleased to finish it.
WM was looking forward to reading it and watching how power can change, but after 30 pages became disappointed with the plot focus on sex, violence and gangsters, the simplistic situations and predictable plot devices, and how the transfer of power was not explored in any depth. SC was also looking forward to reading it but both his enjoyment and will to read faltered with the heavy-handed rather formulaic execution of the plot, which felt like a succession of situations of reversals of gender stereotypes. At times it had the feel of a pulp fiction novel, without the depth of thought or empathy of Atwood’s tale, and didn’t come together as a book. CB found the plot a bit disjointed (as did JH and AA) and confusing such as Allie turning to religion and how characters ended up in Moldova where Tatiana’s court seemed rather pantomime. He commented that humans are nasty, particularly those with power, that corruption and violence are not limited to men, that not all men abuse power, and that power, the abuse of power, and revenge are part of the human condition, but felt many of these issues had not been worked through.
RV enjoyed the book more than most but didn’t think it was a really good story like The Handmaid’s Tale. While it had many extremely interesting points, good adventures, and kept him up late reading a couple of nights, it was flawed. He also felt the style was filmic, perhaps with ITV in mind. He enjoyed the description of revolution – that the only way to change anything is a tsunami – and noted that Alderman had chosen to write about tsunami and not spray, in deciding on the power to electrocute rather than a more subtle way to transfer power. He enjoyed the reframing of gender roles with men the nurturers looking after babies and women the protectors, using violence.
JH said it was a really interesting and innovative premise with all sorts of ramifications and implications. He loved some of the different country vignettes such as reaction in India, Moldova and Saudi. AA thought the central idea was terrific and the story was full of brilliantly imagined ideas, though the sheer number of these meant that many were left undeveloped and unexplored. This meant that the story lacked the depth and intensity of The Handmaid’s Tale, even though the plot raced along in an exciting way. However, there was broad agreement that most stories would pale in comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale, though repeated comparisons are inevitable given their similarities, Atwood’s mentorship of Alderman during her writing of The Power, and reviews on the book’s cover, including one from Atwood.
AA thought the skein idea was biologically a bit far-fetched but that there had to be some way of reversing the gender power imbalance so rapidly and decisively. He felt much of the focus of the book was on the abuse of power by women, and would have been interested to read more about less extreme societies than Bessapara, to see how everyday life in suburban Norwich or rural Idaho was affected. What was life like for ordinary men and women, rather than just the gangsters and politicians? What if power had been equalised rather than the imbalance simply reversed?
The characters came in for quite a lot of criticism with the exception of Roxy, and to a lesser extent, Tunde: shallow and disappointing (WM), over-exaggerated, lack of depth (CW), no empathy with them (SC), some overly stereotypical and so not always plausible or people I either felt for or wanted to be with (JH).
The writing was good with some lovely passages while other situations were over-embellished (SC), the dialogue a bit simplistic (WM), some good descriptive writing particularly the vitriol in the chapter on chatrooms, and the accurate portrayal of how quickly outrage evaporates in India and nothing changes (RV), at times hard to follow, quite wordy with too many digressions and elaborations – not always an easy read (JH). Many people liked the ending with the male author being told his work will always be assessed as ‘men’s literature’ and being asked if he had considered publishing it under a woman’s name.
Perhaps expectations were just too high to be met, particularly in a single book, and particularly given the links to Atwood’s extraordinary tale, but overall this novel did not live up to its high promise, disappointing several of the group in a large way and the others in lesser ways. However, Alderman is to be congratulated for tackling such a fundamental, important and unresolved issue, for dreaming up such an extraordinary novel, and for working it through – even if some blokes in Bath found fault in some of its execution. Her book generated one of the best discussions for some time (RV) as well as making us think about uncomfortable things.
Andrew Alexander
November 2018
