Book Review: The Power by Naomi Alderman

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Book title: The Power
Author: Naomi Alderman
Genre: Dystopian fiction
Published: October 27, 2016
341 pages
My rating: 5/5

“It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.”

All around the world, teenage girls discover that they have a power to hurt, even to kill. And what’s more, they can wake up this skill in older women. This power turns the world on its head, with men realizing they have lost control. The Day of the Girls has arrived.

The Power is a thought-provoking and uncomfortable, at times even disturbing dystopian fiction about what might happen if women suddenly gained the ability to inflict pain to others. In the novel, this happens through the development of “skein,” a tissue between collarbones that conducts electricity. The novel is a thought experiment of what might happen next – whether having women in charge really would result in a “kinder, more caring world” like many say.

The story is told from four main points of view. Roxy is the daughter of a British gangster and drug lord and, once her skein activates, one of the most powerful women in the world. Allie is a mixed-race American girl who kills her sexually abusive foster father, escapes to a convent, and becomes the prophet of a new female-led religion. Margot is a politically ambitious American mayor and a mother of a girl with uneven powers. To help her daughter, she starts up a camp that teaches girls how to control their powers. Tunde, a Nigerian man, is an aspiring journalist who travels around the world, documenting the events after the Day of the Girls. Tunde’s perspective offers a wider scope to what’s happening all over the world as women start using the power: riots, rebellions, coups, terrorist attacks.

I liked how these four points of view show how different groups of people and institutions – criminals, politicians, journalists and media, religions – would react to the new reality. However, all four main characters are in some way extraordinary, whether in the amount of power they have or the way they are willing to exploit the situation. There are no “ordinary” people trying to cope with the new reality, no women with “regular” fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons whom they love and try to protect. The picture the book gives of the powerful women is extremely bleak, and having a point of view character who protects men would have offered a more nuanced view of how women might react – but then I guess this wouldn’t be a dystopian anymore.

I found the writing style very slow to read. The narration style keeps you at an arm’s length of the events. There are a lot of philosophical asides and indirect dialogue. This narrative distance makes the more harrowing aspects of the story easier to bear, but it also means that the story isn’t as immersive. There is also a “book within book” aspect to this story, as the frame narrative is set five thousand years into the future, making the events of the story proper “historical.” This leads to certain problems with suspension of disbelief – for example, would the future readers of this “historical novel” really understand what YouTube is?

“Nothing worse has happened to him than to anyone. There is no reason for him to be afraid, no more reason than any other man.”

Gender-swap the previous quote, and you have the experience of many women in the current world. The Power imagines what the world would be like if men had to live in constant fear of physical safety. How men no longer feel safe walking out at night, how female gangs harass and rape men, how men at war zones are tortured and mutilated. The most harrowing thing is that all the things women do to men in this novel are things that have happened and are happening to women in reality. Genital mutilation, rape, torture… Check the content warnings before reading this book.

“Are patriarchies peaceful because men are peaceful? Or do more peaceful societies tend to allow men to rise up to the top because they place less value on the capacity for violence?”

I would like to think that women in power would be kinder, gentler and more caring, but I have to admit that that’s probably too idealistic. Alderman shows that power corrupts, and women and men are both capable of using it to harm other people. The book doesn’t give easy answers. Instead, it leaves you with a question: how would you use the power if it was given to you?

The Power was a five-star read, and I recommend this book to everyone. It’s not an easy book by no means, but it stays with you – and hopefully inspires you to build a better world.