Review of “The Power” by Naomi Alderman
The most mind bending book on women minority is now in play.
As I was browsing a book store on my vacation about a month ago I discovered Naomi Alderman’s book of “The Power” which details the story of modern society with a twist. To sum up the premise of the book: women begin to discover that they have an electrical power that can inflict terrible pain and even death on anyone they wish to hurt. This power is only one that women have, which completely turns over the power of strength and leadership from men to women.
Powerful women groups form as they work together to place women into leadership roles, kill men, and create opportunities for women to practice their new power. In countries outside of America that predominately only allow women some rights is where all chaos takes off. Women take their new power to the streets. Some are there to hurt men, while others are there to support other women and show their power to all who want to watch.
Now, most obviously, Alderman touches on the concept of rape, abuse, and the fear women face in their daily life — sex trafficking, walking alone at night, etc. — and she does this, in my opinion, in order to express the real world problems that women still face in society today.
Alderman has four main characters that help the reader discover the story: Roxy who is the daughter of a gangster and eventually takes the role of the most powerful woman and also the leader of a drug ring. The drug she moves all over the world is this purple powder that can help other women amplify the power they already have. Allie is the leader of a new religion as she preaches the idea of God once being Mary, a woman instead of a man. We also see parts in the story where she is able to heal some people from terrible pain. Tunde is a male reporter. The reader follows him around the world as he covers all of the uprisings and change that is happening now that women have the power. Margrot who begins as an American mayor and ends as a politician. Her character is interesting because she is one of the few older women to have developed the power.
The characters in the book all add something different to the table as they all have very different roles in explaining the transition from man to women.
Now, my honest review. I did really enjoy the idea of women asserting dominance over man. Although, the book is very destructive and a bit hateful towards men, but rightly so as it goes to explain all the problems women constantly face. Now, I am not say all men are guilty of this, but I do believe it was good that Alderman pointed out these problems to hopefully open up someone’s perspective on women minority.
Women’s world turns to destruction as everything unravels in the way that we always knew it to be, men leadership and men power. While if this were actually to become legit, I do not believe that the world would turn as destructive as Alderman made it seem in the book. Overall, the concept was very interesting and there were definitely parts in the book where I felt that I was able to open my perspective.
For one, men only act the way they do in society currently because they have that power to. They are stronger and predominately able to get away with all the terrors that the women had conducted in the book itself. I can see the perspective of women losing complete control and basically becoming as bad or worse than the way men act with this uprising because they were the ones who had to deal with the pain for as a long as women have known and now have the chance to give men a taste of their own medicine. Although, I do believe that women are predominately more kind and caring creatures, it is possible that women would act out this way.
I believe there is a deeper interpretation on why women act the way they do when they come to power. Women were originally taking part in a society that devalued them, our society that we live in today. Due to this, once women gained power, they were ruthless because they had the strength to be. Men had placed women in a state that said: “we are stronger than you, we control you, we are powerful,” and to regain that power and assert dominance in a mans world, women resorted to violence.
What I detailed above has to mainly do with the foreign countries that are more oppressed than the women in America. I believe that Alderman was correct in explain how the foreign countries fell to pieces when women discovered this power and how America was still able to continue on, but with women leadership in place of men.
The journey that Alderman takes the reader on is one this is in depth and mind bending as she slowly progresses the book as different years in the world as its people get closer to ultimate destruction and uprisings. The beginning of the book details discovery whereas at the end of the book, the scenes become more abusive. Men are seen as objects to women.
Now, there is a discussion at the end of the book between Neil, a representative from the Men’s Writer Association, and Alderman as they discuss if they believe society is more calm and naturally nurturing in a mans world compared to a woman’s. While this was Alderman’s personal opinion based on the idea of evolutionary psychology, Neil comes back and states, “But consider this: are patriarchies peaceful because men are peaceful? Or do more peaceful societies tend to allow men to rise to the top because they place less value on the capacity for violence?”
This specific idea was one that definitely lead me to question how men are predominately the leaders in the world and why they may have found themselves in that position. There is no way to know the right answer to this and is completely up to interpretation.
Naomi Alderman’s electrifying story of “The Power” is one to make the reader think. What you get out of the book is how you interpret every event in the book. For better or for worse, there are many messages sent throughout the book.
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