The Power
by Naomi Alderman
Editor’s note
I have recently come to love two podcasts: Overdue and Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Both of these podcasts celebrate reading and sharing what we gather from reading. If you have not had a chance to check out either of those podcasts, I would highly recommend them. This entry in the sketchbook is a part of a series I have decided to call The Library Card. In this series, I am going to follow the leads of both Overdue and Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, sharing my thoughts while playing around with the ideas of the books that I am reading.
The
Power
A Novel
Naomi Alderman
Black Bay Books
Little, Brown and Company,
New York Boston London
2016,
Letter to the Editor
Thirty Second Recap - Blind Contour
Neil Armon writes a letter to the editor of a publishing about a book he has just finished, a hybrid of history and narrative about how the power first came to. This is a world where women hold power, a world where no one remembers that men were once soldiers, police officers, and positions of power. The editor of the publishing house reviewing his manuscript, Naomi, taunts Neil about mentioning a history where men might have had power, calling him a ‘saucy boy’ for do so. Naomi, in her reply to Neil, goes on to say that she looks forward to reading through his manuscript, that it will be a welcome distraction from her own book. She is intrigued by this alternative view of history in a “world run by men”. She imagines that it would be a kinder, gentler, and -dare she say- a sexier world than the one in which they live. Looks like there are going to be plenty of cringe moments through the book, where the shoe is on the other foot.
Forward
Blind Contour Recap
Neil Armon opens his historical novel, The Power, with an except from the Book of Eve. In this text the ‘shape of power’ is always the same: the branching of a tree, the strike of lightning, the path of rivers flowing to the ocean, the central nervous system, and the branching of social networks and communities. This power is mirrored in all aspects of our lives.
It looks lke this illustration of power lays the foundation for how natural the power dynamics of this world is structured. This is the mythos of this world.
Chapter I
Thirty Second Recap - Blind Contour
Roxy is home with her mom when three men barge in. She does not know them, but they mean trouble. They didn’t realize that she would be there and quickly stuff her in the cupboard beneath the stairs. She can hear her mom, panicked, pleading with the men. Roxy, having been locked in the cupboard by her parents before, knows that she can get out. Panickiing herself, she works at the lock with her fingernails. When she frees herself, she launches toward her mom and the men. One grabs her. She has been in fights before, but not like this. She can feel something within her building, a sense of power. She focuses it, and ‘cups the lighting in her hand’. She grabs the man back, and she can smeel the scent of rain, and of burnt hair. The man’s hand falls deaad by his side, but Roxy and her mom are not out of trouble yet. One of the men draws a knife and Roxy wills the power to return, but she it does not return in time. The next thing she feels is a swift blow to the nape of her neck.
Roxy wakes up dazed. The carpet is sodden with a dark red, and her hands are sticky. On the couch, her mom is unmoving with a handwritten note laid on her chest. It has a primrose on it.
Roxy is one of the first.
Chapter II
Blind Contour Recap
Tunde is twenty one, a journalism student who has just grown out of his awkward phase. Enuma, four years younger than him, is the cousin of a friend and is visiting Lagos for the first time. It is summer and friends are in and out of the house, enjoying the sun and the beach. Enuma has caught Tunde’s eye, and one day, when many of the friend’s in the house decide to go out to the beach, Tunde feigns being ill to stay behind with Enuma. When the friends leave, Tunde feels better, and he takes to the pool in order to catch Enuma’s eye. Tunde catches Enuma stealing glances over her poolside reading of Women Today, and he begins to feel emboldened.
After a showy dive into the pool, Tunde looks up from the water to find that Enuma has gone. When she walks back to the poolside with a coca-cola, Tunde, feeling excited, begins to ‘flirt’ with her, ‘jokingly’ calling her a servant girl, beckoning her to bring the drink to him, saying that it is not meant for her. She flirts back, in a mock resistance. The two of them begin to play wrestle, and, as their hands meet, Tunde feels a tingling sensation through his palm and into his forearm. An aroma of flowers and fruit fills the air. Enuma laughs and seems not to notice, continuing the play. Tunde becomes more excited but also a bit frightened. The touch is electric and begins to hurt. As the tension builds to a point where Tunde can no longer differentiate the excitement from the pain, Enuma breaks off, walking for the pool. Tunde is left erect, startled, and confused.
Tunde does not mention any of this to his friends. He wonders what the pain was, remembers it with some excitement, and feels ashamed by it. Did Enuma know what she was doing? Did she flirt with him, leading him to that moment? Did she know what control she had over him in that moment, that he was overpowered and in pain?
Later, Tunde and a friend are in a grocery mart. He has not mentioned these feelings and thoughts to anyone, though they occupy him. When the pair happen across a young girl, about fifteen, arguing with an older man in the fruit section, Tunde takes pause. The man is approaching the younger girl, and she is calling him off. There is a tension in the air. The girl grabs the wooden edge of a grocer display and aroma of fruit fills the air. Tunde believes that something is going to happen and grabs for his phone to record the scene. Perhaps what happened with him will happen again, and he iwill have proof, can play it back to know what had happneed to him. The man grabs the girl’s arm, there is a sudden flash across the screen of Tunde’s phone, and the man fall s to the grocery floor. The branching of his veins blister as the blood vessels burst. He is foaming at his mouth, and the girl is running out the door. People are gathering, some saying that the girl poisoned him, other say that there was an adder in the fruit, and others say that the girl is a witch and that she cursed the man.
Tunde realized that Enuma could have killed him by the pool. And the day that Tunde posts online the video of the girl and the man in the grocery store becomes known as the Day of the Girls.