THE POWER: A Novel by Naomi Alderman

The Power is quite simply one of the most powerful (pun intended) novels I have read in some time. The premise is simple, as most of the best speculative fiction is; what happens if women develop a Power that gives them physical supremacy over men? In this case the Power is that of being able to create bio-electricity internally and channel it to shock, cause pain and even kill. This one premise opens a massive can of worms that starts with an examination of our assumptions of gender roles and finishes with the overturn of the modern world as we know it. Not bad for one novel.

The book revolves around four main characters: aspiring journalist Tunde Edo; Roxy Monke, the bastard daughter of a crime lord; abused foster child turned high priestess Allie Montgomery-Taylor; and Margot Cleary, mayor of a US town and mother of two daughters.

Tunde is the sympathetic male perspective in the story through whose eyes the reader can understand what it must be like to be on the ‘losing’ side of a new emerging social order. His ambition drives him into situations that highlight how radically the gender roles are changing and how powerless he – as a young, fit man – has become.

Roxy Monke is the opposite; initially ignored on the periphery of her family’s business, she discovers that the strength of her Power is almost unequalled and as such has a pivotal role to play in the new order. Her story is that of dealing with suddenly being valued, and whether she allows the influence she gains to change her fundamental beliefs and character.

Allie is possibly the most conflicted and curious of the central characters, recreating herself as a messianic figure and using her Power to build an entirely new religious belief system. Allie’s motives are complex and undefined but as Mother Eve she demonstrates clearly the extraordinary power of human belief.

Margot Cleary is already in a position of authority and uses the shifting gender roles and weakening of current political systems to her own personal advantage. Margot’s journey allows the reader to see from the inside how this upheaval affects the traditional hierarchy of the political landscape.

Quite apart from the diverse and interesting characters, one of the aspects that makes this book so interesting is the numerous layers it touches upon. Most obvious is the discussion about how much human social evolution has been shaped by one gender having physical supremacy over the other. This is the most simplistic but also the easiest to describe: it’s an easy step to imagine what would happen if, for example, women in Saudi Arabia were suddenly able to physically overpower their male protectors. And it also plays into today’s zeitgeist of modern feminism that has been so active in media recently, with campaigns such as #metoo or the growing outcry against inequality in salaries. It also makes the incidences in the book of assault and rape, physical and mental intimidation and psychological abuse extremely effective when the aggressor is female instead of male. Somehow reading about it from this way around makes these terrible acts fresh and shocking (when often we have become inured to them purely through the frequency in which they occur), and reminds us how horrendous this abuse of power is regardless of who it is being perpetrated on or committed by.

But this is simply the first, most obvious level of narrative. More subtle is the narrative around what power actually is, how power is wielded and how it can be used or abused. For Margot power equates to personal gain through political influence and wealth, whereas for Roxy power translates to an ability to help those she has given her loyalty to. With Allie, the power she gains from her religious position allows her to set in motion an entirely unexpected train of events that would be universally rejected if it were known, in order to reset society’s clock entirely. For others power is a mechanism for controlling their fear, or ensuring the protection or continuation of their families.

Much of the narrative plays out in today’s world, and as such it utilises very effectively many of the hot current affairs topics being debated at the moment. Not content with examining feminism and gender discrimination, the author also uses conspiracy theories, radicalism, religious fundamentalism and terrorism and tools to move the narrative forward.  The drug and sex trafficking trades also crop up, as does child abuse and paedophilia, government corruption, and influence over policy by the military complex and private interests such as security companies. But as well as pushing a lot of hot topic buttons, the breadth of this story and the myriad reactions to such a fundamental and cataclysmic social shift makes it entirely believable as a possible narrative of what could happen in our modern world.

This introduces another interesting aspect; how we instinctively desire to break things down into easy, black and white concepts (or 50-word Tweets!) rather than accept that our perspective and understanding will only ever be a very small piece in much larger jigsaw. The conspiracy theorists, for example, want to focus on the real identity of Mother Eve, as if this will bring some clarity to their changing worlds. The fundamentalists think that blowing up training camps run for women to learn how to harness their Power will somehow strike a blow against all the women in the world. Most especially, Mother Eve’s new religion is quickly hijacked by those who see revenge on men as the end goal rather than a rebalancing of power between the sexes that could lead to a new, more equitable and enlightened world order.

This aspect is also highlighted through presenting the story as a novel which has been written thousands of years in the future. The author is an archaeologist/historian who is trying to piece together the evidence left from this period and speculating on what events may have occurred to lead to the Cataclysm and his subsequent present world order. Unlike the protagonists in the story however, as an archaeologist he accepts from the start that his evidence will be incomplete (formed from the few extant artefacts and from surviving texts that may be completely biased), and that his story will only ever be speculation.  And yet his dialogue with another, more famous and female author, also gives us an inkling of how the story may have eventually unfolded.

All this provokes a lot of thought, asks a lot of questions and highlights a lot of uncertainty about many issues that are absolutely germane to our current society and to today’s world order. In terms of the most obvious topic of feminism, there are inevitable comparisons with Margaret Atwood and The Handmaid’s Tale, entirely correctly in my opinion since both books build convincing world views about the role of women and men in future societies. But whereas Atwood’s work examines the more fundamental biological imperatives, that of only women being able to procreate and our species’ basic instinct to breed and therefore survive, this book examines more the shift in authority and how societies may function from a matriarchial basis. And that matriarchies may not, as is commonly perceived, be less aggressive and more collaborative social structures but could just as easily be as hierarchical and aggressive as the patriarchies we have evolved from historically.

Ultimately, for me, this is not a book about feminism but a more fundamental - and pretty scary - look at what can happen if any balance of power is overturned too quickly and radically. It is also a stark reminder that, however sophisticated we think we are as a species or a civilisation, ultimately the societies we have created rise or fall as a result of how the individuals within them (of whatever gender) wield the power they gain.