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THE CARHULLAN ARMY Sarah Hall 9780571236596 Books

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THE CARHULLAN ARMY Sarah Hall 9780571236596 Books

I decided to give three stars and not two because as a whole I had a good time reading this novel. However, quite a few things did not convince me. I liked the man idea of a different kind of society as opposed to the dominant tyranny. Still, if the point is supposed to be constructing a story on a strictly female society, the men in the next village only represent an implication of failure. The characters are hardly developed. We get a good picture of Jackie through Sister, the main character/story teller. All the other characters, Sister included, are just sketched. The title is misleading as this is not so much about the army. There is hardly any background. The things that are not good enough are too many for this to be a really good story.


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THE CARHULLAN ARMY Sarah Hall 9780571236596 Books Reviews

Plot Kernel - England has suffered economic collapse. Life is oppressive and without hope. A woman (the narrator) joins a group of women who years earlier had formed a separatist community in the countryside. The women of Carhullan are dutiful and resolute.

This is not an exclusively lesbian community but males are not allowed to live there. In the early days women sought refuge here from abuse; and the leader, Jackie, is especially militant in her views about men. There is a small community of men nearby which some of the women occasionally visit. These men are ineffective and compliant.

Within the community of women there is a military unit, and late in the story the narrator joins this unit. The situation has changed in England and the lands and lifestyle of Carhullan are likely to be taken from the women. Jackie determines that the women must strike first and remove the Authority that threatens their freedom. The Carhullan Army will start the revolution that the urban dwellers, under the direct control of the Authority, are too subservient to bring about themselves.

"If detained, there are only 3 things we were allowed to say. Our names. Which militia we belonged to. And that we did not recognize the legality of the government. Nothing else would be given in response to interrogation or to incentives. Not yes, not no." (185)

Comment - This is not a story of a militia of women fighting against tyranny. Most of the narrative (there is very little dialogue or direct quotation in the story) tells of the narrator's experience reaching the group and becoming part of the community. Only a few of the women are sketched in as characters, and no one is given a fully developed personality. The title is misleading because the militia aspect of the community is outside the narrative through most of the story. There are no battle scenes, and only in the last two pages of the book is there any description of the fighting. We know from the first page of the novel that we are reading the "Statement of female prisoner detained under Section 4(b) of the Insurgency Prevention (Unrestricted Powers) Act".
I've never read a book quite like this before. The story line -- about a dystopia brought about by terrorism, war and environmental collapse -- is entirely believable. Author Sarah Hall paints an incredible world a collapsed civilization where the population barely suvives under oppression up against a rural, agrarian society dominated by women.
The writing is superb. It is a book that cannot be put down until the last words are read. I think about parts of that book almost every day.
Hall is up there will George Orwell and his 1984.
I really love Sarah Hall as an author. She is an amazingly gifted storyteller - She won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize for this book and was nominated for the Orange Prize and short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for The Electric Michelangelo. Be aware, though, that The Carhullan Army and Daughters of the North are the self-same story under different titles. It IS a great story, nonetheless! The reader is reviewing "recovered data" which details the chaotic situation in Britain after a global environmental and economic apocalypse. The "Authority" has taken over regulation of employment, housing, and even procreation. All females, even young girls and the elderly, are fitted with IUDs and are subject to random IUD placement checks in the back seat of Authority cars. The woman known as "Sister" rebels and escapes to Carhullan, a last outpost of civility in an authoritarian nightmare. Carhullan itself, though, is ultimately drawn into the battle for freedom, with surprising consequences.
I decided to give three stars and not two because as a whole I had a good time reading this novel. However, quite a few things did not convince me. I liked the man idea of a different kind of society as opposed to the dominant tyranny. Still, if the point is supposed to be constructing a story on a strictly female society, the men in the next village only represent an implication of failure. The characters are hardly developed. We get a good picture of Jackie through Sister, the main character/story teller. All the other characters, Sister included, are just sketched. The title is misleading as this is not so much about the army. There is hardly any background. The things that are not good enough are too many for this to be a really good story.