Scan barcode
A review by hetauuu
When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy
4.0
4.5 stars
Meena Kandasamy takes on a highly disturbing and disturbingly real topic: domestic violence, both physical and mental. From the very first pages of When I Hit You it becomes apparent that the things done to our unnamed narrator have been so brutal that the things you're about to read about will not be for the faint of heart. But closing our eyes to the facts of situations like these, no matter how horrible, serves as nothing but a disservice to those who have to suffer from it.
At first, everything is perfect - our main character falls in love with a man who seems so passionate about equality and justice. He is a communist to the core, a proud supporter of Lenin, Marx and Mao, he believes that the bourgeoisie will one day be dethroned and people will seize the means of production. He speaks with passion and is unshakable in his stances, and our narrator, a woman of the same beliefs, cannot believe her luck. Yet now, as she is writing in hindsight, having already seen this violent marriage to its end, she sees warning signs she didn't see back then, she sees the hypocrisy of a man claiming to be for freedom and justice, yet not even regarding his own wife as human.
The fact that When I Hit You talks about the violence and abuse perpetrated by Leftist men is very important. Often when we talk about sexism and violence against women, we speak of right-wing conservative circles and men, whose traditional viewpoint on gender roles and the places of women and men in society (often dictated by religious views) put women at a disadvantage. Rarely do we mention that the people who claim to embrace the world and claim to seek justice and equality for all often don't extend that promise to women. This side needs to be explored too, it needs to be shown that sexism and misogyny is not only for the right-wing, it's ingrained into the minds of so many leftist people too, it is not a left vs. right question. It's a question of whether or not you see women as people, whether or not you are able to apply your abstract idea of equal treatment to the real life people around you.
Kandasamy's writing is not floral or frilly. It's angry, it's disappointed, it's hurt - yet at the same time, it is full of hope. When the husband tries everything he can to tear our narrator down once and for all, mentally and physically, even threatening with murder, our protagonist is able to pick up the remaining pieces of herself, stick the back together and keep going. The novel is rather fragmentary and does not move on in a strict chronological order. We know the entire time that she is going to eventually get out of the marriage, and the knowledge of that, the relief and sense of safety it brings, is peppered into the novel throughout. Life and freedom will eventually prevail, even when people around her do not believe her and her experiences, at least she is no longer experiencing them.
When I Hit You is a 250-page long gut-punch. I'll be digesting this one for a long time.
one two
tame the shrew
one two
just push through
one two
yes thank you
Meena Kandasamy takes on a highly disturbing and disturbingly real topic: domestic violence, both physical and mental. From the very first pages of When I Hit You it becomes apparent that the things done to our unnamed narrator have been so brutal that the things you're about to read about will not be for the faint of heart. But closing our eyes to the facts of situations like these, no matter how horrible, serves as nothing but a disservice to those who have to suffer from it.
At first, everything is perfect - our main character falls in love with a man who seems so passionate about equality and justice. He is a communist to the core, a proud supporter of Lenin, Marx and Mao, he believes that the bourgeoisie will one day be dethroned and people will seize the means of production. He speaks with passion and is unshakable in his stances, and our narrator, a woman of the same beliefs, cannot believe her luck. Yet now, as she is writing in hindsight, having already seen this violent marriage to its end, she sees warning signs she didn't see back then, she sees the hypocrisy of a man claiming to be for freedom and justice, yet not even regarding his own wife as human.
The fact that When I Hit You talks about the violence and abuse perpetrated by Leftist men is very important. Often when we talk about sexism and violence against women, we speak of right-wing conservative circles and men, whose traditional viewpoint on gender roles and the places of women and men in society (often dictated by religious views) put women at a disadvantage. Rarely do we mention that the people who claim to embrace the world and claim to seek justice and equality for all often don't extend that promise to women. This side needs to be explored too, it needs to be shown that sexism and misogyny is not only for the right-wing, it's ingrained into the minds of so many leftist people too, it is not a left vs. right question. It's a question of whether or not you see women as people, whether or not you are able to apply your abstract idea of equal treatment to the real life people around you.
Kandasamy's writing is not floral or frilly. It's angry, it's disappointed, it's hurt - yet at the same time, it is full of hope. When the husband tries everything he can to tear our narrator down once and for all, mentally and physically, even threatening with murder, our protagonist is able to pick up the remaining pieces of herself, stick the back together and keep going. The novel is rather fragmentary and does not move on in a strict chronological order. We know the entire time that she is going to eventually get out of the marriage, and the knowledge of that, the relief and sense of safety it brings, is peppered into the novel throughout. Life and freedom will eventually prevail, even when people around her do not believe her and her experiences, at least she is no longer experiencing them.
When I Hit You is a 250-page long gut-punch. I'll be digesting this one for a long time.