First off I have to say this: what an appalling cover for such an excellent book. I can't help but look at it and think of how in Native Tongue women's interests are trivialised and made to appear ridiculous by men, and while I don't know who approved and created that cover they couldn't have made this book look more ridiculous if they'd tried.

That being said, this is really, profoundly excellent. I had some initial trouble with the premise (all rights taken away from women, making them essentially the property of men) but, as in The Handmaid's Tale (even more so, actually) the thought processes of the men are so nastily, selfishly, contemptuously consistent that it becomes all too horribly believable. By the end, though, I was laughing my arse off in utter delight, because of course it would play out that way, of course! For all the cant from the men in this world about how feminism has destroyed women, it becomes crystal clear by that ending as to how the lack of feminism has destroyed men, how much sense and subtlety and imagination it's drained from them. And the world the women are bringing into being via language, the way they've learnt to manipulate that language into reality, is absolutely fascinating. Nazareth, especially, is outstanding, but what resistance fighters these women are. Absolutely recommended.