Native Tongue

Native Tongue, Book 1

By: Suzette Haden Elgin

Narrated by: Amy Landon

Originally published in 1984, this classic dystopian trilogy is a testament to the power of language and women's collective action.

In 2205, the 19th Amendment has long been repealed and women are only valued for their utility. The Earth's economy depends on an insular group of linguists who "breed" women to be perfect interstellar translators until they are sent to the Barren House to await death. But instead, these women are slowly creating a language of their own to make resistance possible. Ignorant to this brewing revolution, Nazareth, a brilliant linguist, and Michaela, a servant, both seek emancipation in their own ways. But their personal rebellions risk exposing the secret language, and threaten the possibility of freedom for all.

©2019 the Feminist Press at City University of New York (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Native Tongue -- as good as I remember

This book explores how language shapes reality. It's an underrated classic which uses actual linguistic techniques and theories to shape a believable world.

INCREDIBLE

I absolutely loved it. It made me rethink the way women "manage" men today and how men's emotions are so stupidly crucial to our success. An incredible feminist read and I can't wait to finish the series.

Listen Closely

I loved this book and plan to go back and read it also because listening made it easy to miss things. Very intelligently written and I can’t wait to listen to the next in the series, I’m hoping there is more:). Like the Handmaid’s Tale, it is frighteningly close to how things can go drastically wrong in today’s society with just the change of a few laws.

must read for any science fiction reader!!

best work of science fiction I've read since Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. will make you angry and addicted at the same time

Interesting concept, poor delivery

The concept of the book is interesting, but for a story about women creating their own language we see surprisingly little of them. Instead, the story bounces around between a host of awful men. The men are ALL terrible. Usually, there are at least a few members of an oppressing class who see and disagree with what's going on and and take steps to be an ally to the oppressed group. Not so with this book. The writing created a characature of terrible men that was so over the top it was laughable which made the story difficult to relate to.

In addition to the unbelievable males in this book, the story doesn't focus in on any one character so it you aren't given the chance to form an emotional connection with any of them. You're not rooting for the women because you feel indifferent towards every character.

Overall good concept, but poorly executed.

Thought Provoking Concepts - Tedious Writing

Ultimately, I'm happy that I read this series for the questions it raises and the fun little sci-fi goodies it sprinkles throughout. The culture and economics surrounding the linguist society is interesting and the oddly separatist bent of the book is... uhm, well interesting to think about.

But wow wow the writing is dull. Everything is told through dialogue between characters, there are (pretty much) no action scenes. I guess this is unsurprising as Elgin's most popular book is "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense" and so one could see how she's using this trilogy (all about the power of language), to explore some of her views on dialogue and abusive verbal attacks (and ways to defend yourself against such attacks).

Also, and I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way from reading reviews of this book on other websites but... you meet a ton of men in this book and they are all garbage. 100%. And it just starts to become a little tedious to listen to monologue after monologue from men talking about their yikes opinions about women, and the range of yikes-views are pretty narrow. We know from looking at oppressive systems historically that there are almost always allies within the ranks of the privileged classes that aid social justice movements. There were white people who helped out the underground railroad, there are straight people who protest alongside LGBTQ folks for queer rights, on and on. Not in this world! In Elgin's future 100% of men are here to oppress and humiliate women. Okay, so maybe a story of allyship just isn't the story Elgin wants to tell, that's chill, but in that case I wish we would have spent more time with the *women* of this society. So much of the book is told from men's point of view and it's just... eh. Unpleasant? Boring?