The Birth of Love

History is full of theories which have been proffered and self-appointed experts who have rejected them, simply because they were novel, or threatening of a general orthodoxy. Those religious beliefs which dominate in my country, and equally in yours, Professor Wilson, such as the divinity of Christ, and the truth of the Gospels, have at various points been regarded as madness and heresy and the mere expression of them has caused individuals to be slaughtered. Indeed, history is a series of rising and falling so-called truths, each generation directed by certain absolutes where are most often cast off by the next. (pg. 161)

The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna is set in three different time periods: Vienna in 1865; present day London; and somewhere in the year 2153. What ties the periods together is childbirth as seen from a medical perspective, an individual perspective, and the perspective of society.  In 1865 you have the specter of childbirth fever and Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis’s claim that women will not die if doctors simply wash their hands.  Dr. Semmelweis ends up in an asylum wringing his hands and haunted by dead women.  In London, Bridget Hughes prepares to give birth to her second child and trying to cope with the pain.  In the future, society harvests the wombs of women at the age of eighteen and then sterilizes them. Women do not carry, birth, or nurture their children.

Thematically, the reader can see how the stories tie together and there is also subtle connections as well.  However there is also a side story in present London of a hermit author who has written a novel about Dr. Semmelweis and is coping with the issues he has with his own mother.  These sections seemed almost ill-fitting to me and I found them somewhat jarring within the narrative.  I couldn’t tell if the author was equating writing a novel with birthing a baby.  The images of childbirth were also fairly graphic and I found them unpleasant to read.

The section I enjoyed the most was the futuristic section. I found the prisoners testimony quite moving and their longing for a connection, both to a homeland as well as to the act of birth, was haunting. I wish the author had spent more time on this section. The difference in perspective in the three sections was also interesting. Other than that, I found this book was a struggle to get through and I am not sure what the author intended to sayin the end.