Unwelcome consequences: Christina Dalcher’s Vox and John Lanchester’s The Wall
Adelheid Rundholz
Cankaya UniversityAdelheid Rundholz is a native of Cologne, Germany, and a professor of Comparative Literature and French. She has presented papers and published on world literature, literature of migration, graphic novels, and cinema. Her research interests are comparative literature, literary theory, literature of migration, genre, and translation.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9965-3156
Abstract
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistsʼ Doomsday Clock, first introduced in 1947, recently moved the fictional clock forward; it now rests at 100 seconds to midnight, or 100 seconds from destroying ourselves. The numerous threats posed by nuclear weapons, pandemics, weaponized technology, and catastrophic climate change create an ʻenvironment of miseryʼ in which all action—and all inaction—is fraught with risk. Two recent novels employ dystopian visions of the United States and Britain, respectively, and explore the consequences of social engineering that takes place to minimize (perceived) risks and increase safety. Dalcherʼs Vox (2018) and Lanchesterʼs The Wall (2019) are two novels that are a commentary on a world in which risk is pervasive and in which (in)action can exacerbate dire circumstances. At the same time, the novels highlight that local (national) action is doomed to fail if it does not also consider the global interconnectedness of challenges and risks.
Schlagworte:
contemporary fiction, dystopian, risk, authoritarianism, oppressionLiteraturhinweise
Abramowitz, M. 2019. Freedom in the world 2019. Democracy in retreat. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/democracy-retreat.
Beck, U. 1986. Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag.
Beck, U. 2007. Weltrisikogesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag.
Berlatsky, N. 2020. Trump voters motivated by racism may be violating the constitution. Can they be stopped? January 17. https://apple.news/A2wPnWpIBTPOikVZ6vOu_jQ.
Blake, J. 2021. There’s nothing more frightening in America today than an angry white man. November 21. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/20/angry-white-men-trials-blake-cec/Index.html.
Bosco, R. A., Myerson, J. (eds.). 2005. The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson By Ralph Emerson. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Clark, S. 2020. How white supremacy returned to mainstream politics. July 1. https://americanprogress.org/article/white-supremacy-returned-mainstream-politics/.
Dalcher, C. 2018. Vox. New York: Berkley.
France 24. 2019, ‘Vox’ by Christina Dalcher: A novel ripe for the #MeToo era [Video]. YouTube. March 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq4CxXel6XW.
Gupta, S. 2012. Contemporary Literature. The Basics. London: Routledge.
Glare, P. G. W. (ed.). 2004. Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hutchinson, P. (ed.) 1998. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Maxims and Reflections. Transl. E. Stopp. London: Penguin Books.
Ischinger, W. 2018. Welt in Gefahr: Deutschland und Europa in unsicheren Zeiten. Hamburg: Econ.
Kidd, J. 2019. John Lanchester on walls, Brexit, Trump, climate change and his latest novel. February 15. https://thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/books/john-lanchester-on-Walls-brexit-trump-climate-change-and-his-latest-novel-1.826098.
Lanchester, J. 2019. The Wall. New York/London: W. W. Norton and Company.
Leavy, P. 2019. Fiction, feminism, and qualitative research: an interview with Dr. Patricia Leavy. November 20. https://tqr.nova.edu/2019/11/20/fiction-feminism-and-Qualitative-research-an-interview-with-dr-patricia-leavy/.
LeTourneau, N. 2017. Dear Trump voters the 1950s aren’t coming back. July 5. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/07/05/dear-trump-voters-the-1950s-arent-coming-back/.
Levitsky, S. & D. Ziblatt. 2019. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing Group.
McManus, D. 2020. Trump is Stuck in a Time Warp on Race. June 14. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-06-14/trump-is-stuck-in-a-time-warp.
Nevala-Lee, A. 2019, March 5. Rising seas, migrants, war: A timely novel from John Lanchester. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/books/review/john-lanchester-wall.html.
Orwell, G. 1946. Why I Write. https://srjcstaff.santarosa.edu/~mLeydon/whywriteD.pdf.
Risk. Oxford English Dictionary. www.oed.com.
Pinakoulia, M. 2020. Female struggle and negotiation of agency in Christina Dalcher’s Vox. Ex-centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media 4: 193-205.
Roche, M. W. 2004. Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ryerse, R. 2020. I questioned the sincerity of Donald Trump’s pro-life stance. The response from my fellow Evangelicals was troubling. February 17. https://apple.news/Ah3kOqi50Ry-mfl7iXNHZCg.
Sandrock, K. 2020. Border temporalities, climate mobility, and Shakespeare in John Lanchester’s The Wall. Journal of Modern Literature 43.3: 163-180.
Smith, T. 2020. Whitelash: Unmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Steinberg, N. 2020. Crumbling US Senate echoes Roman collapse. February 3. https://apple.news/AK7FzrRhZRFGXc2RPJxnkXg.
Szabo, L.-V. 2018. Utopia and uchronia from Thomas More to H. G. Wells. Transylvanian Review 27.4: 129-139.
Thomas-Corr, J. 2019, January 15. ‘The Wall’ by John Lanchester review—dystopian fable for our time. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/15/the-wall-by-john-lanchester-review.
Tombs, R. 2021. This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe. Devon: Allen Lane.
Uyeda, R. L. 2020. The Trump administration just expanded its efforts to strip naturalized citizens of their status. February 27. https://apple.news/AXJkvNkrCQpykLQjENWOG1w.
Váňa, J. 2020. More than just a product: Strengthening literature in sociological analysis. Sociology Compass 14 (6) n.p. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12789.
Wolf, Z. B. 2020. Is it time to freak out about America? What’s next after impeachment. February 2. https://apple.news/Awu0dcxjTTC-MocSoEDYv_Q.
Zinn, J. O. (ed.). 2008. Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Cankaya University
Adelheid Rundholz is a native of Cologne, Germany, and a professor of Comparative Literature and French. She has presented papers and published on world literature, literature of migration, graphic novels, and cinema. Her research interests are comparative literature, literary theory, literature of migration, genre, and translation.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9965-3156
