<p>Nicola Barker’s <em>H(A)PPY</em> (2017) depicts a dystopian future in which all speech is monitored and regulated. Politically dubious topics are flagged, metanarratives like religion and history are censored, and even words expressing heightened emotional states are marked as dangerous. Barker uses innovative techniques to visualise the warping of language under conditions of totalitarian surveillance. In analysing Barker’s novel, this paper applies the findings of digital discourse studies to the novel’s content while arguing that its experimental techniques reflect a distinct break from the digital information stream. Barker’s innovations are a formal route to escape the deadlock of our current politics.</p>
This article explores the influence of John Berger on Eva Figes’ novel Light (1981). The novel describes a day in the life of Claude Monet. Figes’ depiction of Monet’s artistic processes reflects her own explorations of literary-critical theory as well as showing the clear influence of Berger’s ideas. The article uses archive materials newly recently made available at the British Library to outline the personal relationship between the two writers. It uses this to build a picture of mutual influence, both interpersonal and interdisciplinary, between two of the leading critics, Marxist and Feminist, of the 1970s.
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