VOX’S 100-WORD SENTENCE IS A SHOCKER

VOX CHRISTINA DALCHER HQ Review: Peter Alan Simmonds

SINCE most have welcomed the day, the week, the month and probably the era of the woman, Vox, last year’s shock offering by Christina Dalcher, an American linguistics professor, imagines a situation where women are given electric shocks if they speak more than 100 words (instead of thousands) a day.

No woman is allowed to work and the restrictions are stringently applied, and punishments meted without remorse.

Of course, from Andy Capp to Archie Bunker and every other misogynist in between, it would represent manna from heaven, but the stark reality of this chilling first novel picks up where Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale left off.

Imagine an America where all women and girls are made to wear a metal bracelet (similar to the restraining ankle transponders worn by criminals under strict parole conditions) that delivers an electric shock if they exceed their daily ration of 100 words. Absurd? Yes; Possible? Yes. And if you think dissenters can avoid the stricture, forget it – not only are writing materials forbidden, but there are no books and any sign language is met with horrific punishment.

The enforcers of this bizarre, amazing, out-of-this-world scenario are in deadly earnest and offenders simply disappear.

Too much description here of what goes on will spoil it for readers of this powerful, original, frightening work.

Basically, Jean, a mother of four, has been forced to give up her career as a researcher, studying the loss of language (aphasia).

But she spots a chink in the armour when the bad guys ask for her specialised knowledge of the subject.

I must say it does dawdle for quite a while, but the anticipation regarding this woman with the (unrealised) hopes of the entire American female population eventually bears fruit. Nuff said!

Like a B film, it suddenly overwhelms the reader with action; moreover, the narrative descends, in my opinion, into cliché-ridden rhetoric and stereotyped dialogue.

Of course, Jean feels she carries the guilt of all – why I don’t really know – but, nevertheless, it might carry a strident warning for those who say “I don’t vote” or “politics is not part of my life”, especially as some of their counterparts in the book face labour camp incarceration for their laissez-faire attitude to keeping an eye on the rules.

Has Dalcher gone too far? Probably, but then the same thing might be said about Sharia, the Khmer Rouge, foot binding in Tibet, or female circumcision in Africa.

Dalcher’s short stories and flash fiction appear in more than 100 journals worldwide; she has received several prizes and awards for her work.

I enthusiastically advise women in South Africa to read this work – who knows, in the words of an old musical hit: ”It could happen to you …”