Universality by Natasha Brown
In her follow-up to the acclaimed Assembly, Natasha Brown investigates the banal evil of modern British politics and the shaping of national discourse
Natasha Brown’s Universality is a book about the intricacies of language and the slippery slope between journalistic integrity and intent. It opens with an investigative article that catalyses the rest of the novel, written by a freelance journalist, Hannah, who examines a violent attack on a farm and the socio-political and economic questions that arise. The article exposes readers to various characters: an immoral financier, a notorious columnist, and a subversive communal movement, the ‘Universalists’. The Universalists desire ‘progress for everyone’ but Hannah notices the irony: ‘the Universalists are a noticeably homogenous group: young, middle class and white.’ Her insights reflect the inextricable link between interpersonal tensions and systemic injustices, setting the novel’s scrupulous tone.
Universality pays close attention to the kind of language that shapes national discourse; it is a novel as equally concerned with place as it is with people. Lenny, the anti-woke columnist, exploits readers’ psychological vulnerabilities to fuel identity politics wars: ‘I have to understand my reader’s suspicions… their deepest fears. It’s my job to inform those concerns by offering up the relevant facts.’ Although it is seemingly reasonable, the tact is chilling. This doubleness seeps through the novel, and characterises the book’s paranoid essence. Though at times, characters are slightly two-dimensional in their predictability, this does not detract from Brown’s pensive observation of the banality of evil of modern British politics.