I was afraid it would be a feminist retelling of George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia. 1984 (first published in 1949) may well have been a timely but useful literary experiment.
Modern readers have long complained that Julia, the sex-obsessed lover of Winston Smith’s protagonist, is exploited by the male gaze. In the Age of Feminist Retellings (Madeleine Miller) Circe to Natasha Solomon Honest Rosalina) Julia was definitely late and just had to rewrite: Katherine Bradley Sisterhood: A potboiler romance in the boss lady style.
But Sandra Newman is an impressive writer, and her work Julia, sanctioned by Orwell’s legacy, is neither an anachronistic betrayal of the source material nor a stale scholarly exercise. “Julia” is a lively, full-fledged book that retains the spirit of the original, but tears apart its elements, namely the character of Winston Smith.
First of all, it’s very funny. K.S. Lewis was accused in 1984 of not being funny, but he couldn’t say the same. The prose is recognizably austere, like Orwell’s (Newman is a master parodist, having created an entire dialect for her long list of women’s awards). Ice Star Land), but is also peppered with new observations that made me laugh, including a particularly snarky conversation with a pointless party member about sausages.
It comes from the same dystopian England now known as Airstrip One. 1984where party members working to erase history in the ministries of truth, peace, abundance and love are constantly interrogated through “television screens” on the streets, in offices and at home.
They are encouraged to use the mind-numbing new language of Newspeak. Julia lives in a women’s home, where she has even less privacy than Winston has in his apartment. If they break the rules by having sex or even thinking something against the party, they may disappear.
The practical qualities with which Orwell endowed Julia are transformed here into an entertaining ploy. Julia always finds ways to improve the system. She tells people that she is “not at all intelligent” even though she is clearly smarter than them.
She politely asks TV screeners to look away while she transforms, both to amuse the other girls (“it was supposed to send every male comrade running within earshot”) and to hand over read illegal banknotes (“she counted on them.” below to divert attention from her hands”). Men don’t know the real life of women. “Disease: Menstruation” is “a privilege used and abused by all girls” as guards confuse plumbing tools with antiques.
However, not everything is so carefree. Julia is a much more volatile, raw and violent book than Orwell’s, dealing with physical issues that probably never occurred to him. After their first sexual encounter, Winston lies “like a cat that has been creamed.”
Meanwhile, Julia is worried about her pregnancy. There are clogged toilets with substandard menstrual wipes and an early scene with a deeply disturbing and disgusting depiction of a belated miscarriage.
There are flashbacks to Julia’s childhood, her painful introduction to sex, the death of her parents, and her naive role in the anti-capitalist revolution. Newman writes: “They spoke as if talking were the real business of life and that the world’s problems would soon be solved if only they were approached in the right way.”
This is certainly the case with Winston, who talks about who invented the airplane, while Julia, a woman of action, tries to survive. Julia admires his “strange obsession with truth.” The intellectual pursuits that seemed most important in 1984 seem like a self-indulgent luxury here.
Newman takes on all the big hits from Orwell’s book: the torture in Room 101, the last meeting between Julia and Winston.
But what’s great about it is not only its portrayal of Julia, who is even smarter than you think (when she told Winston she cheated on him, she wasn’t kidding), but also the full understanding of what Orwell meant by these three social relationship. were locked in an endless battle for dominance. Julia, who lives in this pressure cooker, is often cruel and harsh. In the end, she is the one who understands.
Doubleplusgood, as the residents of Runway One would say.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.