***Forgiveness requested in advance if you feel this review contains potential spoilers. I didn't see anything that I would regard as excessive plot disclosure for anyone who's read 1984 already....
***Forgiveness requested in advance if you feel this review contains potential spoilers. I didn't see anything that I would regard as excessive plot disclosure for anyone who's read 1984 already. Also note that Julia has been in release since October, 2023, but it's been marketed mainly as "feminist"-genre literature and wouldn't have crossed my radar if I hadn't seen the Pluralistic review.
From the article:
For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.
This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. For Winston, the world of 1984 is totalitarian: the Party knows all, controls all and misses nothing. To merely think a disloyal thought is to be doomed, because the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnicompetent Party will sense the thought and mark you for torture and "vaporization."
Orwell's readers experience all of 1984 through Winston's eyes and are encouraged to trust his assessment of his situation. But Newman brings in a second point of view, that of Julia, who is indeed far more worldly than Winston. But that's not because she's younger than him – it's because she's more provincial. Julia, we learn, grew up outside of the Home Counties, where the revolution was incomplete and where dissidents – like her parents – were sent into exile. Julia has experienced the periphery of the Party's power, the places where it is frayed and incomplete. For Julia, the Party may be ruthless and powerful, but it's hardly omnicompetent. Indeed, it's rather fumbling.
As usual, Cory Doctorow has a long personal preface to his review, but it is relevant to his enthusiasm for the book Julia, a retelling based on the viewpoint of the character from George Orwell's classic, 1984.
On my first reading of 1984, I found Orwell's rendering of Julia thin and over-romanticized, a beautiful prop for Winston Smith's desperation. I wanted her to have more individual agency, or to receive greater insight into her thoughts and feelings so that her character had equivalent valence to Smith's. I wanted to know how the Oceanean State diminished Julia's understanding and choices, in what ways her feelings differed from Smith's, why she thought she was resisting oppression, what long-term outcomes she hoped for.
Thus I'm very much looking forward to reading the retelling of 1984's story in Julia, on the grounds that it will bring balance to the original, as well as a modern eye to a century of real totalitarian states. What it means to survive in them, how to resist, the powers and vulnerabilities distinct to gender (especially when gendering is under the aegis of the Party).
I'm not going to write an essay here, but thanks for posting this. 1984 was a formative experience for me. I did feel at the time of reading that Julia was given a cheapened and debased treatment,...
I'm not going to write an essay here, but thanks for posting this. 1984 was a formative experience for me. I did feel at the time of reading that Julia was given a cheapened and debased treatment, but by the end of the novel I felt like every character, including Winston, was cheapened and debased, which I guessed was part of the point of the novel in the first place. Interested in this take and will probably read it
Likewise - I haven't read enough Orwell biography to get a good sense of whether Newman's critique of his apparent misogynistic treatment of Julia's character reflects Orwell's own feelings about...
Likewise - I haven't read enough Orwell biography to get a good sense of whether Newman's critique of his apparent misogynistic treatment of Julia's character reflects Orwell's own feelings about women, or whether that characterization is meant to be emblematic of the Party's degradation of all people, its exploitation of sexuality, love, and familial relationships.
I think Newman will make that degradation and exploitation more explicit, in ways that I'll probably find very discomforting. 1984 is a seminal work of dystopian fiction, and I'm not sure whether I can handle an even more brutal version of it right now, especially with a main character I can empathize with easily.
***Forgiveness requested in advance if you feel this review contains potential spoilers. I didn't see anything that I would regard as excessive plot disclosure for anyone who's read 1984 already. Also note that Julia has been in release since October, 2023, but it's been marketed mainly as "feminist"-genre literature and wouldn't have crossed my radar if I hadn't seen the Pluralistic review.
From the article:
As usual, Cory Doctorow has a long personal preface to his review, but it is relevant to his enthusiasm for the book Julia, a retelling based on the viewpoint of the character from George Orwell's classic, 1984.
On my first reading of 1984, I found Orwell's rendering of Julia thin and over-romanticized, a beautiful prop for Winston Smith's desperation. I wanted her to have more individual agency, or to receive greater insight into her thoughts and feelings so that her character had equivalent valence to Smith's. I wanted to know how the Oceanean State diminished Julia's understanding and choices, in what ways her feelings differed from Smith's, why she thought she was resisting oppression, what long-term outcomes she hoped for.
Thus I'm very much looking forward to reading the retelling of 1984's story in Julia, on the grounds that it will bring balance to the original, as well as a modern eye to a century of real totalitarian states. What it means to survive in them, how to resist, the powers and vulnerabilities distinct to gender (especially when gendering is under the aegis of the Party).
Other reviews (spoiler warning):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/10/24/julia-1984-novel-sandra-newman/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/books/review/julia-sandra-newman.html#
https://englewoodreview.org/sandra-newman-julia-feature-review/
Interview (spoiler warning) with Sandra Newman archived at the Orwell Foundation, which sanctioned her book.
I'm not going to write an essay here, but thanks for posting this. 1984 was a formative experience for me. I did feel at the time of reading that Julia was given a cheapened and debased treatment, but by the end of the novel I felt like every character, including Winston, was cheapened and debased, which I guessed was part of the point of the novel in the first place. Interested in this take and will probably read it
Likewise - I haven't read enough Orwell biography to get a good sense of whether Newman's critique of his apparent misogynistic treatment of Julia's character reflects Orwell's own feelings about women, or whether that characterization is meant to be emblematic of the Party's degradation of all people, its exploitation of sexuality, love, and familial relationships.
I think Newman will make that degradation and exploitation more explicit, in ways that I'll probably find very discomforting. 1984 is a seminal work of dystopian fiction, and I'm not sure whether I can handle an even more brutal version of it right now, especially with a main character I can empathize with easily.