Review: Sandra Newman’s ‘Julia’ Revisits Orwell’s ’1984′ From a Woman’s Perspective

The Post and Courier ^ | 2/18 | Melinda Copp

[nickcarraway]

JULIA: A Retelling of George Orwell’s 1984. By Sandra Newman. Mariner Books. 400 pages. $30.

It’s hard to imagine a bleaker world than that of Orwell’s 1984. In Airstrip One, Oceania, everyone’s movements are tracked and monitored.

Free thought is illegal, no one can be trusted and the words one says are never private. Big Brother is always watching. And the protagonist, Winston Smith, is tricked, tortured and ultimately broken by a system that controls everything and has squashed so much humanity in the process. Since its publication in 1949, the book has been read as both an expression of Orwell’s pessimism and as a warning of where we could be headed.

Sandra Newman’s newest novel, “Julia,” expands this bleak world beyond the narrow perspective of Winston Smith. Julia Worthing, Winston’s love interest, is a mechanic working in the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth. She repairs the machines that adapt literature to fit the Party’s desired narrative, which is always changing and in need of revision. She has more friends and associates, and so her story is richer for its interactions with the people around her. But the woman’s perspective is also somehow more bleak.

When things are bad for men, they always seem to be worse for women. Women always have fewer rights. They are always paid less. They shoulder more domestic labor. Fewer women are at the top.

Julia was sexually abused as a child. When she is attacked and assaulted while walking on the street — the source of the wrist injury that Winston notices during their first conversation — she feels culpable, as victims are often made to feel. One of her friends is sleeping with a powerful Party official, gets pregnant, and takes a pill the man gives her to induce an abortion. When it happens in the toilet of their dormitory, Julia finds the discharge and admonishes her worried friend, calling it murder. With these distinctly female experiences, Newman has taken this classic story about man against the world and made it bigger, more encompassing of human life under fascist regimes.

The scenes in “Julia” line up remarkably well with those in 1984, creating a perfect mirror. And the woman’s perspective is less self-absorbed and more observant. Julia sees Winston, who is known around as Old Misery, in a stark light. Newman writes, “You never saw him smile, unless it was the false smirk of Party piety. Julia made the error of smiling at him once, and got back a look that would sour milk. People said he excelled at his job, but couldn’t advance because his parents had been unpersons. One supposed that made him bitter.”

Winston is a misogynist. He hates women, especially Julia, and has fantasies about killing her until she’s willing to sleep with him.

This flaw in his character can be attributed to the oppressive, untrustworthy system he lives under. Julia also is deeply flawed by the system. Never having experienced life before the regime, she grew up brainwashed. As a child, she betrays her mother to the Party, the way she was taught to do in school. And although, as an adult, she engages in small acts of rebellion, like forbidden sexual relationships and buying coffee and chocolate on the black market, she is loyal to the Party. O’Brien, the same charismatic Party official who brings Winston down, recruits her as a sex worker. Julia sleeps with men to get them in trouble, and Winston is only one of her marks.

Throughout the novel, Julia negotiates the ethics of her actions, of doing what the Party says despite her confused, complicated conscience.

She knows Winston has fallen in love with her, and spending time with him has created an affinity even if she doesn’t love him back, but she continues to betray him. She listens to his anti-Party ideas and thinks he’s a fool. And when he reveals his self-absorption and talks about killing women, she doesn’t feel bad about drawing him toward torture and death.

But humanity doesn’t conform neatly to the requirements of regimes. There are gray areas and subjectivity and feelings. And Newman has deftly illustrated them all.

[Rummyfan]

Ms Newman, how about something original rather than cribbing from someone else’s work?

[Angelino97]

And the woman’s perspective is less self-absorbed ...

So it's a comedic fantasy?

[Secret Agent Man]

So again they have to take the male character down. Winston was the protagonist. He was all of us. Feminists wokes just can’t have him being that, they have to twist him into a bad man.

If anyone actually read 1984 he truly loved her. Only a woman writer can so drastically not get that and instead make him an awful women-hating man. Misandry at its finest.

[Rummyfan]

They loved each other. Was that not the point?

[Opinionated Blowhard]

But the woman’s perspective is also somehow more bleak. When things are bad for men, they always seem to be worse for women. Women always have fewer rights. They are always paid less. They shoulder more domestic labor. Fewer women are at the top.

World is in a totalitarian, dystopian nightmare. Women hit hardest.

[jimfree]

Hmmm. Well, if this detaches modern feminism from totalitarian socialism, how bad can it be

[Dr. Sivana]

I could tolerate a rewrite of “1984” from Julia’s perspective, Shakespeare isn’t suffering because “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” was written. However, I draw the line at imputing major motivations that are not in the original. There is NO evidence in “1984” that Julia was a plant like O’Brien. If that were the case, there would be no reason to have Winston drawn to O’Brien independently of Julia. There would be next to no need for O’Brien at all, except to completely deconstruct Winston’s mind, which is something Julia would not do. Also, they see each other again after Winston’s reintroduction to society. That would have been the time to suggest that she was in league with the Inner Party from the beginning. But the scene only suggests that they both betrayed each other, and both knew it, and what they . . . THEY, had was destroyed. To admit the story line of “Julia” is to destroy Orwell’s intention in “1984”, and that does not fly.

[nickcarraway]

In real life Soviet Union, they did have such occurrences where more than one person were plants. Maybe in Cointelpro also.

[rollo tomasi]

Our current society is gynocentric/misandrist (Due to Corporatism manipulating females’ purchasing power/penchant for materialism backed by a Statists force). Females since the early 1980’s have been the majority of the voting bloc thanks to WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam. The road to hell is also paved with feminist ideals ladies and a lack of replenishing the citizenry.. Reflect on Genesis “Girl Power” reprobates.

[Dr. Sivana]

In real life Soviet Union, they did have such occurrences where more than one person were plants.

I don't doubt it, but it isn't hinted at in "1984". The only thing I will grant the authoress is that Julia was bored when Winston was reading aloud from the book given to him by O'Brien, so she was more interested in having a freer life than in understanding the underpinnings.

Winston was pretty low-level to expend that much energy on. Having multiple operatives when Winston's journal was found, when Charrington was also an operative with an unseen telescreen, is overkill, even for IngSoc. The "Julia" twist sounds like something more suited for #6 in the Prisoner than "1984", and it changes the meaning of the story if Julia is also an operative.

[rollo tomasi]

But the woman's perspective is also somehow more bleak. When things are bad for men, they always seem to be worse for women. Women always have fewer rights. They are always paid less. They shoulder more domestic labor. Fewer women are at the top.

This is another BS statement since a lot females just naturally drift to prostitution when times are hard. Think Only Fans where females are selling there farts in a jar to some pent up Incel who doesn't have the social skills to hook up with a female but has disposable cash for $1,000 a fart (A lot of men are just plain stupid).

Females made out during the Wiemar Republic days because they had three holes to exploit for cash. Men just have two and over 97% of heterosexual men do not want to exploit those two holes at all.

To the author of this piece, 'Cry Me a River' females have it a lot easier in today's society.

[posterchild]

Very well put!

[Chode]

Winston is a misogynist. He hates women, especially Julia, and has fantasies about killing her until she’s willing to sleep with him.

so it’s not enough to makeup a new character, but have to destroy the main old in the process...

the message