Review: Julia by Sandra Newman
Blurb:
An imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell’s 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia, by critically acclaimed novelist Sandra Newman.
Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It’s 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, everything about this world is as it is in Orwell’s 1984.
All her life, Julia has known only Oceania, and, until she meets Winston Smith, she has never imagined anything else. She is an ideal citizen: cheerfully cynical, always ready with a bribe, piously repeating every political slogan while believing in nothing. She routinely breaks the rules, but also collaborates with the regime when necessary. Everyone likes Julia.
Then one day she finds herself walking toward Winston Smith in a corridor and impulsively slips him a note, setting in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story. Julia takes us on a surprising journey through Orwell’s now-iconic dystopia, with twists that reveal unexpected sides not only to Julia, but to other familiar figures in the 1984 universe. This unique perspective lays bare our own world in haunting and provocative ways, just as the original did almost seventy-five years ago.
Review:
It might be impossible to have any discussion of Julia, Sandra Newman’s 2023 retelling of George Orwell’s 1949 masterwork of speculative dystopian fiction - 1984 - without speaking first about exactly that: George Orwell’s 1984.
1984 is one of those novels that has long since grown beyond its status as a landmark work of fiction and has now reached a level of such cultural ubiquity (at least here in the States) that one cannot seem to mention it without earning some amount of eye-rolling from those around you. I think this is due, at least in part, to the fact that the term “Orwellian” has, in recent decades, been stripped of meaning to simply become an expression that politicians and pundits use as a shorthand for “This should scare you!” without really stopping to grapple with the ideas actually contained in Orwell’s work. I doubt very much that many currently serving in the legislative bodies of the United States’ government have actually read the thing, especially given how many of them seem to foam at the mouth at the prospect of restricting what can and cannot be read in schools; and maybe it’s because I did read 1984 in school that - for better or for worse - it was and continues to be one of the most influential novels in my own personal journey as a writer.
So when I recently saw the cover of Julia (with its subtitle “A Retelling of George Orwell’s 1984”) out of the corner of my eye in our local bookstore, I let out a literal gasp. It was one of those works of fiction that, the moment you first learn of its existence, you think to yourself, “I wish I had written that!”
And I was struck not just by the audacity of the concept: that of a retelling of 1984 nearly 75 years after its original publication - but by the audacity of its cover. The design deliberately invokes one of the earliest covers of 1984, but slaps a bold, red wrap (evoking, I believe, the red waist sash of Oceania’s Anti-Sex League, of which Julia was famously a member) over the original title, usurping it simply with: Julia. This is wildly confident graphic design. We all know, of course, not to judge a book by its cover, and yet we all do; and this one certainly got me excited to discover what story was held within.
But for all that excitement at the very idea of this book, I did not immediately dive in to the story of Julia. After reading the first chapter I had a realization. For as omnipresent as the anti-authoritarian messaging of 1984 had been in my life as a writer, I had not actually sat down to read it front to back since high school; and while the texture of the first chapter of Julia definitely felt familiar, I knew I’d probably get more out of the text as a whole if I went back and first reacquainted myself with 1984. So I bookmarked Julia and set it aside, and once more removed 1984 from my bookshelf and set about the task of refamiliarizing myself with the world of Winston Smith, Julia, Oceania, and Airstrip One. And I will say here, having since completed both books, I don’t believe you need to do as I have and read both books to appreciate either. Julia stands well on its own if you wish to read it before reading 1984, though I believe there are several story beats that will hit harder if you’ve already read 1984. And I hope you’ve read 1984 recently enough to remember the details of its story because… uh… it’s a bummer!
These won’t be huge numbers in comparison to some of the other reviewers here at SFF Insiders, but in March I read 5 books, in April I read 4 books, and in May I read 5 books. This month (I am writing this on July 26, 2024) I have read 2 books: 1984 and Julia, with most of the month dedicated to the former. The slowness of the reading was due in large part to the despair that welled up within me with increasing regularity the further I delved into Orwell’s nightmarish prophecies. As some of the SFF Insiders mutuals who follow me on Twitter will know, my wife asked me last week if I was “enjoying” rereading 1984, and I could only answer, “No.”
I will not detail here the wild number of pages I dog-eared as I encountered bits of Orwell’s dystopic divination that are still being made manifest 75 years later; but being a citizen of the United States who tries his best to be aware of (and participate in) the political landscape, of current legislation (both at the local and Federal levels), and of (I write these next words with the greatest possible weariness) upcoming elections, this reread of 1984 was NOT fun. You may eye-roll here if you wish.
So not fun was this effort that I promised myself I could actually stop reading 1984 once Winston and Julia were arrested by the Thought Police and separated from one another, at which point I would set 1984 aside and begin reading Julia; and upon completing Julia I would return to the final chapter of 1984 to see - through a new lens - how their stories once more converged. And that is exactly that I did.
I understand why the word “Retelling” was used here - surely the phrase “A Retelling of George Orwell’s 1984” will result in far better search engine optimization than simply “Julia”; but to my mind Julia is much, much more than a simple retelling of Orwell’s tale. The story begins on the exact same day as Wintson’s story in 1984, but beyond that it becomes a wholly other thing, weaving its own tale in and out of Orwell’s in unexpected and fascinating ways.
1984, though told through a single POV as Julia is, is a far less personal story than Julia. Though they are both stories about the day-to-day lives of people living under a nightmarish tyranny, 1984 is much more concerned with exploring the ideas upon which “Ingsoc” and “The Party” are built (so as to caution readers against those in the real world that might seek to do the same - Orwell’s “Torment Nexus”, if you will), while Julia is concerned with exploring the inner lives of the people actually living in that world. Thankfully, because 1984 is as much a manifesto as it is a straight work of fiction; its mere existence does much of the heavy lifting of Julia’s worldbuilding, allowing for Julia to jettison all but the most necessary political philosophizing in service of a story set firmly at ground level, with a broader ensemble of characters than are present in Orwell’s work.
We get then, through not just the new perspective of Julia herself but through each of these new characters with whom she interacts, a far deeper exploration of not just how the ideas of Ingsoc affect a nation in the abstract, but how they daily affect all of its people, from the highest members of the Inner Party all the way down to the lowly Proles that occupy the outermost edges of London’s once-grand metropolis. And by comparison, after reading Julia, Winston’s POV in 1984 begins to look like an exercise in narcissism. In 1984 the whole of the narrative revolves around Winston, and though he may remark here and there about how much better things would be for everyone if Ingsoc were overthrown and Big Brother were brought to justice, ultimately all his observations of Oceania come back to how they affect him. Julia then, despite what the title would have you believe, is about everybody else. Sandra Newman reveals to us a different side of Airstrip One’s dystopia, allowing us a peek into a far more uncomfortably tangible world than Orwell imagined.
I hesitate to share too much about the story itself, because - despite the fact that the cover claims this is a “Retelling” and, yes, there are certain story beats that those of us who have read 1984 know will occur - the narrative of Julia surprised me far more often than I expected. Newman elaborates on the horrors of Orwell’s world by slow degrees, in revelations both private and public, and recontextualizes certain seemingly mundane moments from 1984 with miraculous skill, making the narrative of 1984 even more horrific in retrospect.
Newman gives us, too, a far clearer picture of the world before Ingsoc through several flashback chapters, which assist in molding Julia into a whole person rather than simply a catalyst for Winston’s story; and - through these chapters’ clarity - serve to reinforce the perverse relativism exerted upon Oceania by The Party.
This atmosphere brought about by the soul-crushing malleability of “truth” under Ingsoc - an atmosphere omnipresent in 1984 - spreads like a cancer through Newman’s work, infesting even the most minor interactions between characters.
At several moments in the text, one of the characters with whom Julia regularly interacts recites to her passages of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1797 poem Kubla Khan. He, a worker in The Ministry of Truth alongside Winston, was supposed to have rewritten it to make the poem more friendly to the ideology of The Party; and though he did, he could not help but retain the original text, and has taken great pains to memorialize the words in an illicit personal journal.
At least once every time he and Julia meet, he mentions a passage from the poem. Like any reasonable person, when something is repeated in a text I get curious. Repetition betrays importance, and so why was Kubla Khan receiving such attention?
Providentially, I was already familiar with Kubla Khan, despite not being a very voracious reader of poetry, and as I recalled the lines of the poem that went unspoken in the text of Julia, I realized that, in a odd way, Kubla Khan could act as a kind of idealized version of the mythos of Big Brother. Big Brother, living on the English coast in his Crystal Palace, could well be Coleridge’s Khan:
[On the English coast] did [Big Brother]
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where [Thames], the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
And in such a fantastic place, though his subjects live in abject squalor, we might imagine that:
[Big Brother] on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
It is not specified in the text, but perhaps this is exactly how the poem was rewritten by The Ministry of Truth; and why it was selected to be preserved in an altered manner. But whatever the reason, we know from Julia and from 1984 that this is a world built on lies, where not even the foundations of the Ingsoc ethos might be as they once were. Yesterday’s enemies might be today’s allies - and they were always today’s allies. You may be hungry, but the Party says there is no shortage of food. Your office mate didn’t come in to work today, but you never had an office mate. The conversation you shared with them never happened, and whoever arrives tomorrow to replace them has always been there.
It’s amidst this world of constant alteration that we can see why sex becomes the key act of rebellion in these stories. In a world where names, dates, books, music, and even personal histories can be altered at a moment’s notice; the contact between two persons might very well be the only thing one can know to be true. The motivations behind an encounter might be unknowable, the chances of your survival past it might be unknowable, the words your partner whispers in your ear may very well be lies; but the contact itself cannot be faked, cannot be rewritten, cannot be forgotten or erased. There is a truth in touch, a truth not even the Party and Big Brother can alter. And if a partner vanishes, the feeling of their lips persists, their scent lingers - they cannot ever truly be gone. The Party cannot erase them from your skin.
This then, as we know from 1984, is the truth shared between Winston and Julia. But, of course, such interactions within the borders of Oceania can only end one way: in the stygian depths of The Ministry of Love.
There is a room there - Room 101 - which The Party claims contains your greatest fear. For Winston, and his deathly fear of rats, this manifests as a cage strapped to his head, where one small gate separates the delicate flesh of his face and his eyes from a horde of hungry vermin. Confess to your crimes, or be consumed in a frenzy of teeth and fur. In a final moment of weakness, Winston infamously cries out:
“Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia!”
Confronted with his greatest fear, Winston denounces the woman he once claimed to love (the only woman he’s ever claimed to truly love) - a final fit of narcissism, a fatally flawed stab at self-preservation - and he is wheeled away from Room 101, his body intact; but his spirit broken.
What horror then, will this room bestow upon Julia?
I will not say, but as we know from 1984, Julia - like Winston - does survive this crucible, and in one final surprise dispensed by Newman’s pen, actually continues onward for several chapters past the final words of 1984. And whatever you think will happen in those chapters, put it out of your head. You cannot know, and I will not tell you.
I have been wrestling with this review for days now. What should I tell you about? What should I leave out? How can I make a book so fraught with despair appealing to you as a reader? Because I do want you to read it.
So I will leave you with this: the best books are the ones that stick with us long after we flip past that final page. And Julia has stuck with me. I have been thinking about this book for days, turning it over in my mind, attempting to peel back its layers, and even returning (once again! despite everything!) to 1984 - revisiting familiar passages, and gazing anew in fresh horror now that I’ve been introduced to the other world hidden between its pages. I am affected by the same feelings I had having recently seen George Miller’s Furiosa in theaters and then rewatching Fury Road back in my home - the newer fiction feeds back into the original in keenly exciting ways that elevate both works in the process.
Sandra Newman has written a work that approaches the titanic novel of Orwell’s masterwork with solemnity and respect, but does not just retread that which was done before, but builds upon it; and in doing so makes both books all the richer to read. There is some poetry too in the knowledge that these books were published nearly equidistant from the year in which they are set. Orwell looked 40 years into the future and prophesied a world he wished never to see; while Newman gazes back 40 years to show us that while some of Orwell’s future is already here, we still have time to change it.
