Julia
by Sandra Newman
Granta
Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. She fixes novel-writing machines and is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League. She lives in a female only dormitory and she is being watched all the time – for she lives in the world created by George Orwell’s 1984 which was published in 1949.
Britain is now called Airstrip One and has been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as everyone can remember. It is ruled by a totalitarian leader, a mythical figure called Big Brother who has his face on posters and telescreens everywhere.
It is a world, based on post-WWII Britain, where boys are raised to be soldiers, girls are raised to do their patriotic duty and sexual intimacy is a revolutionary act. Julia knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Newspeak, Doublethink and Thought Police.
Written with the full approval of the Orwell estate, Julia is a retelling of George Orwell’s dystopian classic from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia. This is interesting as Wifedom by Anna Funder has just been published and Funder portrays Orwell as a misogynist who was totally blind to the roles women were forced to play.
Julia became fascinated with Comrade Winston Smith who worked in Records and shared the same thirteen hundred lunch break. One day, she impulsively slipped him a note and the reader gets to share their dalliances before they get arrested.
If you haven’t read the book, seen the play or the film of 1984, Newman’s book will not have the same resonance. If you are familiar with it, you will know there is a complete absence of hope. Newman continues the story and ignites a spark of resistance that puts cracks in the totalitarian world.
Lezly Herbert
