In 2023, Sandra Newman’s Julia provided dystopia enthusiasts with a sequel to Orwell’s 1984, almost three quarters of a century after the political fiction first shocked readers. However, Newman’s sequel (unsurprisingly) shifts the focus to Julia’s experience of Big Brother’s Oceania, exploring the wider female experience of the totalitarian regime.
A synopsis of Julia claims that “everyone likes Julia”’; the same could not be said for Winston Smith. Given that upon his first interaction with Julia, the narrator remarks that Winston “disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones,” I was appalled by the nature of the protagonist upon first reading 1984. How could a reader be expected to feel empowered by such an anti-totalitarian activist as Winston? As a female reader, I felt especially unrepresented by the lack of diversity within 1984. If the book is meant to be a projection of the future, how would I as a woman fit into that? Newman subverts the perspective of the timeless classic in an attempt to contextualise the otherwise underdeveloped female characters of 1984. Newman follows Julia on her daily life as a woman living under Big Brother, revealing that she lives in a hostel with other women, whose close relationships called the “beating heart” of the novel. Newman literally gives worth to the character of Julia, offering her a surname- Worthing.
However, despite Newman offering readers answers to questions left unsatisfied by Orwell’s novel, I cannot help but feel cynical about the irony of a woman having to answer such questions for herself almost a century on from 1984’s publication in 1949. The book boasts approval by the Orwell estate, meaning that all events described in Julia canonically occurred in the Orwell’s fictional universe. Something about this does not feel right to me- arguably misogynistic, and definitely dead for 74 years, Orwell does not deserve to have the modern story of Julia associated with Winston’s. If he wanted to portray such female experience and grant depth to his female characters, he would have done so.
Therefore, I don’t believe that the classics, or rather the authors of classics, deserve a modern response. 1984 stands out for its misogyny in the case of Julia; why should it be that a female author has to remedy this herself?
“Old books in Sarah’s house” by lungstruck is licensed under CC BY 2.0