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Photo: Courtesy of Sandra Newman
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Big Brother Is Watching as ‘Julia’ Gives ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ a Feminist Spin
Author Sandra Newman says George Orwell's estate hand-picked her to tell the story about the horrors of totalitarianism through Winston's lover / BY Rosemary Counter / October 26th, 2023
Here’s a tall task: Revisit and rewrite what’s probably the greatest political novel written in English in the past century, and perhaps the most controversial, too. Modernize it for a new audience, while staying true to the original. Your take should function as a complementary companion to, and critique of, the original. Oh, and since you’ve got the one-time rubber stamp from the notoriously protective estate of a legendary author, you’ve got to please the bigwigs. But, no pressure.
Luckily, this isn’t your daunting challenge, but it is Sandra Newman’s. The bestselling American author of 2019’s The Heavens and The Men in 2022, which was about a dystopian future where all people with Y chromosomes disappear off the Earth’s surface, was hand-picked by the estate of British author George Orwell to rewrite Nineteen Eighty-Four from the perspective of Julia. Um … who? If it’s been a few decades since you read Orwell in grade school, Julia’s “the girl,” which is exactly why protagonist Winston Smith’s oft-forgotten love interest is due for a reconceptualization some 75 years after the book’s publication. Fittingly, Newman’s book is called Julia.
Zoomer found Newman in London, on a quick break from a busy press tour, for a chat about whether taking on Orwell is as scary as it seems, what Julia possibly sees in Smith and which misunderstood literary character she’d like to reimagine next.
Rosemary Counter: This book has such an interesting and unconventional genesis story. The Orwell estate commissioned you?
Sandra Newman: Not quite, because they’re not paying me and they’re not earning any money from it, so commission isn’t the right word. The estate controls the copyright in the U.S., but not in the U.K., so they wanted someone to write this book. Over the years, a lot of people have wanted to write the book from the perspective of Julia, but they always said no — maybe they thought they were better safe than sorry, but they were very protective of Orwell’s legacy and the meaning of Nineteen Eighty-Four. They didn’t want someone to distort it or cheapen it.
RC: Why do you think they picked you to write it?
SN: I think I tick a lot of boxes: I’ve spent time in the Soviet Union, I speak Russian, I’m known for writing dystopian literary novels and I’m a long-time Orwell fanatic. I suppose people know people, and somehow, they found me, but it was a match made in heaven, as it turns out. They gave me the permission to write it, then I sold it separately to a publisher, with the selling-point to put on the cover that it’s approved by the Orwell estate. Of course, they could have looked at it afterwards and changed their mind. Luckily, they did not.
RC: When they first reached out, what were your first thoughts? Is there a part of you that thinks, ‘Oh gosh, this is too hard. No’?
SN: My first thought was, ‘Yes! I completely and totally want to do this!’ But my next thoughts were, ‘Wait, is this even going to work?’ I went back and re-read Nineteen Eighty-Four next, just to think about what or if this was possible, and I immediately starting having ideas about the book from Julia’s perspective. She could be buying things on the black market; Julia could be having many affairs. It was very exciting.
RC: I have to confess my memory of Julia is just Winston’s love interest, but that’s about it. I mostly remember the rats.
SN: When I went back to re-read the book, though of course it’s a memorable book and I did remember a lot, I’d forgotten all the ways that Winston is a real anti-hero. I remembered Winston like you’re supposed to, for his bravery. I completely forgot how unlikeable he is. He’s not a sympathetic character. On three different occasions, he fantasizes about murdering women. He thinks when it comes to Julia, he could rape her and then kill her. There’s no pause there, even where he feels bad about these thoughts.
RC: The flip side is there has got to be a lot of things Julia can say and do in 2023 that wouldn’t fly in 1949.
SN: Oh, yes. The sex in my book can be a lot more graphic, first of all. There’s an “unbirth” scene. Then there’s a lot more we know now about totalitarianism, mainly Stalin, that Orwell didn’t, and couldn’t, know then. But Orwell depicts Julia like most women were depicted at the time: she kind of functions as whatever Winston needs at any given time. Orwell doesn’t ever stop to understand her, maybe because he didn’t have room or didn’t want to or some other reason that we’ll never know.
RC: Why do you think Nineteen Eighty-Four has so much staying power?
SN: For one thing, the threat of totalitarianism — as we all know — never goes away. It’s a real monster, and it could happen any time. Then there are aspects of Big Brother in all societies: they all suppress speech, enforce rules, force you to be something that you’re not. Especially for teenagers, who are first really encountering these feelings of powerlessness. It’s so horrifying that you can identify with the feelings of Winston Smith in your everyday life.
RC: Maybe now they’ll identify more with Julia?
SN: I really hope so. She’s so much ballsier than Winston. She’s the one who had previous love affairs, who trades on the black market, who rides around London on her bike. When the estate asked me to write this book, the one question they most wanted answered was, ‘What on earth did Julia see in Winston?’ Because she’s this vibrant, fearless person, while he’s so timid, almost an incel [involuntary celibate]. I think Julia likes Winston in the way you have a crush on someone at work only because you’re bored. I think she does it just because she can.
RC: If you could reimagine another literary figure through a modern lens, who would it be next?
SN: People keep asking me this, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’d want it to be someone who hasn’t been done, and most of the good ones like Lady MacBeth have been done many times. The only one I can think of that’s not completely obscure is Proust’s love interest, Albertine. She’s interesting to me because she doesn’t quite make sense as anything but the obsession of the author, but you know there’s more there. Just like Julia.