Julia
Newman has been careful to preserve many of Orwell’s best conceits and jargon, including Newspeak ... Newman solves the enduring mysteries of Orwell’s Julie without resorting to twisty or outlandish machinations. Her additions accord with the original on the level of both plot and language ... Newman hasn’t proved herself a worthy successor to Orwell; she’s outclassed him, both in knowledge of human nature and in character development. Julia should be the new required text on those high-school curricula, a stunning look into what happens when a person of strength faces the worst in humanity, as well as a perfect specimen of derivative art that, in standing on another’s shoulders, can reach a higher plane.
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Subversive ... In addition to filling out the tragedy of Julia’s adolescence, Newman introduces several ingenious twists that let the plot proceed largely as expected but with curiously different implications ... While Julia depends on Orwell for its architecture, the novel’s ironic tone is Newman’s own. By switching the perspective from Winston, she has effectively expanded the story’s palette ... [A] lively heroine ... Although I wouldn’t presume to say that Newman’s novel is better than Orwell’s, I find Julia more humane than 1984, which, admittedly, may sound preposterous given Orwell’s intentions. But Newman presents a fuller consideration of the variety of lives under a murderous, humiliating political system.
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Newman’s version dovetails with the original, following Winston and Julia’s romance and their plot to join the traitor Goldstein’s resistance. But it also embellishes the prehistory of 1984, and imagines a future beyond Orwell’s ending ... At its most compelling in its exploration of the grim reality of women’s lives under an authoritarian patriarchal regime ... The novel is coded to produce a desired focus — in this case, women’s experience. It’s not alone; contemporary publishing abounds with retellings of classic stories from women’s perspectives. But 1984 is a perplexing choice to return to ... The motives of Julia don’t seem to be concerned with the differences between Orwell’s period and our own political moment. Instead, its main project seems to be redressing the gender balance in Orwell’s fiction. As a result, claims for its 'timeliness' can only lead to vague generalizations about women’s oppression, rather than examining the political structures imposing it. For contemporary readers, whose reproductive rights are being encroached on by the right, the novel’s simplistic depiction of amalgamated socialist evils may feel somewhat out of step with present affairs ... As a retelling it is highly readable, innovative and entertaining. But as a political or feminist project, it only adds to the obfuscation of Orwell’s critique.
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