Sandra Newman on Julia, Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four

Well, Sandra Newman’s Julia, published later this month by Granta Books, does exactly this, retelling George Orwell’s iconic Nineteen Eighty-Four through the eyes of Julia Worthing, Ministry of Truth mechanic and lover of Winston Smith. Coming 75 years on from Orwell’s original work, Julia is just as prescient a novel, which explores systems of oppression, totalitarianism, and state control over women’s bodies.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Newman’s first novel, The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, saw her shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award in 2002. She has since written four further novels including The Country of Ice Cream Star which was nominated for the Folio Prize and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2015. 

Newman was chosen by the Orwell Estate to write this retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four, which she joins us to launch at our London Literature Festival here at the Southbank Centre on Saturday 21 October. Ahead of this event we caught up with the author to discuss her memories and changing perceptions of Orwell and his work, ad the challenges of reimaging a work and expanding the life of an existing character.

 

Can you remember when you first read Nineteen Eighty-Four?

I don't properly remember the first time. I do remember reading Animal Farm at about 12, and being very proud of myself for grasping that it was about the Soviet Union. I was a bit of an infant Communist, too, and I loved the book but already felt a bit of cognitive dissonance about the whole thing. Clearly the animals were right to take over the farm, so what was Orwell suggesting? At 12 I wasn't ready for that level of political ambiguity.

I do clearly remember the second time I read Nineteen Eighty-Four, when I was about 20, and how shocked I was by the treatment of the character of Julia. I was especially shocked that I hadn't noticed the misogyny the first time round. I kept reading on expecting Orwell to fully commit to saying the misogyny was Winston's or the regime's, and that it was wrong. He does at times seem to imply something of this. But at other times the misogyny seems to be very much Orwell's own. 

In DJ Taylor's biography, there's a quote from one of Orwell's girlfriends saying that he didn't hate women, but he didn't see them as mattering. You get that impression very strongly from Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Orwell of Nineteen Eighty-Four sees a real woman as someone who selflessly loves men and boys, who labours on their behalf and provides them with food, and enjoys sex with them even when they are unattractive and old. He actually seems to have no conception of women doing or being anything else. He can imagine women failing at these tasks, as Winston's wife, Katharine, does, but such women are entirely bad. In fact, both Winston and Julia talk blithely about killing Winston's wife, not because it would achieve anything, but just for the sake of it, and there's no indication that Orwell disapproves of this attitude. If a woman doesn't wear pretty dresses or works with a spanner, this is something imposed on her against her nature by totalitarianism. When you consider the actual women in Orwell's life, who were really interesting, vibrant intellectuals – including both of his wives and many of the women in his family – the contrast with the presentation of women in his fiction feels particularly scary.

Reading this at 20 pulled me in a lot of uncomfortable directions. I really, really loved Orwell – I'd been reading through all his non-fiction with a feeling of continual discovery – and to see him reveal those attitudes towards women was very painful. I'm the kind of person who compulsively entertains all points of view, so I couldn't help thinking ‘Holy shit, what if Orwell is right, and that's all a woman is? If even Orwell thinks that…’ But at the same time, I was almost 100% certain it couldn't be true because I had a whole life's experience of men and women, and of myself. I ended up in a cogito ergo sum place with it, where I was staring into space over the book, trying to inspect my own mind to make sure it was really there.

I'm less troubled by this now. Over the years, you come to recognise that almost every brilliant person has some blind spot or bizarre belief so egregious it seems incompatible with basic intelligence, never mind brilliance. I still have trouble with this, but I've at least gotten used to it. I think the human mind naturally wants to be wrong, especially about things that affect our self-interest, and if we struggle successfully against that tendency in some areas, we're doing pretty well.

 

 

As a writer of (often) dystopian novels, how much of an influence on your work has Orwell been?

I think Orwell is an influence on anyone who writes a dystopian novel, at least in English. His effect on the genre is just too far-reaching to avoid, even if you never read him. The whole concept of dystopia in our literature is Orwell-shaped. I think even in pulling against it, as I often have, I'm showing his influence. I'm in a conversation with him and the ideas his work spawned, whether I'm agreeing or disagreeing with them.

 

Where did the idea to retell the story from Julia’s perspective come from?

For me personally, it came from the Orwell Estate, which approached me and asked me if I would be interested in writing this book. I always feel like I'm not supposed to say that, because all ideas should emerge from the author's deep well of nameless inspiration. But most of my ideas for novels have come from pretty prosaic places. I do believe in the deep well of nameless inspiration, but for me, it comes into play as I write the book. The concept is just a concept I know from experience will be a good playing field for the inspiration.

So the Orwell Estate (in the person of Bill Hamilton, who represents it) came to me and asked if I would be interested in writing this book. I then went to read Nineteen Eighty-Four for a third time, to see if I thought it could be done without it being a sterile exercise. But there was obviously a real book there, and I got Julia as a character immediately. I began writing my book while I was still reading chapter two of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I could feel the whole thing there.

I should say that this idea has been around for at least as long as the vogue for feminist retellings has been around, and perhaps since Nineteen Eighty-Four has been around. Julia is an enigmatic character in the book, and the way Winston sees her feels naggingly wrong. You can't help wondering about her, and that kind of wondering is where stories come from.

 

 

In reimagining such an established and well-loved novel did you feel an increased pressure to get the final work ‘right’? Or was it in reality no different to how you’ve approached your other books?

Fortunately for this project, as a writer I'm very meticulous, pedantic, even uptight about getting things 'right.' I may fail, but only because there's something I really do not know, to the point that I don't know I don't know it.

This is one reason I'm drawn toward writing science fictional narratives. If I'm writing about England in 2023, I need it to be entirely consistent with reality, and the potential for getting something wrong is present in every sentence. Would a teenager in 2023 really be listening to that song? Would his mother be able to afford that car, on her salary as a social worker? What exactly is a social worker's average day like, minute by minute? Unless you write very autobiographical fiction, which I don't, the fact-checking never ends. But if you just set the book in 2123 – problem solved.

The worst was when I wrote a novel with sections set in Elizabethan England. I spent my whole life researching what sort of blankets they used in Elizabethan England, and what their shoelaces were like and so forth, and still I couldn't be really sure everything was right.

Julia was wonderful in this respect because it only had to be consistent with another book. I mean, I could learn literally everything I needed to know by checking in with one book. A joy.

 

Given it’s almost 75 years since Nineteen Eighty-Four was published, is it fair to say that with Julia you’re exploring a lot of areas that simply wouldn’t have occurred to Orwell at the time?

The main issues have remained the same. I mean, the psychology of totalitarianism is horribly the same. People often say Orwell was prescient, but what they mainly mean is that he was right: he got how all this worked. He understood what it was to live under such a regime in a way that was remarkable for someone who never directly experienced it.

But yes, there were a few things that wouldn't have occurred to Orwell. He didn't foresee that telescreens would provide companionship to people, and become a thing they needed and couldn't live without. He knew totalitarianism deliberately created loneliness in its subjects, but didn't make the leap to seeing that the propaganda screen would fill that need. He didn't know the degree to which ubiquitous surveillance is comforting to a lot of people, that people will actually demand it if they're told it keeps them safe. 

He also imagined totalitarianism could dispense with racism, which was probably based on a misconception about the Soviet Union. Basically, the information coming out of Stalin's regime was very limited, and Orwell was going by what he knew. He mentions the black market, but didn't fully recognise the degree to which totalitarian governments are characterised by corruption and illegal or quasi-legal arrangements, while presenting an outward face of complete control.

There are also things he didn't address because of the prejudices of the time, in some of which he participated. LGBT people simply do not exist in Nineteen Eighty-Four. He also somehow forgot that women can have unwanted pregnancies. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, extramarital sex is punished with death or labour camp, but Winston and Julia have unprotected sex for weeks, and neither of them ever worries that a pregnancy will give it away. Class barriers are very much in operation, and we don't really see the lives of the proles.

But the fact that I could add all this to Nineteen Eighty-Four without violating its spirit is a tribute to how amazingly well he did at creating his world.

 

What are the challenges in further developing an already established character, and one that was initially established by another writer?

It was constantly challenging to make my character consistent with his character, while also inventing a whole internal life for her that can't have been exactly the same as the one Orwell would have imagined. But it was also a fun game, honestly. You see what you can get away with, while also obeying the rules of the game. I mean, I used a few scenes from Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the dialogue reproduced verbatim, so I had to write a character who would have said those lines of dialogue. There was no room for cheating at all.

 

Are there any other novels, stories or literary works you’d love to re-explore from a female perspective?

I hadn't thought about it before, to be honest, but now that you mention it, it could be interesting to write a book from the point of view of Proust's Albertine. Although I suppose it's debatable whether that's a female perspective, given that the model for the character was male.

 

And lastly, what is it about utopias and dystopias that draws you to explore them through your writing?

Mainly it's just a convenient way of pondering political problems without being a bore. But I suspect it also depends on what you enjoy reading. I was always fascinated by apocalyptic and dystopian fiction, and even more by those rare novels, like Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed, that seriously address societies that are much better than ours. So of course I end up writing it myself. It's where my mind goes to play.