Just Finished Reading: Julia by Sandra Newman (FP: 2023) [384pp]  

Julia Worthing is a rebel born of rebels. But above everything else she is a survivor. She has survived the nuclear war, the Revolution and the purges that followed. She even betrayed her own mother so that she could live a few more months. She has survived the coming of Big Brother and she will keep on surviving day by day, month by month. Julia is also a sex criminal, a thief and a black marketer – whatever it takes. It was only when she became involved with Winston Smith that she knew her days were numbered. Smith was a romantic, a fool who believed that the Proles would save them and a thought criminal who aspired to being an intellectual. It was only a matter of time before the Thought Police caught them. Even so, Julia knew that she would survive. She would survive the arrest; she would survive the Ministry of Love and she would even survive Room 101 – or so she believed... 

I picked this up a while back and intended to read it ‘coupled’ with the original classic 1984. But circumstances, and my pitiful reading speed presently, determined otherwise. It was, as you might imagine, an interesting read – especially so after not long re-reading George Orwell’s most famous work. Not only do we see the events portrayed in 1984 from Julia’s point of view – indeed a few sections are word for word from the original – but we also get glimpses of a time when Big Brother was still consolidating power and when his grip on Ingsoc and Airstrip One had yet to be finalised. We also see slices of life outside of Smith’s experience, with the Proles (an interesting perspective in itself), with the Inner Party and within the Anti-Sex League. It was interesting to get a broader and more rounded picture of the world of 1984 with insights at how the three power blocks (Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia) emerged after the war and how the actual war (or wars!) was going. 

Obviously drawn from the original text, the Blitz experience of London in WW2 and the later Stalinist regime in Russia this was more than a fair stab at expanding the world of 1984 into more modern times. It did indeed have a more modern feel to it – complete with mini-spy drones keeping a CLOSE eye on people and viewscreens that would be out of place hanging on the wall of a modern house today. Oddly the feel was rather less oppressive than the original which, I think, took something away from the narrative. I did find Julia too hopeful about her personal future (though not the future of Airstrip One) which kind of, almost, distracted from the point of the book. I also thought that the end was both a little too weak and a bit muddled for my liking. We do, however, spend some interesting times with some of the MAIN characters of the original (O’Brien was particularly interesting in this regard!). Whilst I did have a few (minor) niggles with it, I still thought that it was very much worth the read. Recommended if you’re interested in more from the world of 1984.