Sandra Newman: Reimagining 1984 from Julia's Perspective

At the behest of George Orwell's estate, the acclaimed novelist has brilliantly recast his most famous work.

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Sandra Newman: Reimagining 1984 from Julia's Perspective

My guest today is Sandra Newman, my favorite novelist currently at work in America—I highly recommend her recent works The Men and The Heavens. Her new book is titled Julia and it's a retelling of George Orwell's 1984 from the point of view of Winston Smith's lover who, as you probably recall, is ironically a member of the Anti-Sex League.

I don't even know how to do this novel justice—it's a stylistic and conceptual tour de force that updates and expands Orwell's universe in deeply profound, disturbing, and highly contemporary ways. We talk about the book's origins—the Orwell estate asked Newman to write it—and why 1984 continues to resonate with readers. We discuss the role of literature in a world where television and movies command greater audience attention and past controversies involving Newman's writing.

It's a wide-ranging conversation and one of my very favorite episodes of this podcast.

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Comments

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Does the novel feature Julia’s giant bush?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I don't even know how to do this novel justice—it's a stylistic and conceptual tour de force that updates and expands Orwell's universe in deeply profound, disturbing, and highly contemporary ways.

Hmm, I'm judging quietly... because 'recasting' old stories in 'contemporary ways' has been an unmitigated disaster both commercially and artistically.

[Don't look at me!]

I would expect Julia is discovered to trans.

[mad.casual]

Kinda surprised we got this far without the obligatory reference.

[Chumby]

Wait until Disney does the movie version.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Her book "The Men" is interesting-- a world where everyone with a Y chromosome disappears mysteriously-- much like the HBO show "The Leftovers". The premise written on Amazon sounds interesting, but one review called it: "A smashing Feminist Utopia (or dystopia)".

To be fair, the Amazon summary makes it sound a lot more dystopia than utopia.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

In fact, if I were to place myself into the headspace of The Woke, I might suggest her book is "transphobic" because it seems to have clear, empirical definitions of Women and Men.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Oh shit, from the Reason link on her "controversies"

When The Men, Sandra Newman's sci-fi novel in which everyone with a Y chromosome suddenly vanishes from the face of the earth, came under fire for what critics termed the "transphobic" implication that people with Y chromosomes are men, one of the chief questions was whether the author had engaged a trans sensitivity reader. But when Newman said that yes, she had, the outrage only multiplied. Why had she hired only one sensitivity reader? Did she think this was an excuse?

"That only makes it WORSE," one commenter wrote, "because you're claiming you KNOWINGLY did this."

Well, her first mistake was consulting a "sensitivity reader". If artists are consulting "sensitivity readers" before they can engage in their art, they're not artists, they're something else.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

If she used one for this book, hard pass. But that would actually make for a good Charlie Kaufman screen play. A writer descending into the depths of madness as their free speech tome is butchered by the censors.

[Mickey Rat]

The complaint following shows that "sensitivity reader" is a euphemism for "political commissar" and the one she consulted did an inadequate job of enforcing the ideology. How ironic for someone writing a parallel book to "1984".

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Exactly, and she's waxing long and philosophical about the Soviet Union. I wonder if she's aware of the connections here.

FYI: Despite my minor nitpicks, she seems to be a genuinely interesting person.

[mad.casual]

LOL.

“That only makes it WORSE,” one commenter wrote, “because you’re claiming you KNOWINGLY did this.”

... I mean, I could understand if a cis-female author had done it without consulting a man in a dress first.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

She declared herself non-binary, so that's the only reason her literary agent and publisher didn't disassociate with her.

[Think It Through]

Are you telling me that's not Sigourney Weaver in the pic with this article?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

You noticed that too.

[sarcasmic]

"Nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Ok, I have to give Nick some props here. He (implicitly) criticized the “you won’t own anything and you’ll be happy” trend of late stage capitalism.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Ha, just as I wrote this, a friend texted me:

"50 years ago a new car owner's manual had instructions on how to adjust the engine valves.

Today's owner's manual tells you not to drink the contents of the battery."

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Now they’re discussing her novel The Men. She says it’s a novel about how the women deal with the grief of losing the men in their lives, but she admits she waves away some of the technical aspects- such as whether or not they have to shut down the nuclear reactors because they lost a lot of engineers and what not– and she waves it away because she didn’t want the whole book to be about that. Ultimately, she says, is how the women “swallow the trauma of the loss and move on, and get on with their lives”.

I would agree on some level you’d want to avoid the technical issues of losing all the ‘y’ chromosomes in your ability to navigate daily life… but there’s one MAJOR elephant of a technical issue in the living room that I wonder if she acknowledges, or just “waves away” as well. Like no one’s going to be having any more children, anywhere, ever. So the women left alive on the planet are literally going to die out themselves in about a generation and a half. That’s a pretty big “technical issue” staring down the whole concept of “getting on with life after this mysterious event”.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Your play is called Hamlet II? Didn't they all die at the end?

I have a device.

*reads first line of play* The time machine door opened and out stepped Hamlet

Who knows, maybe she has a device. Maybe a Wakanda-esque single genius runs all the technology holding society together and invented a way to synthesize sperm and fertilize all the remaining women of child-bearing age which would presumably produce 50% new male children.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Literary device.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Damn! How did I miss that?

It came out in about the same time frame as Dogma, Religulous, and all the Zombie movies, when I was laser-focused on Silver screen theater!

Now I'm adding that to my catch-up list of streaming selections. Much obliged on the mention!
🙂

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

An extremely underrated comedy that flies so far below the radar, few people even know it exists.

[TheReEncogitationer]

I'd love to one day "Red Pill" a SJW/CRT-er/BLM-er/Wokeist about Wakanda.

Societies that practice Autarky, with no trade with the rest of the world, depend entirely on one product, and have absolute rulers who transition power by combat to the death, would not be a world where the Snowflakes could hang.

All it would take is one Red Skull with the Tesseract to turn all that Vibranium into rubber, and "Hail Wakanda!" turns into "Jump Down, Turn Around, Pick A Bail o' Cotton!"
https://youtu.be/dJAXmLJgAxk?si=USi3i-Daufe2Bx2B

[Idaho-Bob]

C'mon, they will take over the sperm banks and artificially inseminate. Next generation are clones.

See? No men required for the femtopia.

[TheReEncogitationer]

A sperm bank still has to have a supply and thus suppliers.

And cloning to replace reproduction would still have the double-whammy of less genetic diversification and genetic degradation in each successive generation of clones, much like what happens with photocopies of photocopies.

The end result would be Cats meets Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, with Shimbleshanks as Caesar and Sofia Vergara as Armanda his "owner," who conceals Shimbleshanks intellect by screaming: "LOUSY HUMAN BITCHES!"
🙂
😉

[mad.casual]

Is she a result of the Neal Stephenson female-empowerment, Author's Intellectual Dark Web intiative?

Because this sounds an awful lot like Seven Eves where a diverse crew of astronauts survive the annihilation of the human race and, through a series of hilarious calamities, wind up an all female crew that, somehow, failed to preserve even a single specimen of the most abundant and renewable human reproductive material the Earth had to offer.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Huh, so she's careful to tell Nick that she didn't leave twitter when the Twitter mob was coming after her for being transphobic, but is clear to say she left twitter only when Elon Musk took over.

El Oh El.

[damikesc]

Censored speech uber alles.

[Nardz]

Gay

[TheReEncogitationer]

Something you want to tell us all, O'Brien?
🙂
😉

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

She identifies as non-binary, then goes through a whole set of self-contradictions, essentializing womanhood and non-essentializing it at the same time. I guess to be fair, that’s about as non-binary as you can get.

ie, non-binary as a "huh?" proposition.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Her new book is titled Julia and it's a retelling of George Orwell's 1984

Ouch...

[A Thinking Mind]

A bit on the nose for her to dive into a story where language is being intentionally weaponized.

[mad.casual]

... And "every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute."

[Idaho-Bob]

Feature, not a bug.

[TheReEncogitationer]

But "How many fingers, Winston?..."
🙂
😉

[The Margrave of Azilia]

How about putting a Julia Child character in 1984?

[TheReEncogitationer]

(Falsetto Voice): "First, you take the cubes of cheese and your weekly chocolate ration, and melt them in the Primus-heated double-boiler...Then slowly stir in the Victory Gin with cloves as garnish...Add whatever rations left over from the War with Eastasia, with whom we have always been at war...And Voila!. A meal fit for a *Ahem!*"
🙂
😉

[Chumby]

Based turkey.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Whole world is enslaved by totalitarianism, women hardest hit.

[Mickey Rat]

Given the tendency of women's voting patterns, "women responsible".

[mad.casual]

Given the tendency of women, nobody understands those two words together like that.

[Chumby]

Tomorrow, count on two more interviews with Newman.

[NOYB2]

Sounds absolutely dreadful:

“Julia” is a novel by Sandra Newman that retells George Orwell’s “1984” from the perspective of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia. The book is a feminist and imaginative exploration of the world of “1984”, providing a fresh perspective on the dystopian society.

Julia is a mechanic in the Ministry of Truth’s Fiction Department, and she is portrayed as an ideal citizen of Oceania, the totalitarian state in which the story is set. She is cynical, always ready with a bribe, and piously repeats every political slogan while believing in nothing. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime when necessary.

The novel delves into Julia’s relationships with other women, her experiences of voyeurism and abuse, and her struggle to maintain her right to pleasure in a society that constantly surveils and controls its citizens.

It also explores the grim reality of women’s lives under an authoritarian patriarchal regime, such as when Julia discovers a bloody, misshapen fetus in a blocked toilet at her hostel.

The narrative follows the romance between Julia and Winston and their plot to join the resistance against the Party, but it also embellishes the prehistory of “1984” and imagines a future beyond Orwell’s ending. Julia was not born an Oceanian citizen and has had to learn survival tactics. Winston is not the first man with whom she commits sexcrime.

[NOYB2]

Winston Smith's lover who, as you probably recall, is ironically a member of the Anti-Sex League.

What's ironic about it? Anti-sex anything is where the biggest perverts hang out. And you should see how much into sex the "A[sexuals]" of the "LGBTQIA+" are.

[TheReEncogitationer]

You mean like the perverts who run the STARS camps?

[NOYB2]

I have no idea what a "STARS camp" is. Were you sent to one for some reason? Or were you one of the perverts running one?

[Giulio Prisco]

I'm reading "Julia" and in parallel I'm reading again the original "1984." These books are very much actual. Don't think that 1984 couldn't happen after 2023. On the contrary, there are very disturbing signs that thought policing is on the rise. And don't think even for a moment that, if today's thought cops of all political colors consolidated their power, they wouldn't use exactly the same brutal methods.