Book Review - Julia

Written by Sandra Newman, with the blessing of the George Orwell estate Julia explores Oceania from the perspective of Julia Worthing. It has been framed as a feminist narrative which is not as bad as it sounds.

Beneath all this ran the heady feeling of being away from telescreens. This close to a railway station, there might be microphones in the trees, but one could be sure one wasn’t seen. As long as one made no suspicious sound, one might be naked, one might even be #ing, and the snoops would never know the difference. Julia took off her boots and socks and went along barefoot for a way until the pain of treading on broken sticks defeated her. As she laced the boots back up, she made gruesome faces and mouthed: “That to the Inner Party!”

She came across Winston on the path, crouched down to pick bluebells and gather them in a sloppy bunch. The sight of him struck her forcibly. He was really here. It was going to happen.

Though she made a great racket coming up, he didn’t turn to look. Perhaps he was frightened she was someone else; still, he ought to have offered the comradeful smile of a hiker glad of a potential companion. When she laid her hand on his shoulder, he didn’t flinch. The muscle was hard beneath her hand. The masculine body! It was always a surprise. He turned to look, and his face changed at the sight of her. He looked older in sunlight, but far more handsome. His face was grave and sensitive. Any doubt she still had fell away.

She shook her head to warn him not to speak, then passed to lead him forward. She felt his eyes on her as he followed, and kept her gait self-consciously feminine, always difficult in Party boots. She was aware again that she didn’t know him. What if he was here to kill her, to silence her? There were no protective telescreens. It might take weeks for her body to be found. Of course she didn’t believe that—if she had, she would have run from him. Still, the notion added a keenness to everything. The clouds of bluebells were deliciously ominous, the sunlight wild like one’s last sunlight. For romance, for erotic delight, she was courting death.

What you get with this story takes a character that originally we knew little about and is given a kind of origin story that is quite interesting, complex and at times explicit and harrowing. And because of this it is not recommended for young readers, at times the plot can get nasty. Overall it's worth a read.