Posted by Maggie on December 8, 2021 in From the editors

I really see no need for this. It’s just more of the current intellectual/creative laziness we see, like in Hollywood.

I mean, what if a male writer came along and said he was going to re-write/retell Jane Austin’s works away from the female lead characters’ and present her stories from the romantic male characters’ point of view? Or how about a male writer ‘retells’ the current-day novels of feminist writers from the male characters’ point of view?

The Guardian: Feminist retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four approved by Orwell’s estate: American writer Sandra Newman’s novel Julia will tell the dystopian story from the perspective of Winston Smith’s lover

The estate of George Orwell has approved a feminist retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four, which reimagines the story from the perspective of Winston Smith’s lover Julia.

Opening with one of literature’s most famous lines – “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” – Orwell’s 1949 novel is set in a dystopian future where Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, is part of the totalitarian state of Oceania. Big Brother rules supreme and the Thought Police stamp out any individual thinking. Winston Smith works at The Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to suit Big Brother’s narrative. He starts a forbidden affair with Julia – who works on the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department – until both are captured and sent for re-education via Room 101.

In Julia by Sandra Newman, the incidents of Nineteen Eighty-Four are seen through the woman’s eyes. “It was the man from Records who began it, him all unknowing in his prim, grim way, his above-it-all oldthink way. He was the one Syme called ‘Old Misery’,” writes Newman. “Comrade Smith was his right name, though ‘Comrade’ never suited him somehow. Of course, if you felt foolish calling someone ‘Comrade’, far better not to speak to them at all.”

Publisher Granta said that Julia understands the world of Oceania “far better than Winston and is essentially happy with her life”. As Orwell puts it in Nineteen Eighty-Four, “in some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda … She also stirred a sort of envy in him by telling him that during the Two Minutes Hate her great difficulty was to avoid bursting out laughing…

Orwell’s estate said it had been “looking for some time” for an author to tell the story of Smith’s lover, and that Newman, who has previously been longlisted for the Women’s prize and shortlisted for the Guardian first book award, “proved to be the perfect fit”.

Granta added that “Richard Blair, Orwell’s son, has been consulted and approves of the project”…

Seriously, do women have a different view of fascistic totalitarian communism?

Well, it won’t be the first time someone in the Orwellian era has twisted the classic story to their own “retelling” that has very little to do with Orwell’s stark cautionary tale of total government control…

CJ Ciaramella (1/20/2014): 1984: The Worst Love Story Ever Told: No, Orwell’s masterpiece isn’t epic, and it certainly isn’t a romance

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~~Many thanks to Maggie and The Universal Spectator for reprint permission.