What is the meaning of a version ―also called retelling― from a classic, in literature or in any art? That’s the first question you should ask yourself. Enrich or complement the original by adopting the point of view of a secondary character, picking up the story where it ended or imagining an alternative outcome, for example. It is legal to choose another’s work as inspiration or basis; Humanity has been telling the same conflicts over and over again for centuries, in a more or less covert way. Reinterpretations of myths and popular tales have almost become their own genre; and approximations to modern novels also abound.
One of the latest to join the trend is Julia (2023; Destino, 2024, trans. Pilar de la Peña Minguell), by Sandra Newman (Boston, 1965), focused on the co-star of 1984the George Orwell classic published in 1949 that Destino has re-released with a new translation by Javier Calvo and a cover matching that of its ‘sister’. Newman, for his part, debuted in 2002 and his dystopia had already been published in Spanish. A world without men (Seix Barral, 2023, trans. Julia Osuna) and the essay How not to write a novel (Seix Barral, 2010, trans. Daniel Royo). The project of Julia is licensed by The Orwell Estate.
Reviewing tradition from a gender perspective, emphasizing the role of both women and the LGTBI+ community or non-white ethnicities, is common in a retelling. For example, The wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jane Rhys, takes the character of the locked woman from Jane Eyre (1847) to structure a prequel from a postcolonial perspective. It is about giving a voice to the silenced, to those who did not have the opportunity to tell their version. That’s what Newman tries to do, who, using the scenario conceived by Orwell, with the same time arc, follows in the footsteps of Julia, the friend of the protagonist of 1984.
In parallel to the original, it tells how Julia meets Winston Smith and the course of their relationship. Her asset lies in Julia’s personal universe: outside the common space, she moves through a part of that dystopian world that expands what Orwell tells. Unlike Winston, Julia inhabits the space of women, including black women, and reaches out to the less privileged population, the “proles.” Incursions into the black market or the community where the young women live, with their hierarchies, which point not only to social inequalities, but also to the female body, that is, reproduction and sexuality.
So far, promising. Newman’s Julia is a sexually “liberated” woman, who shamelessly explores her identity, despite the clandestine nature of the relationships. In a society that promotes chastity, he is attracted to the forbidden, including this approach to the underworld. However, the author wastes the potential of her approach by creating a weak Julia as the protagonist. Orwell’s alert and decisive girl appears as someone apathetic, with mechanical actions, dull. Winston was not the height of charisma, but in his mediocre status as a citizen – the result of his integration into the regime – the author endowed him with moral conflicts and emotion.
In Julia Everything seems flatter, as if adopting a feminist approach were limited to creating an “empowered” protagonist in its most obvious sense: a woman who, even in the worst situations, is in charge, represses her emotions and does not give up when the time comes. to achieve their purposes. Vulnerabilities around racial discrimination, class differences or abortion are dealt with through somewhat weak, poorly developed secondary characters, with which Julia does not get deeply involved.
Lust or politics
In 1984intimate relationships embodied a form of rebellion against power. However, no one would think of interpreting it as a novel in which the characters use their bodies as the main force to obtain a benefit. There was a subtext. Juliaon the other hand, relies too much on the old idea that women’s liberation comes through the use they make of their bodies. Even if she does it of her own free will, it would have been more interesting, from a feminist perspective, to find out what she can achieve without resorting (so much) to the most primal. The narrative is recreated in the eschatological and exudes coldness; The novel lacks soul, depth, TRUE.
Let’s go back to the initial question: what motivation does a retelling? This, offer a feminist reading. Agree: Newman’s contributions to Orwell’s world are well found, they give something that the original does not have. Now, let’s go deeper: what is the point of a novel, any novel? A creative work is based on an engine, a significance. Orwell deploys a fierce criticism of totalitarianism, warns of the loss of freedoms, and raises more questions than answers. Julia lacks that “moral vision,” that transcendence. It is not very clear where this is going.
Yes, Julia walks around, she shows us how the poor live badly, how women invent their codes. Compared to The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) –inspired by 1984 without being a version as such–, which also tells the situation of women in an oppressive State and focusing on the body, Julia It does not transmit that climate of terror, of suspicion. Atwood makes admirable use of point of view and restraint; There is not an extra line or a filler passage; and its sequel, The wills (2019), focuses on the generation raised under the new order much more convincingly than Julia.
It lacks its own entity. It doesn’t finish fitting all that cabinet of curiosities into the plot; It gives the sensation of being built by accumulating layers, rather than making the elements converge into a unity of action. As if a filmmaker took a film and filmed the streets that were not seen, but with poorer quality frames and sequences, without personal stamp; It may be interesting, but it is nothing more than anecdotal. It would not be a new film, but a fanfic.
From Newspeak to Poor Style
1984 masterfully exemplifies how language shapes reality and becomes a political instrument. Julia respects (and expands) the foundations of the society that Orwell imagined, with its ministries, its rules and its newspeak. The protagonist, younger than her male counterpart, has grown up without knowing civilization as it was before: we talk about the training that girls receive and how, like any girl of any era, she longs to rebel against power. They find areas to sneak into, they all know more than they are supposed to know, in particular (it must be insisted because the author insists) about the body, sexuality and reproduction.
The prose is peppered with Newspeak, although with a youthful tone that detracts from its gravity; One could almost say that there is “comadreoso” among the characters, even when there are underlying differences in hierarchy (neither the guard is threatening, nor the peddlers suspicious). The problem: the narrative resources suffer from poverty and vulgarity. Far from the restraint and subtlety of Orwell, who gave a political dimension to each gesture, Newman’s style is clumsy, clichéd and somewhat redundant. It trivializes newspeak, abuses exclamations and trustworthy words (“of course, aunt”), and each character is barely distinguished by their way of speaking.
The voice is ordinary and vulgar even in the (in theory) tense final stretch (“the guards were all guys”, “there was no one to chase away the stupid flies”, “I feel like a kid who has pooped himself”, “He didn’t care who saw his ass, it was wonderful”). This support in slang could be understood as a reflection of Julia’s environment, among young and uprooted; also as a rebellion against power. But the line between breaking a taboo and losing elegance is weak. Many authors have shown that a language close to the street does not have to be flat, nor delight in profanity (a lot of poop-ass-fart-pee, blood, dirt).
You don’t need those tricks to capture attention, nor kitsch to move (“They threw themselves into the sea and the moon shone on their naked bodies”, “The tears wouldn’t let him breathe”). In general, it lacks packaging, narrative tension, which does not consist of introducing surprising twists, but rather of writing like the tightrope walker who crosses the abyss and cannot allow himself to stumble. To stumble is to break the rhythm; If you step out of line, the audience gets tired of watching. At times the narration is pedestrian, as well as excessive; has more words than 1984but expresses much less.
Nobody expected him to equal Orwell, but from a version that claims to be feminist one would expect more skill, strength, and scope. Hemingway said that literature is architecture and not interior decoration; to Julia Her foundation is failing and she has excess makeup (more like smudges). The ending is not very coherent, not only with 1984but with current times, as if he gave up his critical sense of smell to please the masses. And that is the worst disgrace that can be done to this masterpiece.
#feminist #version #warns #writing #retelling #good #idea
