Two Re-Tellings

John Boaler

looks at

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year84 – Brennan Conaway

Julia – Sandra Newman

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Both books, published in 2023, are retellings of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The first is a translation of Orwell’s novel into Newspeak; the second the story of Julia.

They add to a growing number of fictional works written in response to Nineteen Eighty-Four. 1985 – a Sequel to George Orwell’s 1984 by Gyorgy Dalos; 1948 – a comic verse novel by Andy Croft; 2084 – The End of the World, by Boualem Sansal; 1985 (part non-fiction) by Anthony Burgess; and The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover. There are others: these are the ones I have read.

It is remarkable that a single work has inspired so many fictional responses. Each year we are seeing new works drawing on Orwell’s fiction and his life. 2025 has seen the publication of Paul Theroux’s excellent Burma Sahib, a re-imagining of Burmese Days, with George Orwell as the central character.

Such is the interest in Orwell, it can’t be long before we see in print A Clergyman’s Son, Arable Farm and Eric the Red (please can I reserve this last title?).

In assessing a work of fiction inspired by, or spinning off, another work of fiction I think it should ideally meet these criteria:

1. It should be self-contained and able to be read and enjoyed without the reader knowing the original work.
2. For readers coming to it who are familiar with the original work, it should provide significant added interest and enjoyment, perhaps sending them back to the novel itself.
3. In developing the characters, adding scenes, introducing new dialogue etc., it must be plausible and consistent with the style and themes of the original, so that it reads as if written by the author him/herself.

Julia retells all the scenes in Nineteen Eighty-Four in which Julia appears through her own eyes, but, this novel being as long as the original, most of the material is new.

That said, Julia is self-contained and could be read and enjoyed without the reader knowing Orwell’s novel. It is well constructed and generally well written.

Sandra Newman writes in a fair pastiche of Orwell’s style, with a few lapses. For example when she describes Julia and Winston’s trip to the Golden Country when they first make love: “As he thrust into her for the first time …O wicked, deep pleasure unlike anything else! …There was the magic of broad males shoulders …He just knew how to fuck, hard enough that it jarred her whole body and resonated through her. He rang her like a bell.” No reader could mistake that for Orwell – it reads more like Jilly Cooper.

Julia focuses on the character of Julia and does not add much to what Orwell tells us about Winston Smith.

As regards my 3 criteria for spin-offs, Julia meets the first and third but not I think the second. It runs parallel to Orwell’s novel, not really expanding the core narrative, not developing what we already know. Rather it introduces a great deal of new material in relating Julia’s story, and though this is interesting enough, I found the complete shift of focus from Winston frustrating. It’s as if Pride and Prejudice were to be told from Mr Darcy’s point of view. We would learn a lot more about him, but very little more about the Bennett family, who are central to Austen’s novel. .

A distinctive features of Nineteen Eighty-Four is the use of Newspeak . Sandra Newman could have built on this introducing many new coinages but doesn’t. Make way for Brennan Conaway.

In year84 he has rewritten/ translated Nineteen Eighty-Four into Newspeak – interestingly and successfully. His opening paragraph, familiar to Orwell readers (It was a cold bright day …) goes: ‘It was a lightful cold day in month04, and the clocks were flashing 13:00. 6079 Smith, his chin down in an attempt to avoid the plusungood wind, goed speedwise thru the glass doors of Winful House, tho underspeedwise to stop a spiral of dust from inning with him.’

Sustaining this through 199 pages, ending ‘He luved BB’, is a tour de force and makes compelling reading. The only comparable work I know is Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange which too incorporates an invented vocabulary of about 150 words.

Conaway rewrites Nineteen Eighty-Four not just in Newspeak, but also as a censor in the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue). And so his translation is an ideological one. He writes in the ‘Intro’ that he ‘removed references to Eastasia and Eurasia, because it’s a forever war; excised Goldstein’s book as heretical; blanked out government violence and torture…’

year84 is an original and captivating critique of Orwell’s novel. Do not be put off by its extensive use of Newspeak words. As with A Clockwork Orange, you soon find you are understanding most of the new words and that they do not impede your reading.

That year84 does not meet my first criterion (standing alone) will not bother readers of Nineteen Eighty-Four.