Sandra Newman’s feminist retelling of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is bold but bungled in parts
Fiction
Jan Sterling as Julia in the 1956 film version of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. Photo: Getty
George Orwell opens his 1949 novel of dystopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the line: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
What follows is a speculative nightmare in which Winston Smith works at The Ministry of Truth in Oceania, one of three warring superstates. It’s a world of Big Brother, IngSoc, the Thought Police, doublethink, thoughtcrime, and Newspeak.
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