Curate, connect, and discover
The question I've been asking is why Sandra Newman decided to go with Julia instead of Winston Smith's ex-wife Katherine. Julia has the much bigger part in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I've come to find Katherine interesting precisely because her presence in the story is so minimal. Winston describes her as a conformist who just recites whatever doggerel the Party puts out, but the stridency of this depiction makes me wonder if Winston himself was engaging in his own little bit of historical revisionism and narrative framing. Additionally, while Katherine and Winston are still technically married, by the beginning of the novel they are for all intents and purposes separated, and IIRC Winston's narration makes it fairly clear she was the one who did the separating. Perhaps there's room there for a story of the contradictions, complexities, and compromises of a true believer.
What do we think of the feminist 1984 retelling? Am I being kneejerk eye-rolling for no reason?