Julia is cool. Winston Smith, not so much. Anyway, you don't need to have read 1984 to appreciate "Julia." It's excellent. Frightening, but not (entirely) hopeless. A bit queer, in the best sense. Both in that queer people are present, and in that Julia's interest in sex for pleasure renders her suspect in the eyes of the regime. Definitely worth reading in these times of repression and spreading fascism.

@SallyStrange i'm weird in that I'd probably like both?

@FinalOverdrive@kolektiva.social Sure! You wonderful weirdo, you. You'd be like Julia that way I suppose. Julia would definitely fuck herself.

@SallyStrange More that I don't dislike Orwell/Blair enough to rate this book above the first.

@SallyStrange I treat it as one of the great works one rates highly even if it isn't ones cup of tea. Before one accuses me of male chauvinism, Margaret Atwood (leave aside her recent clueless fan club) is in my view very much the equal of Orwell, Huxley, and Zamayatin.

@FinalOverdrive@kolektiva.social certainly, I mean, even though it's been decades, its unsettling nature still sticks with me. And in "Julia," you can hear the critique, but you can also see the love for it coming through.

@SallyStrange I only hope Winston isn't made out to be a monster. That is the authors perogative, but the very worst I'd call him is myopic in the way men, including Orwell/Blair, could be in the 1940s.

@FinalOverdrive@kolektiva.social Interesting you should say that, because that's exactly how he's portrayed - myopic, limited, even childish at times. But this myopia gives him the potential for monstrousness in the same way that it gives any privileged person the potential for monstrousness. It is not realized, but Julia, being a woman, being younger, cannot escape from noticing the potential for it. Still, though, she does love him. Relateable for me, a woman who has dated many cis men.

@SallyStrange In a limited sense, very limited sense: even neurotypical girls were like that for me as an autistic boy growing up. I will not deny, though i did not realize it then, as a boy I represented greater potential danger...and I suppose with all the usual social deficiencies and blindspots I probably came off crueler.

Nothing could change the fact that like their male counterpart, she had one over on me in terms of social ability. That she could manipulate me while I could not in turn. Not that I'd want to.

The only difference was that it was more often realized with the boys. But the danger happened often enough with the girls.