JULIA, by Sandra Newman

At the outset of “Julia” — Sandra Newman’s retelling of George Orwell’s classic “1984,” this time as seen by Winston Smith’s love interest, Julia — we learn that our protagonist is a mechanic in the Fiction Department. Fiction, along with Records and Research, makes up the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for producing the official narrative of Oceania, and, since Oceania is a totalitarian state, producing history itself. While Orwell situated Winston in Records, altering past news articles, Newman has Julia crawling around within the systems of Fiction.

Fiction is a space “dominated by the plot machinery,” with “claws that selected and transported plot elements.”The product they create is “jocularly called a ‘bingo card,’ that coded the elements of a story: genre, main characters, major scenes.” It is Julia’s job to fix the Fiction machines when they malfunction, risking injury to repair them from the inside.

In one sense, this is the undertaking of “Julia” as a novel — to climb into the fictional world of “1984,” as well as the misogyny of Orwell’s writing, and flesh out a woman’s perspective. Winston Smith, we may remember, has fantasies of sexually assaulting and murdering Julia, and the female characters in “1984” are thin in comparison with Winston’s complex interiority and with the wider world of Big Brother. “Julia,” then, would appear to “fix” Orwell’s novel for a contemporary feminist readership, just as Julia herself fixes the plot machines of Fiction.

Newman’s version dovetails with the original, following Winston and Julia’s romance and their plot to join the traitor Goldstein’s resistance. But it also embellishes the prehistory of “1984,” and imagines a future beyond Orwell’s ending. Unlike Winston, Julia was not born an Oceanian citizen, and has had to learn ulterior tactics of survival. Winston is not the first man with whom she commits sexcrime.

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“Julia” is at its most compelling in its exploration of the grim reality of women’s lives under an authoritarian patriarchal regime. A few chapters in, Julia is summoned to repair a blocked toilet in her hostel, only to find the blockage is a bloody, misshapen fetus. It was unknowingly aborted by Vicky, the teenage “baby” of the hostel, who works for a Central Committee Chairperson. That chairperson sexually assaulted her and impregnated her, and afterward, she dutifully took the “anti-Sex” pills he arranged for her when she started to show. But Vicky does not understand what has happened to her; the Party has robbed her of knowledge, and with it, bodily autonomy.

Julia, we are repeatedly told, loves to have sex. As a child she had sexual fantasies of Big Brother, and as an adult, she is approached to work for the thoughtpolice as a honey trap. Eventually, though, she is arrested and tortured by the Ministry of Love. While imprisoned, she discovers that her sexual activities have been used not to identify traitors but merely to deal with a staff issue. The Ministry is racked with departmental vying; “Fiction is after Records. Wants to take over its functions and its budget.” It turns out Julia serves no greater purpose than culling the male staff of Records, paving the way for Fiction’s monopoly. “No, you’re a toothpick, a tissue,” Julia is told, “a thing that gets used once and thrown in the bin.” Julia’s sexual appetite — ostensibly a symbol of empowerment — ends up being used as a pawn in Fiction’s game.

Ultimately, a similar dynamic troubles the feminism of “Julia.” Like the “bingo cards” produced by the plot machines of Fiction, the novel is coded to produce a desired focus — in this case, women’s experience. It’s not alone; contemporary publishing abounds with retellings of classic stories from women’s perspectives. But “1984” is a perplexing choice to return to. The novel was written in direct response to Stalin’s regime, yet the motives of “Julia”don’t seem to be concerned with the differences between Orwell’s period and our own political moment. Instead, its main project seems to be redressing the gender balance in Orwell’s fiction. As a result, claims for its “timeliness” can only lead to vague generalizations about women’s oppression, rather than examining the political structures imposing it. For contemporary readers, whose reproductive rights are being encroached on by the right, the novel’s simplistic depiction of amalgamated socialist evils may feel somewhat out of step with present affairs.

“Julia,” we are told, was approved for publication by the Orwell estate. Accordingly, it toes a party line. Lacking the freedom of unauthorized fan fiction, “Julia” is afforded little room for a wider or sharper appraisal of “1984,” which the classic is ripe for. Over the years, the popularity of the novel and the way it has been co-opted across the political spectrum have drowned out the nuanced distinctions in Orwell’s critique.

It may be that “Julia” is aware of its place in the fiction machine, and is trying to make repairs from inside. As a retelling it is highly readable, innovative and entertaining. But as a political or feminist project, it only adds to the obfuscation of Orwell’s critique. Ultimately, it risks resemblance to the formulaic “Fiction products” of the Ministry of Truth: easily digestible, to be “devoured” in one sitting.

Daisy Lafarge is the author of a novel, “Paul," and a poetry collection, “Life Without Air,” which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her latest book is “Lovebug.”

JULIA | By Sandra Newman | 385 pp. | Mariner Books | $30