Book Report: Julia

Part 1

We are introduced to Julia. She works in the fiction department fixing the fiction machines. She goes to the Two Minutes of Hate and is attracted to Winston. Towards the end of the hate, she notices a connection between Winston and O’Brien.

She leaves work early with the excuse of “women’s issues”. She bikes home through a prole neighborhood. She gets to her flat and prepares to fix a clogged toilet. While getting changed, she finds a note that says “I Love You”. This gets her very excited. She works hard to hide the note from the telescreen. When she starts to work on the toilet she discovers a miscarriaged baby.

The child was Vicky’s. Julia had taken Vicky under her wing. The father was a high up party member. He had given Vicky a pill to abort the baby. That night Vicky and Julia talk a bit. After Julia goes to bed the police come and take someone instead of Vicky for the sexcrime.

Julia’s parents were party members. Her dad was eventually executed for being cranky basically. Her and her mom went to place for exiles also known as “boots”. They were quite social and Julia remembers how plentiful things were. She grew up next to an airfield and had crushes on all the pilots. She eventually gets to fly in a plane and sees Big Brothers house.

Julia was able to get a set of ten nail clippers from a shop a valuable commodity. She heads into the prole part of town to barter. During this chapter a lot of low level corruption is described. A replaced bribe for an officer if Julia’s bag is searched. Even the acquisition of the toenail clippers needed a little extra bribe. One of the proles daughters is very beautiful and is being groomed to marry an Inner Party member. Finally, on the way out Julia finds Winston in the same area, peering into a shop.

The shop is called Weeks and the proles know something is sketchy there. They think it could be a brothel, or something worse. They do not trust Weeks the owner. Julia finally heads out but is mugged by a prole. She eventually gets away, with the help of some other proles. However, her wrist is injured. She can’t go to the hospital because most young women with injuries are charged with sexcrime. It turns out Vicky was the one who gave the note to Julia, right before she thought she was getting taken away for having a baby. Julia is kind of into it. We’re also introduced to Dr. Louis who discreetly takes care of problems like a sprained wrist or an unwanted baby.

O’Brien requests Julia to come to his house for a repair job. Julia convinces her boss Essie to go in her place. Julia is scared of Oberon.

Julia fantizes about Winston and touches herself at night. She also thinks about previous trysts she’s had. The thing she loves the most is the rebelliousness of it all. Each of the trysts exposed everyone’s dislike of the party and system. She eventually concocts a plan to pass Vicky’s note to Winston. It’s perfect because the note is not her handwriting, so if she’s caught there’s a chance she can deny it. But eventually Winston makes contact.

Julia and Winston meet in the countryside. Julia has to do all of the planning. She is much more experienced than him which nearly turns her off. She keeps almost slipping into mother mode which is a buzzkill. They fuck but Winston finishes too early. Maybe next time for Julia.

Essie goes missing. Julia wonders if it was meant to be her. Julia wonders if her interactions with Winston’s are known to Obteun. But they continue to meet up when they can. They have a lot of sex. Winston’s annoys Julia saying that party members can’t dream anymore. But what are they doing? Not dreaming? Also annoyed that the hope relies on the prole’s line. Winston has not really interacted with proles while Julia has much more experience. The chapter ends with a note from O’Brien asking her to visit.

She’s goes to O’Breins and is amazed at the wealth of the inner party. O’Brein knows everything about Julia. All of her past affairs. O’Brein wants Julia to be an inner party agent and bring in the “truthlovers“ who are enemies of the state.

The village where Julia grew up was a SAZ, semi autonomous zone. Eventually the party sent in folks to extract all of the resources and slowly kill the village. There was a man Gerber who ran things. Julia befriended him and she was able to get extra food. He took advantage of her quite a bit though. Eventually towards the end of the village, Julia’s mom sends her away before she would die of starvation. Julia outlives the village and was able to use these skills to survive as long as she has.

Part 2

Julia and Winston spend a lot of time at Week’s shop. Julia is a bit torn about her feelings but mostly sees Winston as doomed when he talks about rebellion. She tends to check out when he talks about that stuff. Julia also brings other men; Parsons and Ampleforth to the room with hopes of endearing them. Parsons sleeps with her quickly but says nothing illegal. Ampleforth doesn’t sleep with her but wants to preserve the poems that he has to modify for his job. Ampleforth also thinks that Syme escaped and was not vaporized.

During preparations for the week of hate, Julia’s period is light and her body aches. She goes to the reproductive center (artsem) and is immediately enrolled in a program called “Big Future” which is hard to get into. She knows she got in because of her work with Ob and Weeks. Big Future is a program that uses Big Brothers sperm. She eventually sleeps with Ampleforth, but he freaks out hard. Ob invites Winston to his house. Winston thinks this is his intro to the revolution.

Winston and Julia go to Ob place. There as Ob tells Winston everything he wants to hear. Winston is so enthralled that he does not notice Ob using the phrase: “We are the dead”. Julia sees parallels in her meeting with Ob. Saying all the things that she wants to hear as well. She is more distrusting of Ob than before. As she leaves, she notices an empty ornate room with a piano and the lights fully on. Noticing the waste of it all.

Julia is confirmed pregnant. She of course has lived feelings about this. She decides to go the Weeks, but makes a pit stop at the prole lady house to try and get more happy pills. She fails and is told not to come back. Once she reaches weeks, she is told that all three men will be arrested. Smith will be last. She takes pty of Ampleforth and gives him her remaining pills so he can kill himself.

Winston and Julia are arrested, Julia realizes she is not safe. Julia is taken to be tortured. She eventually makes it to a room with a woman named Diana who is an inner party member that used to do interrogations. She tells Julia that she’s in there for no reason of her doing but larger fights between records and fiction. She tells Julia about the purpose of room 101, and gives her advise on how to survive it. (Draw it out, because time is limited in that room for Julia).

Part 3 (ish)

Julia endures a crazy amount of torture which somehow will “not harm the baby”. Eventually, they let up on her and she recovers a little bit. Then they take her to Room 101. When she arrives she sees Winston there. Ob is there torturing him and eventually brings out the rat cage which goes over Winston’s head. At this moment he betrays Julia and escapes further torture. Julia is brought in and Ob puts the rat cage on her. Her biggest fear is being mutalilated. She remembers the advice given to outlast her time slot and she comes up with a plan. She bites her own tounge which cause one of the rats to come and eat her tounge. When the rat enters her mouth, she bites down and kills it. This causes the other rat to start eating the dead rat and she outlasts her time slot with just a bloody tounge.

Shortly after this she is released and she spends her days as an unperson. Taking long walks around the city. She comes to realize she hates Big Brother, the opposite of Winston.

Eventually she encounters roadblocks that didn’t exist before. She manages to get beyond them with her Big Future sash. After this she eventually escapes and finds that the Free Men of England are about to take over. They encounter very little resistance from the Party’s army. The army is mostly made up of malnourished young boys. They have taken the Crystal Palace and are partying.

She eventually sees Big Brother who is a decrepit old man. She hates and pities him at the same time. Eventually she leaves and returns for “processing” by the free men. They ask her the same questions that O’Brein had asked her and Winston when he pretended to be part of the Brotherhood. The king is dead, long live the king!