lettersfromgrace's reviews
102 reviews

Newman is faithful to Orwell’s Julia in ways I didn’t expect. She is as impassive and complacent at points as in 1984, the feminist aspect comes in that we are given further insight into her psyche and can thus feel pathos for her— she can be redeemed as Winston is; and for all her impassivity, she is more cunning than he, see in the Ministry of Love, her decision on Big Brother averse to Smith’s. They are both real in this supplement, Julia is given depth at last, and not so that it feels incongruous to Orwell’s original character. Her impassivity is not an expression of Orwell’s misogyny, but something that makes her alike us all, who may not have the strength to stand up against a regime corrupted from the start because it keeps us safe. 

The intertextuality of this novel beyond just the source of 1984 was incredible. I adored the references to Animal Farm, Julia preening with rich ribbons on her cheek as Mollie does, the Brotherhood’s manifesto like Old Major’s speech, lump sugar etc. They make the novel Orwellian despite its differences in style, which one must acknowledge—
having now read most of Burmese Days, and in full, Homage to Catalonia, The Road to Wigan Pier, alongside his two magnum opuses, Orwell seemed rather scared of using the, some would say, ‘crude’ terms Newman does. 

Newman’s closing comments on the dangers of extremism, even extremism for the ‘good fight’, as dangerous and damning are the ideas I fell in love with Orwell for in his Notes on Nationalism essay, and adored writing about when I studied Animal Farm, and so this novel felt at points something meant for the English Literature Paper One girl in me. As I am now writing a dissertation on Orwell’s misogyny across his complete works I did need a reminder of why I chose to write upon him after trudging through too much of his disappointing pedantry, and this was just perfect. 

In addition, the sense Newman gives of the females eternal sense of the voyeur with Julia acting up to the snoops in the telescreens was incredibly thought provoking, the ideas discussed around female conflation of love and hatred within the male form intrigued me very much, and felt pertinent still to the source— just widening it to allow the female perspective and for all Orwell’s women readers to feel the full impact of his masterpiece again, and arguably further. 

Whilst it is not comparative to the source in its style, or in the sum of its political comments, it is an incredible read and well worth the near 400 pages. 

some good pieces, others didn’t resonate, but i think that’s always the way. 

Williams is an incredible dramatist, and though this play to me wasn’t as poignant as A Streetcar Named Desire, its symbolism, staging, beautiful stage directions, and characterisation— borrowing from Beckett’s Godot somewhat in Jim?— allowed for a beautiful foregrounding to his dramatic exploration of the relationships and dependencies between women and men in a patriarchal society. Maybe that’s the study I am doing on feminist literary theory talking, but either way, I liked it and imagine Laura will stay in my mind as she stayed in Tom’s. 

I am crying as I write this review; I think partially because this is the last modernist work I had to read by Virginia Woolf, and so now much of my journey with her is complete, but also because this was simply the most beautiful love letter of a novel that I think could ever be written. 

Virginia must have adored Vita so much, for this novel is such a faithful depiction of her love for her. I am so glad I read this after having experienced love for someone else myself, so I could see the reason for all the references to fritillaries, the husband as possibly a self-insertion of Woolf herself, how ‘Orlando’ was Virginia giving Vita her goose, for “Was not poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice? … What could have been more secret, she thought, more slow, and like the intercourse of lovers, than the stammering answer she had made all these years…”

This novel is Woolf answering Sackville-West’s call, and so this novel is as much hers as it is Woolf’s; it is a gift. I hope their love is immortalised forever. 

I love Eliot as a poet, although I think I enjoy his shorter poems, as in their brevity one can truly appreciate his lucidity; it’s for those glimpses within these four quartets that he cannot be rated anything except for a 5 star read. Again, they are so resonant to the wider literary movement he was writing in of Modernism and its European counterpart of Existentialism. 

This was my introduction to Hughes, outside of Plath’s letters and (in my opinion) his awful, awful, preface and notes to her Collected Poems. It was not at all what I expected. 

This anthology is decisively nihilistic— existentialist at a stretch if one wants to read into Crow’s attempt at song and his ‘Littleblood’— and thus suitably depressive as a meditation too on grief. It is intimately personal because of this aspect, something which does endear you as a reader to Hughes. I liked him in the sense that I wanted to prove him wrong, I wanted to tell him that the heather would be enough of a relief to his contendership, I wanted to tell him there were other ways to love. Of course, in a subversive way, perhaps that’s what he’s trying to tell his reader. 

Despite all this, you want to live. You do not want to escape. Stay. 
The desperation of this plea is best shown by the crudity of Hughes’ language, his control of his punctuation and use of enjambement; he is a man torn apart by personal tragedy, trying to live with the fact he cannot will himself to flee, and can only stay clinging to the cliff side.