Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Julia by Sandra Newman with Daniel Rigby

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

This week's book guest is Julia by Sandra Newman.Sara and Cariad are joined by BAFTA winning actor and writer Daniel Rigby to discuss moustaches, artificial insemination, institutions, rats, fear and Big Brother's real name. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss violence and also mention abortion.Julia by Sandra Newman is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Isaac Steele and the Forever Man by Daniel Rigby is available to buy here.You can find Daniel on Instagram: @danielrigbyrigby and Twitter: @danielrigbyTickets for the Live Weirdos event with Tim Key on Sun 3 March are available to buy here or at plosive.co.uk.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Julia by Sandra Newman. What's it about? It's a retelling of George Orwell's 1984 from the perspective of, guess who? Julia. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club?

Well, it's a retelling of George Orwell's 1984 from the perspective of... You guessed it? Julia. In this episode we discuss. Artificial insemination. Moustaches. Institutions. Rats.

Fear. Third trimester transport. And Big Brother's real name. Joining us this week is actor and writer Daniel Rigby. Daniel is a BAFTA winner. He's been so many plays, so much television. He's an incredible, incredible, talented human. And he has also written an amazing audiobook called Isaac Steele and The Forever Man,

which is available on Audible Only. Trigger warning, in this episode, we do discuss violence. Welcome Daniel Rigby. Welcome Daniel Rigby. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You said that really quickly, like, I'd wanted to say that a bit. No, I wanted us to both say it.

Okay. Welcome, Daniel Rigby. Thank you so much. Welcome your amazing moustache. Yeah, thank you. It's for a job. It's for a job. It's coming off on Saturday.

Oh, is it? Yeah, as soon as I'm not keen. I'm not keen. I don't think anyone else is. Are you? Are you a method actor? When you look in the mirror, are you your character? Do you see somewhere else?

Yeah, I don't know whether it's related to work. it's um no definitely not method it's just a mustache okay we spoke to your very good friend mr wasniak who sat there with his mustache but he's just but he's in he's in character he's in his personality choice isn't it he's not although i have seen him without it i've seen him without it i've seen him without it yeah for a job he had to take it off and i i just kept looking and he had to go at me eventually he said you have to stop you have to stop making a fuss about it because i had a similar reaction because my dad had a mustache for absolutely years and then about 92 he shaved it off and it's one of those big memories from childhood how much I cried

and it was a similar reaction when Mike did it was triggering yeah it was triggering yeah it was he looked really weird without it didn't he no he's a deeply handsome man yeah yeah but it just it's not right it's not like something was missing it just yeah that's what I kept thinking yeah like you've got to put your trousers on it was like that level of like something's not right his face trousers. He forgot to put his face trousers for. Anyway, he's stuck with it. I'm trying to think I had to segue

from moustaches into George Orwell. He had a terrible moustache. He had a terrible massage. I couldn't remember. Stalin. There we go. Lovely stuff. Lovely.

Stalin. I hadn't gets us on to this week's book. Julia. Bad mustache. Bad mustache by Sandra. Julia by Sandra Newman, which is, of course, of course, not of course. Which is based on the character of Julia from 1984.

So, Danny Wigbee, have you read 1984? I did ages ago. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of school ages ago or? I think it was probably late teens, early 20s. That's the age, isn't it when most people read it? Yeah.

Yeah. When did you guys read it? I think late teens, yeah, like maybe just left school and was like, oh yeah, do you or yeah. I read it at school, yes. We compared it to Handmaid's Tale. Oh, that's a very progressive school. Yeah, that's like two modern texts. I think it was a good.

teacher probably didn't give a shit about scaring us. So we compared and then I did read it again. I read it again in the 2000s and then I decided I was going to read it every decade of my life. So I have listened to it on audiobook. It's the first audiobook I've ever listened to actually. I had terrible nightmares with the combination of 1984 and Julia. Yeah. This book is, I found it really stressful to read.

I was trying to think about when I'd read the original because I, I mean, I didn't notice. Because a feminist retelling on 1984, I thought, oh, right. I think it had just been a complete blind spot when I'd read it first time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, I mean, also a shit bloke. Like all great 20th century works. There's no women in them.

Hang on a minute. I do remember when I first, one of the first impressions was finding the Julia passages strange and a bit cliched and tonally a bit weird. Yeah, yeah. And feeling like it was a bit thinner than the rest of the book somehow, which is maybe testament to, him not drawing the character as well. But yeah, as reading this, it was just, yeah, it was just very stressful.

But also I couldn't, there was a, I was a bit in awe of the achievement. Yeah, I think it's awesome. Yeah. And it's sort of to occupy another person's creation so convincingly, I just thought was absolutely amazing. That's why I had to keep going to the audio book because I kept coming, I don't think she's made that up. I think she's fleshing out. She's added another dimension onto something that was already this incredible classic. Yeah. And she's given you more. And never, ever, ever, to the detriment of 1984, but making it better, making it more realistic, making it modern.

Yeah. That did blow my mind. Yeah. Yeah. I disagree. I know. I know. I said. I was like, well, look, it's a brilliant book. And I guess. And I guess. And I guess. And I guess. I disagree. And I guess. I agree with you that there's like this whole other world but then I start I feel like the last third it started to fall apart there are said's weird and I don't know what I would love to know what the author yes was trying to do and that for me kind of you know when you know an ending to a book slightly ruins everything you've at up until then I felt very like wow this is like this world is so real and then because the last third was a bit thinner I started thinking more about this And I was like, is this elevated fan fiction?

Like, where's the line between fan fiction and this? Because it's like, it's definitely well written. Maybe it's a spectrum. Yeah, sure. I mean, maybe there doesn't have to be a line. It's not a problem for me. Even if it was fan fiction, it wouldn't be a problem. So I've got a question.

Do you think this book could be enjoyed by itself by someone who hadn't read 19-84 or seen the film? Yeah, what do you think? My inclination is to say maybe it would be less enjoyable. I mean, I think it would still probably. enjoy it because I think it's still rendered really effectively that world and the oppression so I think not yeah I think it would be less enjoyable yeah yeah that's thing I don't mean it derogatory as fan fiction but it is that thing of like I think you kind of need to know 984 to enjoy it on a certain level I think if you didn't you are because

again like she is feeding off an original work and so when she does stuff you're like oh that's cool because in the original yeah It's like when teachers know what Shakespeare is referencing, when you go to see a play. And they're like, very good. Yeah, yeah. And they're the only people laughing. Yeah, yeah.

Exactly, yes. There's a lot of that in theatre. They may as well just be shouting, I understand. Yes. Yeah. I also know that reference. But there's a great amount of pleasure in that, isn't there? And feeling clever.

And that's what, there are points in this book where Sandra Newman offers that to the reader. There's a, the book came out recently called Wifedom by Anne. and a funder, where she kind of, which Pete is very controversial, but she highlighted how much George Orwell didn't really credit his wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, and how much she helped write it. And she actually wrote a poem when she was at school called 1984, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's lots of, you know, it's more nuance than that. And I think we're having a bit of a moment with Orwell where we are like, okay,

like what's behind it? What's the context? Like, we can now rewrite your stories. But I do think, we're back to our old argument, like, what is art and art? because I still think his works of art are so incredible. And he's such an incredible writer that I would want someone to find 984 through this. Because I do think, as good as this is.

This isn't a criticism. This isn't a critique of him. No, no, no, not true. And that's why I thought whether Sandra Newman was commissioned to write it or not, what I could tell was how much fun they were having. Like how fun it is to take a world that's been created that's that incredibly drawn and then think, well, where didn't they have time to go? Where else is there?

All that wasn't interesting, in a story, you don't tell everyone's story. Yeah. You pick, you pick a narrative. I love the fun of seeing Winston from her point of view. Yes. Well, not that I'd, when I finished this, I wish I'd re-read 19 to 18 years. Yeah, same. But then I just have this picture in my head of the noble rebel protagonist from the original book.

Yeah, so cool. And then reading this and him being a slightly head-up ass kind of. I know. ineffectual figure. And also how old she describes him and he's only 39. I thought he was like 60. But she's so much younger, isn't she? She's 26.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really good bit that I loved about how she skewers Winston. That he is kind of, like the bit where they try and have sex and she basically is like, oh, I've got to play him like this, have I? Because like he needs it to look like this. I'm not going to get my pounding today, which is what I'm after. I was like, I kind of loved that. I know.

There were some lines that I enjoyed so much because I just, I actually. the idea of George Orwell, for instance, writing a line like, but far too soon he groaned intense. She wants to cry out, not yet, but his body trembled and went weak. A moment later, he rolled off her, and there was that cheated feeling of a prick sliding out. I was like, Sandra Newman has knowledge that Georgia didn't have. No. And wasn't trying to.

George Orr hasn't failed to write the body properly. That's not what he was trying to do. and Sandra Newman is. And Sandra Newman is just such an amazing writer. Also, to write something in a world that, I mean, because the world that all well created has entered the lexicon in so many ways. It's culturally, it's such a milestone.

Yeah, it couldn't be bigger, could it? Could be bigger. So, like, to do that and to, yeah, to do it so well, I think it's kind of amazing in that way. I have to say the first two-thirds, I was like, this is incredible, how nice to experience this world. like a add-on to a video game

where it was like oh my god we can follow Julia's character instead of Winston's character like that's amazing prequel yes that's true we meet Julia before Winston has a relationship with Julia which we know happens and we know from 1984 perspective we get to see Julia at work we get menstrual clots on a bathroom floor

which we don't get in the original the female part of this story and because Winston as George Orwell wrote him is sort of very uptight. With Julia we suddenly have this really emotional drama queen experiencing the same world and that's what I loved. It's like Sandra Newman obeyed all of the rules set up by George Orwell but I was in the mind of a human being

responding to them completely differently. The beginning of 1984 is so much like logistics of this is what the New Speak Dictionary is and this is what we do every year and this is how we change it and here's a furnace we put things that used to be written in. And we're inside Julia's life where she doesn't care about those things. And the author doesn't have to tell us all of them because, you know, there's a pre-book that people can go back to.

I agree with you, but I guess all I'm saying is like, Orwell is really interested in how you break a man and how an institution does that. Newman is interested in how we feel about those institutions. And then when she has to write and describe those institutions, I feel like she struggled in the way that Orwell is a product of those institutions of horrible boarding schools of the BBC, and I feel like Newman could not live up to his hatred. I think Sonderman is much less interested in institutions,

but what she's interested in is survival. Yes, but it's based on 1984, which is about institutions. So that's when the last third, I was like, you kind of need to give me more than like, oh, room 101, it's busy, and the 50 minutes. I was like, I don't feel like how I felt with 1984, when I felt sickened at humanity, I feel like it's quite hard to run an institution.

It's quite difficult. And when she leaves love as well, you know, when Winston leaves the Ministry of Love, like I said, you feel like he's gone, he's not there. Whereas I felt like she survived it and she's not walking on all fours. She kind of looks okay. People don't like her,

but if she shows them the scars, then they're more, you know, like... The breaking of Winston is proving to him that there was no part of his mind that is his from the party, and he will do the worst thing, which is the person he thinks he loves. Whereas Julia has already done all of those things.

So she can't be broken by, because she's already sent people to their deaths. She's already ensnared people for her survival. I think it would have been a lazier or less effective shot to have her room on and one going, oh, do it to Winston. Oh, no, now I'm broken. Oh, no, I would never say that.

She's already done it to Winston. But you didn't get a sense that she was broken by this, the worst thing possible in love. I think she was broken much earlier in her life. And so all of these things that she's been doing as a broken person. All of it, ever since she was a teenager, has been survival and using,

and that's what I found so interesting, sex is survival, transactual sex. And that's the thing that I loved about this book is, you know, this is 1984, but with masturbation and men who can't get it up the first time. Oh, and abortions and periods. Sex in the grass with your legs open.

And all of these things, like the visceralness of that, that's what then made, so the reality of the, I guess what would you say, the corporate, the body, the body was actually there. So I didn't miss the institution. I was being told a story that was much more physical. You couldn't have both things. But I know, I totally know what you're saying, but it's interesting to choose a book like 984, which is about institutions. I know, that's the point of it. I think that's the thing, if you're doing a, if you're adding a dimension to something that already exists,

You don't need to do that exact book because that's already there. I did wonder reading it and it might be a shit man thing to say, but whether there's the fact that, like you're talking about the body being so in it and the fact that the book is such an exercise and correction it feels like it's a corrective, it's putting things right that were missing or blind spots of all worlds in the original. But whether there's something, the assumption in the original is that women have less sexual desire. So that's why they work in making pornography and things that are just taken for granted and that this goes so far the other way in filling it with female desire.

The book is full of that as a theme, which is a specific sort of task that the book has, it feels, or it makes it narrower as a satire. Yes, I think that's what I'm trying to say. That's, that's well done. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. I loved the pornography in this. I loved her describing to Winston the porn. Oh yeah, my telis screens were.

And then another character, when O'Brien says my telescreen is bro, couldn't you need to come over? She's like, this is the plot of the corner. Yeah. That was really funny. Really funny. There was some funny bits in it. But I completely agree with you.

And I think we're all saying the same thing. You're saying like it filled this huge gap and that's brilliant. And 984 exists. So that's great. But then it slightly narrows it because it's focusing on feminine desire and women in this world. And actually, I didn't read it as a corrective. I mean, look, I, I, I'm very happy for authors to have blind spots.

No one is perfect. Everyone is a product of their environment, their time, their own biases, they're a bigotry, you know. You're looking at the story in a different way, and I feel like that's what Sandra Noon was doing. To expand that world, to take on Orwell, you know, who is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, and to keep up with him.

And then to slightly cop out at the end, is how I felt, of not giving her what we get with, and that's one of the things about. on 1984, it ends and you're like, fuck, how can you end it like that? Oh, God. And then you're like, wow, that's an amazing writer. And I feel like they didn't, they didn't go that bleak, why, they saved her. And I get what you're saying about Julia's different character, to Winston, but I, like, the end just became so far-fetched. Yes. The really shocking thing is that scene, and in both books where he notices she's attractive and wants to rape and murder her.

Yeah, yeah. And I, I thought Sandra Newman was making that up. Oh no, I remember that from 1984. So clear. And that was when I went, okay, I need to go back and find out what George Orwell was saying that Sandra Newman is reflecting on. I was like, oh, same thing. Yeah. Definitely didn't flag that.

No. When I first read it or never before, just like, yeah, that's what men think when they look at nice young women. The book didn't flag it. The book doesn't say this is wrong. No. This is wrong thing. No.

But, and also it's nothing to do with because the original, obviously, it's a, political critique and the reason that he wants to kill her isn't anything to do with politics because he can't have sex with her yeah well because sex is bad and so wanting sex is very frustrating to just kill the thing yeah that makes you think about it yeah yeah but I agree with the the last the last part of the book I stopped I stopped I stopped finding it believable it as I stopped following it it was such a shame because the first two days I was like totally like fuck I was so worried and it could have ended at the chestnut cafe yeah So the Chestnut Cafe is the ending of the original 1984.

And while we now have Julia there, not Winston, I have a problem with chestnut cafe as well. All right then. Should I get into it? Yeah. Because, so, okay, people will know, I think this isn't spoiler. They know the famous Room 101 scene where Winston gets a rat cage on his head. He says, do it to Julia.

And it's his biggest ever fear. Yeah. The whole way through the book, we've got to know Winston. We know it's his most terrifying thing. That's how it works with Room 101. And it's very real, like in 19804, you're very like, it's not like, oh, I'm a bit scared of rats. I know, it's absolutely terrifying. And when, you know, the rats come in, you're like, oh, no.

And I, that's for me when this, when she goes into the Ministry of Love, that for me is where it's slightly fell apart. Because I feel like, this is interesting. Like, Orwell, like you said, makes, doesn't quite capture Julia, but he captures institutions that are mental and bureaucratic. And obviously, he worked for the BBC during the war and that's part of his job was to, um, Put rat cages on the head. It was a game show. They did. They didn't talk about it. Haddy McGuinness took it over, didn't he?

And they cancelled it after one season, which was a real show. Patty was really getting to his drive. So I think all we'll get... Rat office, rat office! Do it to Julia! Oh my God. That would be amazing. Nine women lined up and you have to choose which one will get the rat on in the place.

And they have to ask questions to find out which ones are most suitable. No? Okay. So I feel like all will get serious. institutions really well. And I felt that's when they, Newman, slightly fell Okay. Let me finish.

Let me finish. It's really hard. I know, I know. I've been listening. It's hard to listen to, Daniel. I know. I know. Because Ministry of Love, I felt like when she got in there, I didn't feel like we got a sense of what her fear actually was. Someone says it's her vanity, which even in herself, she's like, is it my vanity?

And like, I felt like she missed a trick. Because how Julia deals with the rat sequence is incredible and badass and I was like wow but I didn't feel it wasn't her fear and it made room 101 not feel that scary and she's dealt with the admin like I felt like she made it less scary and made it less like less torturous which in 1984 you're so afraid for Winston I thought it was all done intentionally so at this point she was writing it badly no not badly she was deconstructing it because the thing that kept bothering me in this version of it was the admin behind the authoritarianness so George Orwell

we just take it as red. This is it, especially off the back of Russia, Stalin, Nazi, Germany. It does make it more scary. Of course. And they were organised. You know what they were organised? Credit where it's true. Not complimenting them.

But what I loved about this was that from the beginning, I kept thinking, there's more people working for Big Brother than who aren't working for Big Brother. The admin, if it was like, no one's disorganized. Even evil people aren't this organized. But that's why then it starts being so real. I know, but then the idea that I loved was that in Room 101, it's booked up, so everyone's got 15 minutes slots. I loved that bit. The logistics, so it made it so less scary for me.

It was supposed to be less scary because it's supposed to show you, human beings are still doing this, even though it's your fear. I found it more scary because it's sort of the banality of evil. Yes, yeah. When whoever it is comes in and says, Albert needs the room in 50 minutes, whatever it is, you're like, wow, that is. And the idea of just out-talking them, that you don't have to be a sort of kung-foo genius. But I know what you mean. You can just, all you have to do is, you know what I wanted, when he said do it to Julia,

I felt like a more horrific regime, this is my imagination, would not put the rats in, would get an actress to play her mum and come in and say you killed me. And I was like, I felt like there was depths of Julia that we didn't get to experience, which you do with Winston and you see him broken.

I felt like we didn't get her broken. I wanted her broken. The third dimension. When you say third dimension, do you mean the end third? No. Oh, right. Yeah, okay.

Three dimensional. Oh, right. I thought you're talking about the end third and calling it the third dimension. I was like, that's confusing. No, three dimensional as in, so it's 2D, but Sandra Newman adds another third dimension. That's what I was saying.

The kicking of the hand. She goes to the Mrs. Melton, is it? Mrs. Melton, the black market lady and she says, you know, and these women in there, they're crying and they're saying, you know, there was a bomb, and a woman's three-year-old was killed. And then this man from the party was all another round, and the hand was there of the three-year-old,

and he just kicked it. Yeah. Saying what kind of person could do that? And then Julia is told by another character later on that it was Winston that did it and she doesn't believe it. And then she asks him and it was and she was like, why did you do it?

And it's like, oh, it's in the way. And so it sort of shows how, if you're around violence all the time, you just completely desensitized to it. Desensitized. Humans' lives have no value. But the first thing Sandra Newman makes us do is empathise.

So the kicking of the hand is one sentence in the original 1984. When Winston's walking on right and he kicks a hat, this little hand. And Sandra Newman builds a whole backstory of who that hand belongs to, how the proles react to someone from the party, walking along the street and kicking a living person, you know, a person who was a moment ago living,

just kicking their hand out of the way, like they're rubbish. And Julia hears that story about, you know, a faceless person and then discovers it's not only the person that she knows, it's the person that she has these feelings for, whether we call it lust or just sexual interest or whether she cares about him. But he did do that thing. Sandra Newman fleshes that whole thing out.

Ugh, fleshes. Yeah, ugh, exactly. So it makes it so much worse than one sentence in a book, which is just like 1984 George Orwell doesn't want the reader to really think about who that hand belongs to. Oh, no, it's all about. But also the tragedy is happening in a really sort of faceless way Whereas Julia made it realer for me.

I thought Julia became mad and that's... Yeah, that's true. I agree with that. I didn't believe... I didn't know if she was pregnant or not. I wondered about that as well after the Ministry of Love. Because it's so much. Yeah, and she's had a pregnancy that lasted months.

And she's having electric shocks as well and I'm saying it's fine. I mean kicked in the stomach and... Sorry, this is really horrible for only more listening. there were some really gruesome things that happened in this book, just like in the original. Well, while we're on the pregnancy. Yeah, this is a bit, I don't want to. Oh, no, not that.

The bit where she gets on a bike and cycles through London in her third trimest on the back of a motorbike with someone. I was like, you can't physically get on a motorbike when your third trimest. You can't hold someone. And then she walks for miles a month. This is what I mean about madness. Yeah.

But then everyone keeps telling if she's pregnant. But, I mean, mad people hear all kinds of things. Yeah. I mean, going to meet Big Brother, all of these things felt like delusions. Well, that would make sense of how I struggled with the believability at the end. The Big Brother meeting and all that. Nothing made geographical sense.

Nothing made stories. It was so easy to get there. Thematically, yeah, she just appeared at places and had scenes with characters from her previous life. That's why the ending is not as strong as the other bits. I don't think that's a madness. I think Newman is trying to make a bigger point about the other regime. I couldn't quite work out. Do you think that's what it was?

the point was they're just as bad. Yeah, because that ending. Rebelling. The ending, which, you know, is very much like that ending. I was like, oh, it was a bit like, see, we're all bad. And I was like, oh, Newman. Like, I enjoyed so much. But that point is also made, I mean, that's what 1984 ends with.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But 198884 ends with him loving Big Brother. And that's where you go, oh, he's, we know, we lost it. He's listening to the radio. So, so he's, what he does. still have is a hope that with lost Africa that there's going to be this war in the Congo

is actually, I mean he does, has this inkling of rebellion still it just won't be him. Oh do you think? I think the incline is completely broken and he loves Big Brother and he can't he's lost that ability to He's fighting things. He has these sort of odd smells and memories and he's sort of intentionally

fighting it off. Because I feel like he loves Big Brother at the end and that's how you know a man has been broken and always showing you you can break a man. This is how you do it. And I felt like Julie at the end, I felt like Like, they love the character of Julia so much. They weren't willing to break her. You say it's interesting that you say it was modern

because I was like he, obviously, Allwell was writing about 1948 and, you know, post-war England. And then I found slightly that she wasn't writing about now, but she was trying to capture post-war England. That's why I really liked it. Sorry, Sandra Newman is non-binary. And also most readers wouldn't know that. It's only because of the for-or about the men.

I know that, which was Sandra Newman's last book. Sandra Newman, I think, is still writing about the 1950s. The modernity is the sex and the bodily functions. So it's writing for a modern reader, but it's not trying to pretend it happened. It wasn't trying to move it up and go, oh, Margaret Thatcher. No, no, but I slightly felt, you know, I just, there was moments. Brexit's not in there. There was moments with the newsspeaker, the way that people spoke post-war that I felt a bit like, I didn't quite believe.

In the way that all well, obviously, you utterly believe that world. there was a bit like when she was sort of writing prose and stuff. I was like, oh, it feels a bit like somebody kind of aping that world rather than the Orwellian take on it. But very slightly, and again, my complaint is very slight. I think that might be an American thing. Yeah, maybe. Writing English people.

Yeah, there was occasional things. I was like, this doesn't sound like people. I swear it's, I think it's an American English thing. Maybe. Or Estrip one. Estrip one. Come on, let's get it all right. How do you think you're doing an airstrip one?

Yeah, I mean, this is my worst night. there. I'm the person who takes the pills straight off the back. Straight away. Straight off the back. Give me 20. Down the river. Watch the thrush is singing. See you later, guys. I cannot handle this. I can't handle the loneliness. They're not the trust. I don't want to sleep in a bunk bed. I don't want to wear overalls. I hate all of it down your eyes. It's really scary. The bunk beds most of all are the biggest. And you'd have to. You have to. Mandatory bunk beds. Yeah. How would you fare an a strict one, Daniel Woodby?

I think I'd do pretty well. Yeah. You're an amateur. You can fake it. You'll be that, I hate it, I hate it, B, B, B, B, B. Yeah. I'd have one of those big flats, be bringing people in. Real wine.

Real wine. Yeah. You'd be O'Brien is what you're saying. I mean, I think I've got, I think I'd like to think in my head, rebel guy, very successful rebel guy. But actually, I think in reality I would be like, here are the names. can I please have some chocolate yeah

please can I have loads of chocolate four of them I'm related to I'll give you their numbers my dad my mum my brothers please at least four squares of chocolate please

a whole bar it's the whole goldstein night is odd when you know Brett Goldstein because it does feel like everyone's just like Goldstein all the time

but actually then thought in terms of the movie of this Brett Goldstein would make a really good big brother when he doesn't A young, handsome one. Yeah.

When Julia's describing that sort of like perfect, you know, handsome masculinity, but with muscles. Yeah. I don't know once you had a moustache to break Goldstein, what happens? He's already got quite a lot of... Too much hair. It's just eyes peeping out of a hairy face. It might be too much.

It might be too much with a massage. Yeah, I don't know how I'd fair enough. Not well, not well, I think. I think I'd be right with the dormitory bunk beds hiking. I think, I'll tell you where you'd come up, right? Someone had something terrible happen to them and everyone's supposed to just avoid them and you'd be straight over like, you're okay.

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to do that. You'd be straight away. Like when they're just like, when she comes back, I'll make a bed for you. She's like, where's Vicki's bed? And they're like, who are you talking about? I was like, that is hard to just be like, that woman who was here 20 minutes ago.

Yeah, shut up. There's something so authentic about how I mean, it's in the original as well as this, but how people's thinking gets changed by just an outside influence insisting. Huge, because that is what 1984 is trying to show you, the power of rewriting over your own memory and that makes something true.

And that is what this book does as well. Yeah. Have you ever read The City in the City? No. Which is China Myevil. Oh, no. And it's a sort of sci-fi book, really, but it's like a noir-ish sci-fi world

where it's two cities that are in the same geographical spot. and it's illegal to acknowledge or see the other city. Wow. And it starts as a murder mystery where I think the investigator has to then cooperate with the invisible city, invisible. But it's so brilliantly written because it's just the murk of people's people have become convinced that they cannot see everything that is around them. It's a real, it's got shades of this. If it's dangerous to admit something. Yeah.

you would work so hard to disappear it in the way that people's memories don't work with traumatic events where your brain goes, I can't, I can't go to the shop and ask how much sausages are while also acknowledging this. So goodbye. Yeah. I just read a Hilary Mantel. I'm reading her Mantel Pieces, which I think is the most Edinburgh show title for an author. Is that really what it's called?

It's called Mantel Pieces and it's like her sort of journalism. And I was like, Hillary, 5 o'clock at the Pleasance. second to the 21st. That reminds me of I really wanted to do a show called Fridge Magnet and have a picture with just me with my arms around some fridges.

I never got to do it. And that is Edinburgh's loss. That would have been amazing. It was just that. Did you have anything else? You just had the poster. That was it. I had to post it.

Plenty of other people built shows on less. Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah, it's called mentel pieces. You would expect more. You could do a fridge advert then. You could advert for fridges. She was writing about, it's a really old piece in like the 90s, about living in Saudi Arabia, which she did for a time,

and about the power of words when they were living in kind of a sort of censorship. And she was writing about how the word pork is being censored. So like when people are bringing in books to Saudi Arabia, like so recipes and just like eat just, mention of it and she starts you know saying exactly what you're saying of like where does it where do we get to when you don't even have a sense like pork doesn't mean anything to you so it does become like it's not even like oh i don't eat it's like i don't know what you're talking about like how can you that's so important to the people in saudi at that time of that of that particular

brand of islam that they they felt so strongly that it was so awful to even hear it and again that's what you know why this book still hits isn't it why 1984 still hits is we're not like we're living in a time where everybody can say what they want and do what they want. A few years ago, probably over 10, but it's when I first started comedy and I was working in, it's a Christmas grotto, but they didn't want to have anything to do with Christmas because it's a multicultural area and they didn't like the idea of some children not be able to say yes to the presents. So they had Cinderella, Fairy Godmother and Prince going around giving presents, but they also had Christmas music playing where they scrambled the word

Christmas. Oh, wow. Oh my goodness. Right. So obviously they'd had a meeting. And they thought, I wish it could be every day. Yeah, so, last, I gave you my heart. Oh, my goodness. That's what they did, like it was a swear word on Radio 1. Very dangerous to your mental health working there.

I remember working in Pizza Hut and hearing torn by Natalie and Brulio about a million times a day, and that being enough, but if the word torn was scrambled. Yeah. I can't imagine what it would do to the psyche. Do you think this stuff helps anyone? No. That's a big question.

Are you from Big Brother? Have you come to make us question ourselves? I just crossed my mind because I'm thinking about, I don't know how it relates to, I mean, because there's lots of dystopian fiction and quite often, dystopian fiction reflects fears that we have presently about our society, about our politics. And I just, because 1984 was written in 48, 49. That's sort of what I meant, that she doesn't go for some slightly more modern point,

that she is living in that bit, which is like when he wrote it was grand breaking and life-changing and, you know. But did his book help anyone? Oh, that's a big essay question, don't you? I guess it's just, I mean, maybe not even an answerable question. It might not be help as in like, oh, your life is better or you can better adjust. But in terms of like all human beings having this journey, which is sort of understanding humanity,

including the really awful things that human beings do to each other, after the Second World War the whole of psychology was is evil innate why do people obey things they know are bad how are individuals programmed to do things that even children know are wrong and so the literature

that art was asking those same things wasn't it and so George Orwell showed us in Winston how hard it is to have any self under a regime that doesn't value you where you don't have, you know, food, safety, and how your own fear eventually can be manipulated. By showing all those things, I don't think he was making people go,

okay, that's all right then. That kind of help. This book, for me, was showing how a woman, the character of Julia, all she had was sex. That's her only resource, and she has to use it to, you know, number one, to feel alive because she enjoys it,

but also to manipulate people for her own safety. And that, to me, felt exactly like a poet, opposite of Winston, who doesn't have sex in that way. And that is the character of Julia that Orwell originally wrote. The whole point was she represented sensual humanity, and she was much more of a rebel than Winston was. I watched Beyond Utopia documentary while I was reading this. It's about North Korea and North Korean defectors,

and you realize that we have an oceania on Earth at the moment. But the fascinating thing about the documentary is it's a study of several different groups of defectors trying to leave the country and escape which is incredibly dangerous obviously. There's one particular thread which follows a family and there are three generations. It's an eight-year-old grandma, the parents and the children, they have to escape through Laosan Vietnam,

and they're helped by a priest in South Korea. But they are filming stuff on their phones. It's just so terrifying and tense. But the stories that they tell from inside of North Korea are on a par with this. Yes, yeah. But the eight-year-old grandma, as she's going through the jungle and talking and is being interviewed at one point by one of the producers,

is still rationalising. She's fleeing for her life from this regime that she's lived in since she was born and is still calling Kim Jong-un a great man. And it's saying the mental gymnastics that she's doing and she's fleeing through the jungle to justify her own existence. It's so powerful as a study of psychology and what that kind of regime can do to a human being that you're so oppressed,

you're literally running with your family, with the possibility of death, and you're still going, I think he's a great man, I think it's just we've taken a wrong turn. Yeah. It's the Americans fault, the American bastards,

because they don't have a word for Americans. It's American bastards. It's American bastards. American bastards is literally the world. Oh my God, that's incredible. Wow. It's so incredible. It reminds me of those early, you know, the scientists who didn't want to let go of God,

even though they also had proof of evolution. Yeah. So, you know, both things are true at once. Like, I'm doing this. This is even more majestic what God's done. Yeah. And for that, like, if it can highlight and remind you that, yeah, we're not exactly living in a free society and also be an interesting piece of literature

and a gripping piece of literature, it is helping. Yeah, I feel like I've been harsh now because you're right, it is incredible achievement. What you've had was that... Doing things is hard, carry out. It is hard, it's hard. You have an emotional reaction of something. I just wanted to say to Sandra, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's happening now?

She's nine months pregnant. She's getting on a motorbike, holding on to the man. She thinks she's pregnant. That is a cowbell. No way. Did you have a last line you wanted to land on, or have you already read your... I wanted to just read the final third of the book. Out loud for everyone.

Oh my God. I really liked the... Newman. I really liked Big Brother's real name. That's what I'll say. Oh, yes. That was so funny. That was funny.

That's too much of a spoiler to say. Yeah, let's leave that for readers to find. I just really... I had that moment, having not read tonight, everyone, of like, does he... Is that for more well? Does he call him that? It's so undignified.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, that was particularly brilliant. The last line rang a bell for me, and I... I don't say the last line. I probably shouldn't say the last line. Yeah. That's all right. She says, yes, I will, yes.

And I looked it up and it rang a bell because when I was at drama school, we did, we staged Ulysses, not the whole thing. We did stage the whole thing. But in an attempt to make the unreadable, unwatchable. Rada did Ulysses. We did. It's an excellent school. We did one chapter of Ulysses, so read Ulysses. And it's actually the last line of Ulysses.

And the last chapter of Ulysses, is called Penelope. And the narrators have been Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus. And then the very last chapter is Molly Bloom, which I think it's just a sort of literary nod from her. Oh, that is good. But I also wondered about that last third then, if that's Ulysses. Oh, yeah, maybe.

Oh, that's right. It doesn't make my sense. No, no, I say it's all right. I swear Sandra Newman's a genius. And I think maybe this is something where we'll find out that you're right. That you're right, that you're a genius and you agree with them. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, maybe.

Daniel, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. To talk to us. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. My novel Weirdo and Carrie Had's book, You and Not Alone, are both available now. And we have a live Weirdo's Book Club recording

at the Chautil Book Festival. We do. It's at the British Library on Sunday the 3rd of March. That's the British Library in London. It's a very beautiful venue. And we've got a very beautiful guest. What a guy. Tim Key. Talking about his brilliant new book of poetry chapters.

If you would like to buy tickets to that, and of course you do, head to plosive.co.com. I've also got a live event at the Southbank Centre coming up in May. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.