Based on how there are two main characters (unlike Brave New World, the only other book that I would consider doing such a project for which has a few main characters) this won’t be too difficult.
The beginning where the knowledge of Julia is limited and when the two have been split up by the State will give me a place where I can develop Julia as a character in my own way.
Just by checking the conversations (and making all are included from her p.o.v.), seeing her opinions and thoughts (and having them be similar to but not identical to Winston’s makes this an interesting project for me), and checking the facts listed, this should be a fun project.
I’m trying to finish the rough draft by June.
Any ideas or observations that you think may be helpful?
Yeah, don’t do this. There was an author from one of the former Soviet satellite countries that wrote a book called 1985, which was a “sequel” to 1984 and it was freakin’ horrible. One of the worst books I’ve tried to read! (The author thought BB was a real person!)
Also, I think that you’ll need to get permission from Orwell’s estate to do this.
Extremely nice concept. Get on with writing it! At this stage you really don’t want other people’s input. Discussing it at the planning stage is a classic way to kill a writing idea. Only one thing I’d advise: check the copyright situation at some time en route. I don’t know how touchy the Orwell estate is.
Tuckerfan, I believe you’re making a reference to Anthony Burgess’ 1985. I didn’t like it either.
Also, this isn’t a sequal, it’s happening at the same time.
And if I never publish it or try to make money off of it I don’t think the estate will have much trouble with it, but I’ll cross that bridge when I reach it.
clayton_e: a case in point. Talk about an idea for writing something, and you’ll immediately get people throwing a wet blanket over it - and furthermore misforming you. 1985 was written by Anthony Burgess, the prestigious British author who wrote A Clockwork Orange , and I’ve no idea where the claim that he believed Big Brother was real comes from. Write your sequel, and ignore them.
Great idea - but I would say that her thoughts were quite different from Winston’s. I remember something like “she thought it was natural that you would want to have fun, and just as natural that the state should try to keep you from doing so”.
She also seemed more streetwise but less interested in politics than him - sometimes it seemed like she was just humoring him.
I am not talking about the Anthony Burgess version. The version I’m talking about was written by an author from a former Soviet satellite country and included an autopsy of BB! Had I read the Anthony Burgess version of 1985 I would have remembered it as being by him, since I’ve read A Clockwork Orange and enjoyed it. I no longer have the copy of the work of which I speak, since it was so gawdawful I chucked it after reading the first few pages (which included the autopsy report). In the one I’m speaking of, BB has died and been replaced by “Big Sister,” Winston Smith’s also dead, IIRC, and the novel has almost no relation to Orwell’s work.
Here’s Amazon’s page on Burgess’s 1985. It is most definately not the book I was talking about. Sadly, I can’t find the book on Amazon’s site that I’m speaking of. (Typing in “1985” yeilds well over a 1,000 possible titles and I ain’t digging through all of them.)
The reason I say that clayton_e shouldn’t do this is because I seriously doubt that clayton_e’s a good enough author to pull it off. No offense meant to clayton_e at all, BTW. I seriously doubt any author out there is good enough to pull this off. Not that I think Orwell was the greatest author of all time (though he certain ranks as one of my favorites), but in order to do what clayton_e is proposing, and do it well, clayton_e’s going to have to be a better writer than Orwell. No easy task, that.
Kalashnikov, a key reason I decided to write this. They both have the same goal (freedom from the state) but each has their own way of thinking about it.
He is more philosophical and worries about issues that are distant but he doesn’t know as much about how to rebel on a small scale and get away from it.
Julia, OTOH, is quite the opposite. Her thoughts are more on how to break rules and survive and she is indifferent to large issues that don’t touch on her life.
Garfield226, I have read both and yes, that is very similar to what I am thinking of doing. I origionally thought of the idea while reading , but this book wasn’t nearly as connected it’s predecessor, Grendel (here is a summary).
I don’t believe that BB was real and I doubt that anything written by an author who does believe this (and especially with an added “Big Sister” character) would be anything worth reading.
Er… Sorry. That sentence really didn’t make much sense. What I was trying to say was that Grendel was not as connected to Baewolf as Card’s books were to each other, but I thought of the idea while reading Grendel and it brought me back to thinking of Card’s work.
Found it! The book I’m talking about is 1985 What Happens After Big Brother Dies by Gyorgy Dalos. A disgusting POS book if I’ve ever read one. I wish you the best of luck, clayton_e. Do check into the rights, however, as I think that Dalos’s book mentioned that the author was granted permission by Orwell’s estate and since they’ve been playing around with copyright laws of late, you could run into trouble.
Tuckerfan
I am not talking about the Anthony Burgess version.
OK, point taken. I didn’t know of the other 1985; thanks for the rerefence …
*The reason I say that clayton_e shouldn’t do this is because I seriously doubt that clayton_e’s a good enough author to pull it off. *
… but really it p****s me off when people instantly react to an idea by telling the originator just not to bother. Orwell was not that good. The Anthony Burgess 1985 is quite interesting in that it contains a preamble that picks to pieces the internal consistency of Orwell’s 1984. There’s an online novel, Orwell’s Revenge, a 1984 palimpsest, that similarly dissects, and refutes, its world-view.
Before a fight ensues, let’s just wait until I’m done (with at least part of it) before making judgement either way.
And in numerous interviews Orwell mentions that he thought he was a better essayist than an author of books (not an excuse for any mistakes in writing, just saying the great author had other things he thought he wrote better).
Errm, yes. Sorry, it’s late here. Anyway, I think you should feel encouraged that others have successfully written reworkings from different character viewpoints. Apart from Grendel, there’s The Wide Sargasso Sea (Jane Eyre as seen by the mad Mrs Rochester), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Hamlet as seen by two minor characters); Wicked (the Wizard of Oz as seen by the Wicked Witch of the West); and so on. Your idea may not pan out, but I think it’s a very nice project. The thing to remember, I guess, is that 1984 is generally viewed these days as a satire on Orwell’s circumstances in 1948 (1948 was the original intended title) rather than a realistic prediction, so getting hardboiled internal consistency is not so important.
Yeah, well just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Had clayton_e stated that he was going to write a modern version of 1984, I would have been supportive. What clayton_e’s attempting to do is a very difficult task. One that others have attempted and not been successful at. Someone once wrote a sequel (and yes, I realize that clayton_e’s not writing a sequel) to War of the Worlds. It apparently wasn’t very good as it doesn’t seem to be in print. There was a movie with Julia Roberts called Mary Reilly which was to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde what clayton_e’s attempting to do with 1984 and it stank from what I understand.
The problem with what clayton_e’s trying to do is that folks are going to immediately compare his work to Orwell’s and if it doesn’t measure up, then they’re going to hate it. That doesn’t mean that clayton_e’s a bad writer, but by doing what he’s attempting, he’s setting himself up to be a target of derision. clayton_e may very well be capable of writing a decent novel, but by taking on Orwell’s characters, he’s placing himself in a precarious situation.
This is not to say that it can’t be done. Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a hysterical take at two of Shakespeare’s characters which works quite well. Let’s all hope that clayton_e has as much success as Mr. Stoppard did.
Nothing gained from not trying. I’ll see how it goes, maybe I’ll write a Wide Sargasso Sea, or maybe It’ll end up a bust like the 1985 that’s been mentioned. I’ll just let this thread go for a while, maybe respond if anyone has any questions. I’ll start some other one when I get further into the book.
Part of the reason Rosencrantz and Guildenstern worked well was because the text went beyond Hamlet and existed as a sort of hyper-text between Hamlet AND Waiting for Godot. The latter bit accomplished while the original author was still alive.
There have been other disasters centered around major books, such as Laura Kalapakian’s “Cosette”, a sequal to Les Miserables (the original of which seems to pop up with some regularity on this board) which re-wrote large sections of the original book.
I always had problems with projects like these for another reason- not quality of writing or doubts that people are good writers- but the fact that these characters started life in someone else’s head. I want to believe that people are good enough writers to create their own characters and not have to hang flesh on the skeleton of another person’s making.
AL